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slowly, because a basin has no impermeable clay or manuactured liner. We design basins so water will evenly spread across their surace, then soak into the soil. Because o this, a basin is the perect place to irrigate plants or mushroom logs.Bunds are to a basin what berms are to a pond: small earthen embankments that contain water. In flat areas bunds completely surround a basin. But on sloping land the bund is only necessary on the downhill side, and the uphill side is excavated below grade.As I described in chapter 2, at the Student Organic Farm (SOF) at Clemson, a turkey nest pond captures harvested rainwater and discharges the excess water into a basin next to the greenhouse. We keep potted nursery plants in the basin, and when the pond floods the basin, our nursery plants are watered. Since there are fish in our pond, the plants also wick up a rich dose o nutrients (rom fish manure) along with the water.
Ancient Basins and Modern Basins
One o the first irrigation techniques in recorded history originated in ancient Egypt on the Flooding shallow basins planted with crops is one o the oldest orms o irrigation. Dug with a simple spade, basins provide an easy and inexpensive way to use stored water. A basin is a shallow depression in the ground, no more than 6 inches deep. Though it’s level like a pond, it serves a different purpose—a pond holds water, but a basin allows water to infiltrate
CHAPTER 3
All About the Basin
The Bio-Integrated Basin
Figure 3.1.
This small basin adjacent to a greenhouse is lined with landscape fabric. Nursery plants perched on the basin floor soak up water. Seedlings on the benches are hardening off. The shade cloth draped over the bench protects mushroom logs underneath.
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bio-integrated ponds store the alling water caught by a rainwater-harvesting system. Water rom the ponds can be drained into small basins, mimicking the monsoons that cause the flooding and draining cycle o the Nile. The Egyptians grew crops directly in the soil o their basins, but in the bio-integrated basins I’ve designed, the flooded basin is used to irrigate mushroom logs and containerized plants. Benches set up in the basins provide a shaded shelter or the mushroom logs and also serve as a surace or floodplains o the Nile River. During the monsoon season the Nile produced a predictable annual flood-and-retreat cycle in the headwaters o the Nile around Lake Victoria. Beginning in July and continuing through August, floods spread into the lower reaches o the river. Basin irrigation was based on raised earthen berms surrounding leveled fields adjacent to the Nile River. When floods arrived, the raised berms restrained the floodwater and allowed it to soak into the soil o the basin. A gridwork o canals ed and drained the water rom one basin to another. The Egyptians extended the entire flood cycle by draining water rom upper basins into lower basins beore allowing it to return to the river. As the water retreated, they planted crops in the saturated fields that would grow through the mild winter. The roots o the plants would ollow the retreating floodwaters deep into the soil, which kept them alive until April and May harvests.Nutrients rom the highlands o Ethiopia were carried downriver with the floodwaters, and those nutrients settled out in the basins to ertilize the crops. The irrigation system was simple enough to control on the local level, ree o the vagaries o war and politics. With basin irrigation the Egyptians improved upon the natural hydrologic and nutri-ent cycles o the Nile, allowing their civilization to become the breadbasket o the Roman Empire. Providing proo o the antiquity o this technique, a relie on the head o a five-thousand-year-old mace (a heavy club) depicts the Egyptian king Scorpion with a hoe cutting a grid pattern into the landscape.The modern bio-integrated basins I’ve designed build upon the irrigation pattern created by the ancient Egyptians. The roofops o buildings serve as the headwaters o the watershed, much like the Ethiopian highlands orm the headwaters o the Nile. Instead o large lakes such as Lake Vic-toria receiving water to eed into the Nile, small
Elements of the System
Learn how to use an ancient technique, with modern modifications, to irrigate your plants and mushroom logs. With the turn o a knob, your stored rainwater floods into bio- integrated basins and distributes itsel evenly over the surace o the soil. Easy and inexpen-sive, these basins provide an alternative to pricey irrigation systems. This chapter shows you how to: Save time and money by using rainwater stored in ponds to irrigate and ertilize potted nursery plants and inground plants in basins Create multidepth basins to handle diverse irrigation needs Produce shiitake mushrooms in a labor- efficient way by flood-irrigating inoculated logs in a shaded area in a basin Size basins based on available water storage
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challenging, the terrain was accommodating. The slight slope o the hill passed the water rom basin to basin, employing the physics o gravity to do most o the work. I’ve built many basins since then and discovered the benefits o rainwater-harvesting ponds as the water source or basins. My Caliornia system was labor saving, but by incorporating rainwater- harvesting ponds, I now save mysel the cost o paying or municipal or well water. I locate my ponds uphill rom the basins, yet as close as possi-ble to limit the expense o running pipe. This chapter ocuses on homemade earthen basin construction using passive techniques to fill and drain the basin. However, preabricated nurs-ery basins designed to flood-irrigate potted plants inside greenhouses are commercially available. The floodwater drains into a sump, then a pump returns the water to an upper reservoir to prevent waste. You can find instructions and parts or these systems online.
Connecting Basins to Greenhouses
The basins at my Caliornia nursery served a lim-ited purpose o irrigating plants. But when basins and greenhouses go hand in hand, exciting possi-bilities or multiple unctions open up.A basin filled with solar-heated pond water modifies the microclimate surrounding a green-house. Like giant solar panels, small ponds collect the sun’s energy during the day in the orm o heat. At the SOF, when I drain the ponds into the basins in the evening, the pools o water release the sun’s energy as heat, creating a warm buffer around the greenhouse overnight. Ideally, a small amount o water remains in the basin the ollowing morning to reflect sunlight into the greenhouse.propagating and hardening off plants. Additionally, solar-heated water in basins adjacent to green-houses helps modiy the microclimate, promoting warmer temperatures and season extension. I first experimented with constructing basins when I was in my early twenties. Nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains o Caliornia with my new budding amily, I ran a small grassroots nursery. I cultivated over a hundred different varieties o culinary and ornamental salvias—rom the more common pineapple sage and
Salvia leucantha
to the rarer
Salvia africana
and
Salvia gesneriiflora
. The nursery plants grew in the shade o ruit trees my ather had planted long ago—peaches, plums, apricots, and pineapple guavas. Looking back now, it seems only natural that I started my first nursery and ostered my first irrigation ideas beneath the protective canopy o his orchard. Because there was no rainall rom late spring through autumn in that region, I had to become innovative with irrigation techniques. I decided to irrigate rom the bottom up, which meant the plants’ leaves stayed dry and disease resistant.In hopes o conserving precious Caliornia water, I placed semipermeable abric on the sloping ground around the ruit trees. Impervious to weeds but porous enough to allow some water to seep through, the abric was perect or lining a series o basins with which to irrigate my nursery stock. I positioned the potted salvia plants on the abric, in the dappled light o the ruit trees. Then I turned on the spigot, and as the water filled the abricated basins, the salvias wicked up the water through their roots. The remaining water overflowed to the next basin downslope to irrigate another batch o salvias. I hadn’t started experimenting with rainwater harvesting back then (and arid summers don’t present the best conditions or harvesting rain). Instead, I used well water, conveyed through irrigation tubing. Although the climate was