As you may have heard, rather large swathes of Australia are on fire. We're in a major drought.

Sydney has moved to Level 2 water restrictions, which means no watering/hosing off with a hose. Most of the listed exemptions are regarding either firefighting or making things look 'nice' (ie. green acres of suburbia; you can get a permit to put a new lawn in and water it with a hose for six weeks) rather than for gardening.

You can run a drip irrigation system in a garden for 15mins. Which isn't really enough to get the soil wet enough, even if things are planted right blow the dripper point.

Otherwise it's buckets all the way.

It does mean occasionally refilling the bathtub pond by bucket:



The banana circle (with melon, strawberries, taro, turmeric, sweet potato, and avocado) has to be bucketed:


And a close up of the melon...


Just finished the apricots (not a whole heap - maybe 40-50 of them?) and we have the start of the donut peaches:


Got a bunch of 'bed frames' made, mostly to mark out the chook tractor stations, and put watering systems in them.


Several were already planted with things, which made the frames a bit tricky to get in, but we managed without squashing too many plants!


Otherwise, around the backyard, the bathtub bed has been planted with tomatoes, carrots, onion, radish, and coriander. So long as it's kept watered, it should do pretty well in the summer: it'll get a lot of dappled shade from the donut peach and the cherry tree.


And I put a wicking bed in for leafy greens and things that need steady watering.


So, the question will be how I will keep the garden alive through summer?

Right now, on the crazy hot days, I cover the beds with old sheets to shade the plants.


I bucket water things in concert with the irrigation system, but we haven't had decent rain for a while. Downpours that run off the dry soil (when soil gets too dry it becomes hydrophobic and won't take on water until it's soaked) and end up in the stormwater drains, or super-light sprinkles that barely wet the ground.

*sigh*

I feel like my soil was only just starting to find its fertility and now I don't know if I'll actually manage a crop.

It's gonna be a long summer...