Drought Stratergies

[ClissAT]

Drought!!

It appears we are up to 4mths into a protracted drought in SE Qld according to 3 long range weather forecasts! Unfortunately I could not provide links to all those forecasts as they are paid links but below are some for free.

I should have taken more notice of all that excitement I felt in this thread:-
https://www.selfsufficientculture.com/threads/rain-rain-glorious-rain.1117/#post-10981

Seems there might be some reprieve in June/July from an east coast low but then not much for the rest of the year.

Wide Bay Burnett region
https://www.eldersweather.com.au/raindeciles.jsp?dc=disableCookies&lt=wzdist&lc=q14

South East Coast
https://www.eldersweather.com.au/raindeciles.jsp?lc=q15&dc=null

bar graph
https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/rainfall/median/seasonal/0

This is all I could get from one of the paid for web pages but the pic is worth a 1000 words!


Sadly my dam is already only half full, having not filled properly in the past year.
The extreme heat & very windy days have sapped the moisture from the plants & soil alike with no end to that cycle in sight.

Recently I have been watering with gay abandon up to 4hrs daily, seemingly safe in the knowledge that the wet season was just around the corner! However, my birthday date came & went without a drop of rain to mark the occasion which means bad news re the wet season.

At my place I have to pile the water on to get results. The results were just beginning to show.
I was excited & liking what I was looking at for the first time since coming here almost 10yrs ago.

Now I must reduce the watering to a dribble to save just the most important plants.
For the vegie garden I had already made the decision to garden in containers above ground & the bath tub beds were the first in that ilk. The vegie beds are doing very well using the no-dig method & not requiring much water at all, thankfully. I place a container under the drain hole of each bath tub & use that run-off water to water the corn planted between the 2 tubs. The orchard is another story. With fruit half grown it will be sad to stop watering them.



Recently I ordered around 40 colourful flowers & small flowering shrubs for my flower & ornamentals garden. Once they arrived I got a heap of large colourful containers from Bunnings with other large black pots & tradies containers to use as pedestals to lift the flowers up into view better. I also bought the best potting mix, coir, cow manure & long term fertilizer I could afford & mixed that with compost for the potting mix for my containers. Also they are firstly half filled with partly composted cane mulch in the vein of no-dig gardening with the potting mix piled ontop. Already that method of growing plants is proving a very good investment due to its meagre water needs.

I must mention that the drainage holes that I drill are at least half way up the side of each container. The cane mulch acts like a wicking bed setup & the plant roots soon go down into that rich moist compost so it pays to not overwater. I drill 1x 10ml hole in the end of each container.



So now I will also be lifting into containers, any of the flowers & small shrubs already growing that I want to save & placing those containers at random through the garden & in the bulb beds to provide colour as the bulb leaves & other plants I cant save die down.

To date I have maintained several x-large pots on the verandah in which I usually grow tomatoes, shallots, herbs, capsicums, along with other veg as desired. Those pots were always watered with kitchen waste water. However, until I enclose that section of the verandah with wire bird mesh, it is nolonger possible to grow anything now that the possums have discovered this feast!


I had similar weather to this in 2014 as well, but we had a one day downpour in late March that filled the dam & gave the fruit trees a really good watering. Luckily the dam held through the cooler weather so I only had to reduce my watering by around half that year.

But this year the long range weather men say no decent rain in this area til mid year & I only have the bottom half of the dam which is thick horrible water perpetually stirred up by ducks. Not good for producing food & pleasurable flowers.

Other types of almost or free containers I can get lots of are ceramic toilet pans & cisterns from demolition yards. They are good for keeping the grow medium inside quite cool thereby reducing water needs also.

 

[ClissAT]

Here's one of the larger tubs I got at Bunnings the other day.
This tub is different because I think it said it was for oil catchment or a sump.
So the plastic is different, probably better.
It was around the $12 mark or less I think.

Again I put the drainage hole halfway up so the mulch holds water & becomes a the reservoir for a wicking system.

 

[stevo]

Yes we've had it pretty good for a while with plenty of rain!

 

[Flatland]

This summer at Milang has just been crazy. So much summer rain in an area which normally has very dry summers. The pasture is going gang busters while the tomatoes are sulking. Life's like that. What you win on the merry-go-round you lose on the swings

 

[ClissAT]

Flatland yes the seasons have been all upside down everywhere I think.
I can't begrudge those in western Qld all that rain in November/December because they really needed it.
As did nature, the rivers, everything right down to Lake Eyre.
But droughts in SE Qld & this area in particular, seem to sneak up when the last 5months of the year are a bit dry but no-one takes a lot of notice. It's often a bit dry then, but the storms come as spring warms up & top everything up, then comes the wet season in late January.
But when the storms fail & there is no sign of a wet season & not even any wayward monsoon troughs, there is nothing for it but to admit a drought has snuck up on us.
There's a bit of rain forecast for April but unless its a lot, it wont fall here since I am in a rain shadow.
I've kept rain & temp records on & off for going on 30yrs for the 4 properties I've owned in that time.
I have continuous daily records for the last 13yrs for the last 2 properties.
They tell me a story that is hard to deny. If I don't heed the message I'll end up out of water & in a bad place.

So I have reduced the total daily watering by half & changed the way I water most of the gardens & fruit trees.
Many parts of the complete 1.5ac house yard have been cut right off the watering cycle.
If I want to save the plant I am lifting it into a container or pot into good medium so it uses far less water & can be moved if needed to a larger grouping to save more water or if using grey water.
Of course I cant lift the fruit trees but I have always aimed to make them waterwise anyway.
The days are like a blast oven with hot dry wind that sucks the life out of many plants.
The nights overly warm so the moisture disappears rapidly.

If the weather turned around tomorrow bringing a heap of rain to flush & fill the dam & top up the ground supplies, I would be a very happy person. Unfortunately the TV weather man says no change in sight!

 

[Mark]

I must admit it dries up pretty quick in mid-summer here my lawn is fast turning from lush green to brown!

We've had regular rain this summer (except for the past few weeks) but the rain hasn't been huge summer falls like usual summers. I fear if we don't get some good late summer storms with big rainfall we'll head into the dry season with empty dams and tanks!

My bore is a saviour, however, even that will run to a trickle if we don't get good rain for several months...

 

[Ash]

Black soil and just a couple of days of warm sun make for very hard ground.
So we dry up real quick. And we've had both a hot and a dry summer after having a decently wet winter.
If I had the time to water the place, I'd be right but I've had a few tree deaths from neglect and it's pretty harsh going as a result.

 

[ClissAT]

I notice the weather men on TV are finally beginning to say the 'D' word!
Dams at 50% or thereabouts are being topped up already via the very expensive Brisbane to Caloundra pipeline.
Tomorrow I'll buy another bale of compressed coir fibre to extend & aid the water retention of my growing media.
I've almost finished lifting all my flowers.
My corn is flowering & attempting to develop cobs, but is enduring water stress on a daily basis.
I am providing enough water & the soil is wet but apparently there is so much evaporation from the leaves, the corn can't lift moisture up its stem quick enough so the upper leaves are quite dry & curled.
Temps just south of 38c/100f are sapping for all, including humans & chooks!