Summer Water Management Tips from Our Farms

1. Learn Your Soil Type

At a basic level, soil type is designated by particle size. Sand is the largest particle, silt is medium-sized, and clay/humus combination is the smallest known individual particle that can be isolated from a soil sample. In relation to water use, sand particles in aggregate create large air spaces which water runs through quickly and isn’t retained for very long. Clay is the opposite, as smaller particles aggregate to form many small pores. Compared to sand, clay can hold larger volumes of water over longer periods of time.

If you want to learn your soil type, you can either conduct an at-home soil test or send your soil off to your local university testing center. Fortunately, on our Regenerative Organic Certified^® farms, our dominant soil type is silty loam, which is in the middle of sand and clay and therefore has a good balance of water holding capacity and drainage.

2. Plant Lots of Herbs

Many of the herbs we grow are drought-tolerant perennials, which require much less water than traditional food crops. This selection of plants also complements our Mediterranean microclimate. If they’re fitting for your climate, too, with wet, mild winters followed by hot and dry summers, herbs like Lavender, Sage, and Rosemary might be great low-water additions to your garden.

However, since we grow over 60 unique species of herbs that are native to mesic or wet environments, we do have some that require higher levels of water. Mesic plants have primarily evolved at latitudes with higher annual rainfall or as forest understory plants, where the soil holds moisture for longer periods of time under the shade of the forest canopy. Overall, these herbs require management to provide more water to their roots compared to our more drought-tolerant crops.

3. Adapt for Plant Growth

Our approach to water management changes as an herb grows, too. In general, we try to keep the soil moist just below the depth of our plants’ root systems. With newly planted seedlings, we rely on late-season rainfall or supplemental irrigation water just below the growing roots. In water management, it’s important not to overwater young seedlings, as nitrogen can often be leached away from the field and is one of the primary nutrients required for healthy plant growth.

Older crops have roots that go very deep into the soil and are often more resilient at this stage of their lifecycle, therefore it is best to water less frequently but for longer periods of time for deep watering. Overall, we use a soil probe to observe where the moisture level is, and this info helps us calculate irrigation frequency.

4. Watch the Clock

Transpiration is the process of water moving through a plant and back into the atmosphere primarily through openings in the leaves during photosynthesis. Things like sun exposure, wind, and humidity all impact transpiration. It’s generally best to water your plants as early as possible in the day. We tend to get high winds in the afternoon during the growing season, as well as days with full sun, limited cloud cover, and relatively low humidity. Put it all together, and you get water moving through your plants very quickly! With this in mind, we add supplemental water prior to these daily cycles to avoid stressing and wilting the plants.