Garden design
Water zones
Unless you live in a very high rainfall area water is going to be an issue for you if you are to maintain a food garden.

When planting out a garden many people do not consider the water needs of their plants, often putting plants with both high and low water needs side by side. 

If you do this then to provide the right amount of water you will have to water each plant individually, which is very time consuming.  If you water them as an entire section you will be either over watering plants that don't need much water or under watering those that need a lot . 

So it is a good practice to group plants together that have similar water needs as this makes it easier for you to supply the right amount of water to them.  This is best done by grouping them into three different water zones :-


DRY ZONE
(LARGEST AREA)		 IRRIGATED ZONE
(MEDIUM SIZED AREA)		 WET ZONE
(VERY SMALL AREA)
For plants that need no watering at all except when first planted.  This area is usually the largest area.
 For plants that need to be watered when the weather is hot or dry. 
For plants that need to be wet all the time.  As wet zones use a lot of water they should be by far the smallest area in comparison to the other zones.
Photo of Australian native dry zone garden  
Examples of
Dry Zones		 Examples of
Irrigated Zones		 Examples of
Wet Zones


working out the sizes for each water zone
How big each water zone is will depend on :-
  • Your annual rainfall.
  • The total size of your garden.
  • The number and size of your water tanks.
  • The size of the roof/s that the water tanks are attached to
Working this out can be difficult, but you will know if you have got the balance right if you do not run out of tank water by the end of Summer.

multiple water zone areas
Of course it would be unlikely that you would divide your garden up into just three water zone areas as this would be impractical.  I have multiple  water zone areas throughout my garden, some as little as just a few metres (yards) square while others, usually the dry zone areas, are quite large.  These water zones also cross the boundaries of my Garden Zones.