Growing vegetables in a drought

Last year I created 6 vegetable beds using a method of 'no-till method combined with a permaculture method of lasagna layering. Essentially a thick cardboard layer, followed by farm manure, then a layer of straw, some greens, leaves and seaweed. I then added a layer of quite dry sandy loam, typical of Cornwall. On the top I added 5% of shop bought concentrated farmyard manure. These beds were used for a trials project. I grew Sweetcorn very successfully here. They were inter-planted with dwarf french beans but these have been a target for slugs and none survived. 3 beds were my control (nothing added) and 3 were my treatment beds (added bio amendments)

You can see my full report https://www.soilresilience.com/trials and the continuation of the trials here.

Growing Beds after all material added

These garlic were harvested on 30/06/2025 Treatment yielded 11.039kg Control 8,175kg

Garlic was grown in both Control and treatment beds. on the 12th October 2024 together with a cover plant "wild strawberry. The plants were doing really well. Although our Spring started very early in March, and it was unseasonably dry, here in Cornwall we did have a few heavy downpours. I only watered on a few times from the 10th May, Since I started to water they seemed to get blight. I don't know if it was a co-incidence but they all suffered from rust, both Treatment and Control. Only one application of bio-amendments were added as the weather conditions were too dry later on.

These were harvested a little too late. I had left them in the ground because although dying back snails were happy grazing on them as I let a new crop of sweetcorn establish. The wild strawberry has populated well and were cut and used as a mulch twice during the Summer. Sadly the sweetcorn haven't made it. I think the soil had dried out way too much. the land is off-grid and water is limited.

However I will simply cut them back, chop up and add them back around the beds as a layer of mulch.