g'day valvicoz,

yeh a lot of people might seem to preffer talking about roses or whatever when it comes to the water issue, guess old habits die hard hey chuckle?

for me the only gardening suited to australia is gardens designed using native plants and then not just natives but indemic natives as they are the absolute best to cope with all conditions, plus of cours a native from one place can be a weed in another place.

but we still perservere with our need to grow food plants so we build our gardens accordingly, all our beds are raised beds and we mulch heavily plus we use all our recycled water ie.,. grey from washing dishes [use that regular earth friendly brand] & clothes (soon showers as well)[we make our own laundry detergent, recipe on our page], plus my wee water is used.

we use very little well almost no fresh water on our food plants after they are planted, the only fresh water they will get is rain water.

we have installed a water tank of substantial size [25,000 lt] (no good those small capacity models they just simply won't be effective), we are fitting 44 gallon plastic drums under other downpies and this water can be used for clothes washing, the garden or topping up the pool, we have a tank [1,800 lt]fitted to the pool system to capture and hold back flush or over full water from the pool to be used to top up the pool this tank is currently full, our fresh water tank for home use is holding around 10,000 lt's.

we have 2 out of 5 drums fitted one is full so far.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

As suggested earlier, the best way to garden in a particular climate is to use mostly indigenous plants. Your local council should be able to help here. Having said that, you have to be very smart in the way you use these plants. Every garden bed is slightly different to another, and there are often different microclimates within the same garden bed. Once you realise that, it is quite easy to select the right plants. This may seem to limit the choice of plant, but in a variable climate like Australia's, it is the best way to ensure a really nice looking garden. Once these plants establish, they will grow proficiently with minimal watering. I know in the bushcare sites I work on, the plants we put in grow very vigorously, and they are only watered when planted - and we generally get at least 80% success rate.

You have to also remember that it won't always be dry. The rain will come back to normal, and the gardens will then have to cope with wet & humid conditions for extended periods. Only local plants are best suited to the local environment, otherwise you will need to baby them through the tough conditions.

We decided on putting a barrel in, it's not connected to the downpipes yet so we are making do with bucketing shower water out. Just getting the hot water to the shower takes a full bucket of water. We fill the barrel completely twice a week, which then waters the garden via a seeper hose. That plus yesterday's rain has filled the barrel along with a large baby bath. We are planning on putting 2 more barrels outside the bathroom windows to save on carrying full buckets through the house.

It's working well too, I checked the other day by digging a hole in the garden, usually no matter how deep the hole the soil is completely dry but with this I hit damp soil only a couple of inches down.