This is the time to prepare for periods of drought.
Growing conditions have been fairly favorable in Maine this season thus far, but the state has cycled between drought and heavy rains in past years.
Storing water can be a critical factor for irrigated crops to make it through a drought, especially if your well runs dry. Along with drilling another well, adding a storage system or buying rain barrels, you can increase water storage on the land itself.
Start by observing where the wet and dry places are, watch where rain travels and notice how your drainage and soil type vary.
“The design principle here is ‘design for disaster’ as well as ‘catch and store energy,’” said Jesse Watson, landscape designer at the Maine Ecological Design School in Rockland. “We have to find a balance between these principles.”
The cheapest way to store water is in your soil, according to Watson. That means increasing the organic matter through your growing practices so the water you give your plants stays there longer.
You can do this in a number of ways, including mulching around plants with materials like straw or leaves (leaving a few inches around the stems), adding compost and using cover crops.
Minimizing how often you till or using no-till practices also preserves the soil structure and can increase the amount of water it retains, though science sometimes differs about how much.
Digging a farm pond is one big-impact, traditional way to hold surface water for irrigation or livestock.
Swales, or shallow channels, can be dug (by hand, if you’re up for it) to hold water during heavy rainfall so that it goes into the ground rather than running off. This also helps manage erosion.
Terraces can be added to flat, hilly or sloping land to retain water. Though you might associate them with steeper hillsides, levels of retaining walls will reduce runoff on land with any level of slope.
A rain garden is another option, planted in a low point to capture rainfall and allow it to soak in. You can build one and add species that tolerate the short saturation and grow well in your area, which will vary based on where you live in the state and what soil conditions you have.
An infiltration basin is a similar shallow depression with gravel that holds water to return into your ground, with less focus on landscaping.
Try using the gutters on your home and outbuildings to direct rainfall toward these features, or to storage tanks. You can have tanks placed underground, which will cost a bit more, or use them aboveground.
Whatever you choose, Watson recommends having an overflow plan to direct extra water away from building foundations.
Planning where the overflow will go is especially important for years when extremely heavy rainfall happens suddenly. The soil gets saturated, and the excess water will run downhill.
Watson calls these heavy rains pulse events, and said it seems to happen more often now.
Overall, the more plant cover you have on your land, the better equipped it will be, Watson said. Perennial plants well-adapted to conditions on your land can make it more resilient to variable weather.
