The Raised Bed

Crops demanding the most water are grown on the raised bed. These
include a succession of lettuce plantings designed to fill the
summer salad bowl, summer spinach, spring kohlrabi, my celery patch,
scallions, Chinese cabbages, radishes, and various nursery beds that
start overwintered crops for transplanting later. Perhaps the bed
seems too large just for salad greens. But one entire meal every day
consists largely of fresh, raw, high-protein green leaves; during
summer, looseleaf or semiheading lettuce is our salad item of
choice. And our individual salad bowls are larger than most families
of six might consider adequate to serve all of them together.
If water were severely rationed I could irrigate the raised bed with
hose and nozzle and dry garden the rest, but as it is, rows 1, 2, 7,
and 8 do get significant but lesser amounts from the sprinklers.
Most of the rows hold a single plant family needing similar
fertilization and handling or, for convenience, that are sown at the
same time.