Our long hot summers can stress plants and reduce their productivity, or worse – kill them. Soaking the soil with a trickle that can infiltrate the soil deeply is important to ensure plants have access to water through heatwaves. However, some soils such as heavy clay can be very difficult to get moisture through.

We have a solution here that uses a cardboard packing tube (or in our case a paper tube from a large format printer), and scoria. The first step is to dig a hole to the depth you want the water to get to, then insert the tube, fill it with scoria, and backfill around the sides of the tube. Then trim off any excess cardboard tube. You will be left with a rocky channel that will allow water to flow through much easier, and in time the cardboard will be absorbed into the soil, and the only hint at what lies beneath will be a small patch of scoria.

#waterwise #catchandstoreenergy #healthysoil #healthyplants #permaculture #design #wateringsystem