If you're serious about growing your own food and have a bit of land and access to timber then I'd highly recommend building hugelkulture mounds. You basically bury logs in the ground then build a raised bed on top of them using smaller bits of wood, compost, and soil. The logs act like giant sponges that hold moisture and feed the soil as they break down. Soft wood like cotton, apple, and poplar will break down quicker than hard woods and some wood should be avoided all together like black walnut, locust, and conifers unless they're already heavily decomposed. I've built a couple of these and the plants thrive in them. Watering is minimal once established with some of the larger mounds not needing water at all over the entire growing season.
The great thing is this method can be adapted to most any size and shape, even container gardening in something like a 15 or 30 gallon fabric pot. If logs are too big then use sticks and other pieces of woody debris or hardwood chips. Add a small amount (10% of total soil volume or less) of bio char and some mychorizae supplement to the soil and you'll have incredibly fertile soil for years.
Also, to any new gardeners, I can't overstate how important a good mulch layer is. I don't mean the dyed and bagged stuff from the store but an actual organic layer of material on top of your soil. Bare soil loses moisture very quickly so a couple inches of straw, wood chips, leaves, and so on not only stops evaporative water loss but also insulates and feeds the top soil over time.
If you're serious about growing your own food and have a bit of land and access to timber then I'd highly recommend building hugelkulture mounds. You basically bury logs in the ground then build a raised bed on top of them using smaller bits of wood, compost, and soil. The logs act like giant sponges that hold moisture and feed the soil as they break down. Soft wood like cotton, apple, and poplar will break down quicker than hard woods and some wood should be avoided all together like black walnut, locust, and conifers unless they're already heavily decomposed. I've built a couple of these and the plants thrive in them. Watering is minimal once established with some of the larger mounds not needing water at all over the entire growing season.
Wow, never heard of this method before! Wish my yard was big enough (and sunny enough) to do things like this. Someday!!
The great thing is this method can be adapted to most any size and shape, even container gardening in something like a 15 or 30 gallon fabric pot. If logs are too big then use sticks and other pieces of woody debris or hardwood chips. Add a small amount (10% of total soil volume or less) of bio char and some mychorizae supplement to the soil and you'll have incredibly fertile soil for years.
Also, to any new gardeners, I can't overstate how important a good mulch layer is. I don't mean the dyed and bagged stuff from the store but an actual organic layer of material on top of your soil. Bare soil loses moisture very quickly so a couple inches of straw, wood chips, leaves, and so on not only stops evaporative water loss but also insulates and feeds the top soil over time.