Help plants catch, retain water
Rain. During an entire year, a meager three-hundredths of an inch falls on Arica, Chile, while halfway across the Pacific, in the Hawaiian Archipelago, Mount Waialeale receives a sopping 460 inches.
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Much of the Eastern United States provides a congenial climate for many garden plants during the growing season, averaging 4 inches of rainfall a month throughout the year. That would seem to complement nicely the inch of water per week recommended for most garden plants. Four inches of rainfall a month is more than enough water to supply the 33 gallons used by a tomato plant, the 54 gallons needed by a corn plant, even the 1,800 gallons quaffed by a single large apple tree.
So much for theory.
Problem is, whether you're in the humid Northeast or the drier West, rain does not always fall in the right place at the right time from a plant's point of view.
Four inches of rain dumped from the sky on the Fourth of July, with none again until the first of August, would meet July's quota. But much of it might run off the surface of the soil or down through the soil beyond the reach of roots. Plants could be thirsty again by the middle of July.
One way to remedy this feast-or-famine situation is to help all water falling from the sky get into the soil. Small catchbasins built up around individual trees and shrubs keep rainfall in place, containing the water long enough for it to slowly seep into the ground. Organic mulches such as straw, compost, wood chips and leaves prevent raindrops from pounding then sealing the soil surface, and thus help water percolate into the soil.
Once water is in the ground, those organic materials also help hold it there. As mulches, they help by preventing evaporation from the soil sur
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