Dryland Livingnotes from a dry country

Phokis · central Greece

Growing more from less water

Notes from a rocky, dry-farmed smallholding — what actually keeps a garden, an olive grove, and a pantry alive through four rainless months.

A dry stony gully at dusk with a jackal crossing in the distance on a Greek hillside

Night Jackal

What the Jackals Taught Me About Water

What the jackals taught me about where water hides on a dry hillside, and why the oldest walls on this land sit exactly where they dig.

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More from the smallholding
Hand-built dry stone terrace wall of unmortared limestone holding a level bed of cultivated soil on a hillside

Old Ways

Building a Dry Stone Terrace by Hand: What Holds and What Fails

Building a dry stone terrace on a Greek hillside: foundation depth, the tilt that matters, and why two of mine washed out in a single September night.

Old olive tree pruned to keep its central leader, with light reaching through thinned outer branches on a dry limestone hillside

Olive & Vine

Pruning Olives for Drought Resilience: What I Got Wrong

Pruning olives for drought resilience means matching canopy to available water. The open-vase advice cost me two years on shallow limestone soil.

Widely spaced tomato and squash plants in dry farming vegetables beds mulched with cut vegetation on stony Greek soil

Growing

Dry Farming Vegetables Without Irrigation: What Holds Up

Dry farming vegetables on limestone soil with four rainless months. Sowing dates, mulch depth, spacing, and the two mistakes that cost me a season.