Permaculture garden in a hot dry climate: from dry barren scrub land to paradise food forest.
What worked, what didn’t and the lessons I’ve learnt along the way.
It’s beginning to feel like summer here. The initial slight intense heat that builds throughout the day, giving way to, for now thankfully, cool nights. Throughout winter it gets pretty cold here in the south of Granada in Andalusia, and we are accustomed to a gentle build up from chilly days to a delightfully long spring that normally lasts until June. This year however, early May has seen temperatures in the 30·s and tomorrow it is forecast to be hot, sunny and 35·C. 0% chance of rain. We are unlikely to see any more rain between now and September or October.
This got me thinking about a long hot summer this year and how the systems we have put in place over the last few years will mean our garden is likely to look better than most come end of August, and with a lot less input too.
In five years we have created a garden that is water efficient. We use a lot less water than we did five years ago, then watering a fraction of the plants we sustain now. We are by no means experts. We started as two people playing around with permaculture design and principles, creating a closed loop system in order to create an abundant food forest. We have gone from barren earth to wild and wonderful.
Perhaps our garden isn’t to everyone’s taste but it sure is a haven for wildlife, fertile and abundant and it requires minimal input to subsidise our diets with fruit, vegetables, nuts and olive oil as well as medicinals for most of the year.
When we first bought our land (1/3 of an acre) it had been abandoned and only watered by the rain for 7 years. The ground was dry and dusty with parched grass and not very much top soil. At all. The citrus had all died but the olives and almonds, pomegranates, fig and a few grape vines had held on.
We set to work putting plants and (mostly) food crops into newly dug beds. The ground was compacted and stoney and difficult to work with. We hand watered everything from a hose, siphoned from our water storage twice a day all summer long. For hours.
It was a tough slog.
There was so much dry bare earth that we couldn’t keep up. We would flood irrigate weekly during the hottest summer months but it still required daily watering due to the parched earth.
We began chopping and dropping any weeds to create a mulch layer over the earth to try and retain moisture. This did help the land not dry out as quickly and was the first step in reclaiming the land and building soil.
With temperatures topping 45·C in July and August there were more than a few occasions when we wondered if what we were trying to do was futile.
As the garden has developed over the last 5 years (with a rough plan in terms of fruit trees and perennials with a future view to terrace/swale the land) we have inter-planted ornamentals, herbs, vegetable and fruit crops, perennial crops, and ground cover amongst the 20+ trees we have planted. Our goal is to create a food forest for ourselves. Being self reliant in a few products. Currently we have planted lemon trees, a lime, limequat and finger lime, a naval orange, mandarin, another variety of orange too. We have a plum, a pear, apricot, a cherry, a mulberry, fig, nispero and seven avocado trees.
Our water regime has drastically changed. Due to the close planting, intercropping, chop and drop/mulching. We are now able to use considerably less water.
We flood irrigate once every three weeks in summer now with daily watering of potted plants (of which there aren’t many) as well as the weekly hose watering of crops like tomatoes, courgettes, peppers and aubergines.
We have learnt to water deeply. To shape the earth to work for us. We create deep rows and plant in the sides, almost in the ditch. When we water weekly we let the water fill up the whole ditch.
Moving to a completely different climate meant I had to flip anything I knew about gardening on its head. In Wales, where I am from, I would plant on a ridge, as high as possible so that the roots wouldn’t drown and the water is able to drain away. Here, in Spain, we plant in a deep hole, so that the roots are able to stay cool when the sun is baking the earth. Mulch is vital here. Whatever natural material is used. I often use dried olive leaves or broken up rotting wood. Mostly though I use canary grass which when cut, dries nicely, and you can create a mat of straw around the bases of trees. Perfect for keeping the moisture in the earth as well as suppressing weeds.
The whole garden is now an oasis. It is a long way from maturity. The garden is only five years old but the trees are beginning to create shade, the perennials and ornamental give us joy and sustenance. The ground cover of violets create a mat of living mulch. Neighbours are surprised when, in August our garden is still green and theirs is looking scorched and tired.
I am so proud of creating something from nothing.
We are far from a paradise garden just yet, but when you can eat fresh fruit from your own garden most months of the year, and listen to the birds singing in a haven you’ve create for them, as well as enjoy almonds and olive oil you’ve produced yourself all year round, its hard to believe this isn’t paradise sometimes.
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