Cauliflower

Ordinary varieties cannot forage for moisture.  Worse, moisture stress at any time during the growth cycle prevents proper formation of curds.  The only important cauliflowers suitable for dry gardening are overwintered types.  I call them important because they’re easy to grow and they’ll feed the family during April and early May, when other garden fare is very scarce.

Sowing date: To acquire enough size to survive cold weather, overwintered cauliflower must be started on a nursery bed during the difficult heat of early August.  Except south of Yoncalla, delaying sowing until September makes very small seedlings that may not be hardy enough and likely won’t yield much in April unless winter is very mild, encouraging unusual growth.

Spacing: In October, transplant about 2 feet apart in rows 3 to 4 feet apart.

Irrigation: If you have more water available, fertilize and till up some dusty, dry soil, wet down the row, direct-seed like broccoli (but closer together), and periodically irrigate until fall.  If you only moisten a narrow band of soil close to the seedlings it won’t take much water.  Cauliflower grows especially well in the row that held bush peas.

Varieties: The best are the very pricy Armado series sold by Territorial.

Chard

This vegetable is basically a beet with succulent leaves and thick stalks instead of edible, sweet roots.  It is just as drought tolerant as a beet, and in dry gardening, chard is sown, spaced, and grown just like a beet.  But if you want voluminous leaf production during summer, you may want to fertigate it occasionally.

Varieties: The red chards are not suitable for starting early in the season; they have a strong tendency to bolt prematurely if sown during that part of the year when daylength is increasing.

Corn

Broadcast complete organic fertilizer or strong compost shallowly over the corn patch till midwinter, or as early in spring as the earth can be worked without making too many clods.  Corn will germinate in pretty rough soil.  High levels of nutrients in the subsoil are more important than a fine seedbed.

Sowing date: About the time frost danger ends.  Being large seed, corn can be set deep, where soil moisture still exists even after conditions have warmed up.  Germination without irrigation should be no problem.

Spacing:  The farther south, the farther apart.  Entirely without irrigation, I’ve had fine results spacing individual corn plants 3 feet apart in rows 3 feet apart, or 9 square feet per each plant.  Were I around Puget Sound or in B.C.  I’d try 2 feet apart in rows 30 inches apart.  Gary Nabhan describes Papago gardeners in Arizona growing individual cornstalks 10 feet apart.  Grown on wide spacings, corn tends to tiller (put up multiple stalks, each making one or two ears).  For most urban and suburban gardeners, space is too valuable to allocate 9 square feet for producing one or at best three or four ears.