2 months without water.

After a couple of months away from the garden and a couple of devastating heat waves the hole garden has gone to shit.  The soil has died and all the fruit trees have gone as has the lawn - not much of a surprise there.   It took 2 years to get the garden to where it was so it's a bit disappointing to take such a large leap backwards.

However, what this does prove is that whatever we were doing was not sustainable.  No matter what work we did, what we planted none of it was sustainable without a more integrated and sustainable water retention strategy.  Using our grey water was good and was showing results, but the solution needs to be deeper than that and take in to consideration a natural sustainable water retention strategy.

We've got some ideas such as the water sink that we tested with the grey water, and of course water capture from the roof.  But we need to do a little more research in to other methods of water natural and sustainable water storage.

So, I guess we're starting from scratch but this time with the aim of designing a solution that essentially survives without human input.

 The soil is totally dead

 The hugelkulture is the only place that has any signs of life

 The tomato plants here are still alive and there are even some tomatoes left.

The other potager is totally dead.  The soil looks pretty terrible too.