Great thread and so important as climate changes everywhere. Here are a few things that seem to be working for us (so far): We had a handyman lengthen the hose that originally went from the washing machine into the utility sink so that when the weather is dry we can run the wash water into a large plastic garbage can on wheels (it fills up 2 x from each wash -- I never realized how much water it takes to do laundry!) Then my husband wheels the garbage can outdoors and we fill up watering cans to water the plants. Another trick we learned from a neighbor from the Middle East: put a large plastic bucket next to the kitchen sink and use a pot to ladle water into it when we've finished washing the dishes. We also use bathwater to flush. And we wonder who was the genius who came up with the idea that it was more sensible to use drinking water for toilet purposes instead of the traditional compost toilet or the new electric "zapper" toilets that use no water and turn poop into fertilizer. Now here's a question: anyone out there pee on the ground near their plants to add nitrogen? I know some hard-core gardeners and farmers who swear by their high-nitrogen "yellow gold." And I read that in some traditional communities it was impolite to have a meal at someone's home without making a "deposit" in the humanure facility! Another trick we've learned: plant roses and fruit trees in deep wells, then water by hand filling the well once a week at most. We've found this even more effective than using the PVC "black snakes" that look so ugly in many local gardens here (and are toxic too). And I've learned from Jeri and others that in California late fall, winter and early spring are prime rose season and a really silly time to prune! Right now I'm enjoying the winter blooms. In summer the roses "rest" and what blooms there are aren't the best. I agree that the old roses seem to take the drought much more easily than the newer roses, although I have to agree with Jeri that if you raise them "rough" and don't prune or overwater, it's amazing what some of the modern roses can survive. I just read today that Australia is near collapse from climate change (drought, heat make growing food hard) and that California, the American Southwest and other Mediterranean climate areas are predicted to follow suit. So I guess we'll all be learning a lot more about rainwater harvesting, graywater, swales etc.

TO: ubro FROM: Eric Koperek = erickoperek@gmail.com SUBJECT: Living Mulches for Orchards DATE: PM 6:15 Thursday 4 February 2016 TEXT: I recommend multiple species cover crops for both orchards and vineyards. Wide biodiversity is necessary to control insect pests. When I was a child, we sowed our apple orchards with buckwheat, turnips, and hairy vetch = winter vetch. This provided many flowers that supported beneficial predators and parasites. Translation: The good bugs ate the bad bugs. Rule: Plant small flowers to encourage beneficial insects. The good bugs have small mouth parts so planting big flowers does not work. Any plant in the Carrot Family = Dill, Fennel, Caraway, Coriander is a good choice. Lacy phacelia, mustard, tansy, feverfew, and clovers also produce abundant pollen and nectar that are easy for beneficial insects to reach. I like to include 1 / 16th part = 6.25% by weight of assorted perennial wildflowers in my cover crop mixtures. Annuals also work if they reseed freely = abundantly. Wildflowers encourage large populations of beneficial insects. As an added benefit, wildflowers also attract customers. Don't forget to include weeds in your orchard. Weeds provide food, shelter, and alternate hosts for beneficial insects. The idea is to keep a resident population of good bugs waiting for the bad bugs to arrive. Growing fruit trees in weeds can nearly eliminate many insect pests. Mow the orchard once yearly or only when trees are ready for harvest. I recommend planting fully dwarf fruit trees. Short trees are much easier to care for and harvest. Note: Do not fertilize dwarf fruit trees. Do not use any soil amendments. Just dig a hole in whatever soil you have and stick the tree in. (Make sure that the graft line is well above the soil surface). Good soil will make dwarf trees grow much taller which is a waste of money. As long as the trees grow 6 to 8 inches yearly, they are getting enough nutrients from the soil. Don't try to help them along or you will be sorry. Over-fertilized trees attract insect pests. Remember to water and mulch your trees. Apply mulch from the trunk to the drip line = the tip of the farthest branch. Use leaves, straw, hay, weeds, wood chips, hedge trimmings, grass clippings, any kind of organic matter will do. Apply mulch not less than 8 inches thick. If you don't have any mulch or if mulch is too expensive, plant mixed cover crops under the trees. Water is more important than fertilizer. As long as you have water, you can grow all the fertilizer you need. (This is why you should include a mixture of legumes in your cover crops). Note: If you space your trees widely, then you can plant row or hay crops between the trees. This will provide income while your trees are growing. We like to plant about 40 different species of trees, shrubs, and vines per acre. Broad genetic diversity greatly reduces insect pests and economic risk of crop failures. Don't plant anything you can't sell. Biodiversity does not pay unless every plant produces a cash crop. We run chickens in our orchards to control insect pests. Chickens are housed in mobile chicken coops on wheels. Move the coops 200 feet every night so chickens have fresh pasture each morning. Chickens on good pasture will get most of their food from bugs, worms, seeds, and leaves. Pasturing chickens greatly reduces feed costs: Portion only 1 to 2 Tablespoons = approximately 1/2 to 1 scale ounce of rolled grain daily per chicken. Keep moving chicken coops all year long. 30-day rotations (1 day grazing followed by 30 days rest) are best. Pastures need about 1 month to re-grow before they are grazed again. Long rotation periods are also necessary to control chicken parasites. Remember: Your best investment is an irrigation system. I would not start any commercial agricultural operation without a reliable water supply. Dwarf fruit trees are expensive. Water is cheap. Don't be penny wise and pound foolish. Water your trees and cover crops. I hope this information will help get you off to a good start. For more information on old-fashioned biological agriculture, visit: www.agriculturesolutions.wordpress.com -- or -- www.worldagriculturesolutions.wordpress.com -- or -- send your questions to: Agriculture Solutions, 413 Cedar Drive, Moon Township, Pennsylvania, 15108 USA -- or -- send an e-mail to: erickoperek@gmail.com end comment.

