Gardening Without Irrigation - or without much, anyway

Steve Solomon is a well-known west coast gardening guru, and author of five previous books. The founder of Territorial Seed Company, he has taught Master Gardener and Urban Farm classes at the University of Oregon in Eugene. 

Excerpts from the book:

Being a garden writer, I was on the receiving end of quite a bit of local lore. I had heard of someone growing unirrigated carrots on sandy soil in southern Oregon by sowing early and spacing the roots 1 foot apart in rows 4 feet apart. The carrots were reputed to grow to enormous sizes, and the overall yield in pounds per square foot occupied by the crop was not as low as one might think. I read that Native Americans in the Southwest grew remarkable desert gardens with little or no water. And that Native South Americans in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia grow food crops in a land with 8 to 12 inches of rainfall. So I had to wonder what our own pioneers did.