SELF-WATERING GARDENS: THE PROBLEM IS THE SOLUTION!
On August 23rd, here at Salte Trusche, we built a new self-watering vegetable garden bed during an open day for anyone who wanted to understand how it works through hands-on experience, which makes our hands smart and captures concepts better than a thousand notes.
Simply put, “self-watering” is a garden that stores a water reserve underneath, from which the plants’ roots draw independently for a certain period of time, avoiding the need to water them (up to three or four weeks in summer!) and resulting in substantial water savings (estimated at over 70%).
There are other advantages, such as the absence of perforated plastic pipes and electric timers, which have always been a bit of a liability for us.
The self-watering beds are also raised about half a meter above the ground, making the soil less distant from our care and accessible even to those who claim to take the much-vaunted “effortless garden” of permaculture literally…
Last but not least, these gardens are currently proving they don’t need to be fenced: we’re surrounded by woodland, and wild animals like porcupines, badgers, and wild boars roam freely without ever having damaged these solidly walled beds.
To “build” this type of garden, you need materials and the right knowledge to assemble them. Our detailed guide was the manual that Alessandro Ronca, with Paolo Ermani, published in 2023—”The Self-Watering Garden,” Terra Nuova Edizioni—which arose from horticultural experiments conducted over the past seven years at the Renewable Energy Park (PeR), an admirable project focused on renewable energy, not only technologically but also for personal well-being.
We’ve known Alessandro and “his” PeR for a while: it’s thanks to them that, right from the start of our project in Farnese, we’ve been able to understand something about self-generating energy and managing rainwater.
Seeing the PeR gardens with our own eyes was the reason we decided to create them: they work! And they’re especially suitable for those who, like us, need to minimize water use. Furthermore, we at Salte Trusche, always with so many ideas and new projects buzzing around, love the idea of a garden that can manage without being too dependent on our intervention.
Those who participated in the shared industriousness day were enthusiastic about discovering this type of home garden. In the photos accompanying this article, you can see both some of the pallets in production and the new one. Inside, we’ve also included a worm composter, built from scrap wood. To protect the young cabbages, we’re soaking the tomato plants we’re removing from the beds, as their season is now coming to an end.
We hope to report back soon that everything is going well.
To stay informed about upcoming self-watering garden creation days, or to commission one, email us at saltetrusche@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to make your desire for wholesome vegetables as easy as possible.
Happy growing to everyone!
Sergio Calderale at Salte Trusche
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