Tom, would love to go again this year, but we have class M-F. I have to miss 1 class the previous week, same class day as this. Please take good notes, and forward, please. Or if they have a recording link, try to get it. I really would like to be there.

Tigerdawn, I don't know if the sheet metal would be effective. Moisture is lost from the soil not just by the way that it wicks away into drier adjacent soil but also by evaporation and the evaporation rates have been very high the last two summers. I can literally see the water level in the lily pond drop daily and the water level has dropped faster the last two summers than I've ever seen it drop before. I would think that drip irrigation lines laid under a thick mulch would keep the moisture in the ground just as well as using sheet metal to try to stop the water from wicking out into the drier adjacent areas that aren't being watered as much. If you decide to do the sheet metal, remember to call and have them come mark all the underground waterlines, gaslines, any buried electrical lines, etc. before you start digging that deeply. That seems like a no-brainer, but lots of people forget to do it and it can lead to disaster. On the subject of tomato grown in containers, I am not sure why yours burnt up. I've been growing container tomatoes for many years and my tomato plants in tubs do well despite the heat as long as I keep them well watered. In the worst summer weather that might mean watering them in the morning and then again in the evening. I also place them carefully so they get sun until around noon-1 p.m. and shade after that. I have found they are much happier with less sun than you'd think. Full-day sun from sunup to sundown in July and August, especially in 2011 and 2012, is just too hard on the container plantings and is not necessary. Tomato plants produce just fine on 6 or 7 hours of sun in our climate. I do use a moisture control mix that helps the soil hold moisture and I often add Black Kow cow manure to the mix to improve it even more. I also put the containers as far away as possible from anything like the concrete patio or driveway that would reflect heat and light back onto the containers, and mulch them well. I wouldn't completely give up on the idea of container growing. It took me years of tweaking the soil mix and placement of the pots to find the right combination of conditions that made the tomatoes happiest. My container tomatoes will slow down in production in late July and in August but as long as I keep them well watered and happy, they kick back into production when the temperatures cool. This year, container tomatoes that were put in puts in February produced until mid-autumn and others that were put into containers in March and April, and then were moved into the greenhouse in November, produced until December, so it clearly is possible. One advantage of containers is that when the heat is being brutally hard on the plants, you can move them into deeper shade to get them through the hot spell. I am planning for the same sort of summer you're planning for, by the way. I don't know if any of us will remember how to garden in a normal rainier year if we ever have one of those again. I hope this year is better for you. Notwithstanding the fact that some spring crops didn't produce well because it got too hot too early, I had a great garden year. Only the mid-season and late--season corn was really disappointing, as were the sugar snap peas. Everything else that didn't produce well in spring or summer did very well in the fall. That's one advantage of gardening in Oklahoma---our very long growing season gives us a second chance with most crops in the fall. The way the springs are heating up so fast so early these last few years, we need that second chance in the fall. On the other hand, when spring warms up very quickly, we can get the warm-season crops in the ground earlier. We just have to be flexible and be willing to push hard to take advantage of whatever weather conditions we get. I feel like our children and grandchildren will look back at the first decade or two of the 2000s and will reflect that those years were very similar to the drought-plagued decades that our parents and grandparents endured in the 1930s and 1950s. I wasn't born until 1959 so clearly have no memories of those decades, but from everything older family members have said and from what I've read, I believe our weather pattern these last few years is similar to what they endured in those decades. Dawn