Subject: Re: Drylands Permaculture
From: [email-masked] (richard austin)
Date: 8 Aug 1994 18:29:34 -0600
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture

In article <[email-masked]>,
LodiCraig <[email-masked]> wrote:
>In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
>(Dave) writes:
>
>>I have a longterm plan of ending up in a particularly arid area of the
>world
>>(largely because land is so darn cheap!) and would like to go into this 
>>armed with the appropriate strategies to create a sustainable environment
>for
>>myself and my family. 
>
>And now you recognize why the land is so cheap.
>
>Craig, a farmer in (arid) California
Bill Mollison's Permaculture Design manual has a good chapter on 
drylands. I live in New Mexico 20" annual rainfall, unevenly distributed. 
He claims villagers successfully living on 4" rain.

I recommend using greenhouses for most sensitive green vegies and growing 
single harvest crops with lots of mulch in close spacings outdoors. Hot soil 
temperatures (over 80F) can kill roots. 

One problem is that daily temperatures can easily swing 50-60F. Most 
plants don't like that. A strategy is to irrigate at 3pm to cool things 
down. Nighttime covers could be effective to trap ground heat be we 
haven't tried it.