As much as I preach about growing your own food, sometimes nature has other plans. We’ve been experiencing a terrible drought here in Middle Tennessee, the worst since 2007, and we haven’t had a good rain for nearly a month. The plants are suffering, the animals are miserable, and the grass is crunchy.

It’s making me rethink a lot of things on my homestead. I’m in the process of building a large water collection system, and I’m considering building wicking beds for my vegetables. So I thought this week I’d ask our Summer Survival Council how they keep their animals and plants watered throughout the summer.

If you’re interested in the idea of digging swales to capture water on your land, check out Nicole Sauce’s upcoming Swale Workshop in Camden, TN on July 30 and 31.

Joseph—Homestead Padre

Joseph has been homesteading for over a decade and specializes in small-space homesteading and intensive gardening systems. He is married with three children, one grown, and is co-owner of The Smith Homestead with his wife Melody. He also owns a cottage food bakery out of his home, servicing his local community with homemade and artesian breads.

IBC totes are amazing. I use them for water storage and for watering the animals. The garden depends on me with a hose, for now. I have been looking into ancient irrigation techniques with the intent of adding IBC totes to the top of the garden and then flooding the irrigation trenches to water the area.

During power outages, I have hauled water from the pond, which is spring-fed. My well is over 350 feet deep and taps straight into the aquifer. I have run water overnight and the well has never run dry.

I am fortunate as well that I live in a pretty wet environment, although this year has been unusually dry. But normally I can count on afternoon pop-up storms to drop some water as well.

Nicole Sauce

Nicole Sauce of LivingFreeinTennessee.com has run a homestead for a decade and a half, roasts great coffee at HollerRoast.com, and runs workshops on self-reliance and homesteading (SelfRelianceFestival.com). Her book Cook With What You Have helps folks learn to do just that, and she coaches people through development of a step-wise plan for building an independent, stable lifestyle including income generation, choosing the city or the country, preparedness, and lifestyle balance.

In 15 years living in Tennessee, this is the third time we departed from our usual practically perfect amount of rain to “dry garden” into a severe drought. Having designed the property based on permaculture principles, keeping livestock and plants watered has been much easier than our last drought cycle. Our property has a strong spring and borders a creek with water, so we have access to good water despite the dryness of this summer.

Plants and Gardens

We employ aquaponics and hydroponics to grow vegetables near the house, which means that each plant gets exactly what it requires from those systems. To reduce evaporation, we have water plants like duckweed and water hyacinth floating on pond surfaces, as well as natural and artificial shade.
The in-ground gardens have a thick layer of wood mulch to help keep things hydrated and the soil life is vibrant. Despite that, we have watered the vegetable garden with sprinklers on a timer one to two times a week, when the plants look thirsty.
Trees and shrubs that are not newly planted this year are on their own and doing well. We planted them near runoff areas where more water pools after rain. These plants do not seem to notice the drought. New plants and trees, however, are still establishing roots so we run a hose to them when they look droopy — about once or twice a month.
The grass simply looks like it is August, except where we rotated sheep through and are establishing timothy grass. In those spaces, we are using a sprinkler and hose this year while the grass gets established.

Livestock

Poultry, dogs, and cats have open access to a spring-fed pond. While we do manually top off water for these animals on other parts of the property, they can always grab a drink from the pond no matter what happens elsewhere.
Sheep and rabbits require manual watering and this is because we have not yet automated their access through rainwater collection and storage. The sheep will eventually have a regenerating system and I expect we will continue to just top off rabbit water with a hose.
The goats have a bathtub in their pasture which stays relatively full from rainwater. Despite the weeks with little to no rain, that tub is still half full. Our only intervention is to look at it once in a while to ensure there is water for the goats.

So far, this year has not been as dry as 2007 when springs began to slow and farmers culled their herds. Should we find that there is not enough grass for the number of sheep we have, we will need to reduce numbers. So far, though, the occasional pop-up thunderstorm has been enough to keep pastures green despite the much drier weather cycle.

All in all, this summer has been manageable. Using water retaining designs has made a big difference at the Holler homestead in plant health. If you are interested in a class about one aspect of permaculture and water retention, swales, consider coming to Camden July 30 and 31. We will cover how to design, dig, and plant swales as one strategy to drought insuring your land. Tickets are $197.

Ashley Colby

Ashley Colby is an environmental sociologist who lives with her family on a homestead in Colonia, Uruguay where she runs study abroad programs for Rizoma Field School. She also organizes online classes for adults like Homesteading 101 and Homeschooling 101 via her Rizoma School Gumroad. Ashley co-founded Doomer Optimism, a podcast and Substack that explores topics like homesteading, regeneration work, and preparedness. You can follow her on Twitter @rizomaschool.

We don't have extensive watering systems for our plants and animals. As we are relatively new in the installation of these systems, we are not putting in any watering infrastructure until we settle on more permanent systems.

Having said that, we think about water very carefully. Part of the reason we chose to settle in Uruguay over other potential candidates was its abundant fresh water. Just a few minutes’ walk from our home is a little stream that runs basically year-round. If all our other water systems failed, we would have the ability to clean and use that surface water.

We also have an abundant well on our property, which is our water source. Our well pumps via electric pump to a water tower, but we also have a backup hand pump if the electricity goes out. Having our own water source on the property that we control is essential for water sovereignty.

Finally, we have recently taken an interest in planting locally adapted — or native — varieties of plants that can thrive without significant external watering. In general, we like to follow the Mark Shepard "STUN" method (strategic total utter neglect), so that locally adapted varieties that thrive are the plants whose genetic traits we want to propagate. We only water these perennial plants if there is extended drought or a severe heat wave.

Unprepared

Summer Survival Council: Dealing with Drought