First, you should know why a maritime Northwest raised-bed gardenernamed Steve Solomon became worried about his dependence onirrigation.
I'm from Michigan. I moved to Lorane, Oregon, in April 1978 andhomesteaded on 5 acres in what I thought at the time was a cool,showery green valley of liquid sunshine and rainbows. I intended toput in a big garden and grow as much of my own food as possible.
Two months later, in June, just as my garden began needing water, myso-called 15-gallon-per-minute well began to falter, yielding lessand less with each passing week. By August it delivered about 3gallons per minute. Fortunately, I wasn't faced with a completelydry well or one that had shrunk to below 1 gallon per minute, as Isoon discovered many of my neighbors were cursed with. Three gallonsper minute won't supply a fan nozzle or even a common impulsesprinkler, but I could still sustain my big raised-bed garden bywatering all night, five or six nights a week, with a single, 2-1/2gallon-per-minute sprinkler that I moved from place to place.
I had repeatedly read that gardening in raised beds was the mostproductive vegetable growing method, required the least work, andwas the most water-efficient system ever known. So, without adequateirrigation, I would have concluded that food self-sufficiency on myhomestead was not possible. In late September of that first year, Icould still run that single sprinkler. What a relief not to haveinvested every last cent in land that couldn't feed us.
For many succeeding years at Lorane, I raised lots of organicallygrown food on densely planted raised beds, but the realities ofbeing a country gardener continued to remind me of how tenuous myirrigation supply actually was. We country folks have to beself-reliant: I am my own sanitation department, I maintain my own800-foot-long driveway, the septic system puts me in the sewagebusiness. A long, long response time to my 911 call means I'm my ownself-defense force. And I'm my own water department.
Without regular and heavy watering during high summer, dense standsof vegetables become stunted in a matter of days. Pump failure hasbrought my raised-bed garden close to that several times. Before myfrantic efforts got the water flowing again, I could feel thestressed-out garden screaming like a hungry baby.
As I came to understand our climate, I began to wonder aboutcomplete food self-sufficiency. How did the early pioneersirrigate their vegetables? There probably aren't more than athousand homestead sites in the entire maritime Northwest withgravity water. Hand pumping into hand-carried bu