Sustainable Gardening in Challenging Climate Change

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In the Pacific Northwest, like other areas, this year 2021 has seen clear changes
in climate. In the Pacific Northwest, the specific changes included prolonged drought-high temperatures during the spring-summer. One challenge for a farmer, under this conditions, is how to sustain gardening throughout the year with minimal or no irrigation/watering to grow healthy vegetables foods. The challenge is more acute for a combination of soils (such as sandy soils when compared to clay soils) that have relatively little capacity to hold moisture; and for plants with shallow roots (e.g within the top 6 - 12 inches of soil/garden surface). Perhaps we can learn from the plants themselves as shown in the following pictures: A: The leaves of grass with shallow roots ( mostly with the 6 inches layer of top soil) on sandy loam soil (16% Clay; 13% silt and 71% sand) has driedied-up due to prolonged drought (at least 2 months without rain):
B: The roots (bunch type are) dried-up as well.
C: However, one vegetable plant (Kale) is thriving in the garden, on top of garden mulch made from a pile decomposing weeds or plant material/garden waste- left over from previous season.
D: In Contrast to the Pacific Northwest, places like Mansfield Ohio in the Midwest, where there is a combination of plenty of rains and silt loam soils (6% clay, 68% silt and 26% sand), lush green vegetables and grains are growing: 1) Amaranthuus:
2) Finger millet:
For sustainable gardening/agriculture therefore, critical factors for the gardener/farmer to monitor closely are for specific areas: changing climatic conditions; soil structure and type of plant to grow. For places with sandy soils, use of Mulch to retain moisture appears to work for plants like Kale (see example above) By Peter Emau

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