Water is not absorbed in any significant quantity by the leaves or fruit. You may need to water less (or not at all, not familiar with the dry-farming process) even if you cover the soil, because frequent rain or higher than normal humidity will slow the plant's water loss due to transpiration. I'm not sure what covering the soil with plastic will do to the root system or the soil if there's already a good amount of water in it. Doesn't indicate where you live but there could be a chance of the plastic trapping too much heat and cooking the soil and the plants in it.

Sorry I can't be of more help; in my area I have rather the opposite problem of trying to keep the soil wet enough for anything to grow.

Thanks Ariaj. Your comment was helpful - exactly what I was asking, if you're correct about the leaves and fruit.

I'm not too worried about covering the soil - I'm not using an airtight cover, the soil is not that wet and it's also not that hot right now (I'm in NY). The plants have a good amount of leaves that shade the soil, so trapped heat isn't an issue, though I can see why it would be in your neighborhood!

I put some black plastic around some of my tomatoes this year and have not needed to water much. Occasionally a couple of plants have looked wilted in the afternoons so I have watered them all.

The plants that I did not mulch with black plastic were semi mulched with newspaper, but it was difficult to keep it in place and some of it blew away. The plants in that row were much more susceptible to disease than the ones in the black plastic.

I plan to mulch them all with black plastic next year, to leave large holes around each plant (covered in some kind of mulch that will enable me to water them easily if I need to). It gets tricky to water through tiny holes when I'm standing some distance away because the plants are so bushy!

One problem with the black plastic that I used was that it was very thin and weeds grew underneath it. I lifted it, installed newspaper to block all the light, and re-installed the plastic.

HTH,
Linda

IMOOf those plants that can stand minimal amount of soil moisture, are the ones that have long tap roots.
Farmers have tried to grow plants in arid conditions for ages and they have found methods and varieties more suitable. They have been doing it, not because of fun but as a matter of necessity. I want to just tell you how to grow watermelon in an arid condition.

1- Dig a ditch(~18" diameter, ~18" deep.
2- Prepare the soil down there,( Mostly clay)
3- plant the seeds.
4- as the seeds turn into seedlings(1 or 2 of them), keep filling around the stems. Until you have a shallow dish-like formation around the plant. This is to collect rain water by a remote chance.This also reduces exposure , as opposed to hilling that increses the exposure.
5- mulch it to prevent from excessive drying.

6- you may choose to give each plant one glass of water now and then.

You will end up with some small but sweet tasting watermelons.

Seysonne - Yes, no doubt there is an art to dry-farming. The goal, I guess, is to push the plants, but certainly not beyond their tolerance level. That's interesting information about watermelons. I have been reading about several fruits that can benefit from a lower water regime.

Linda - Are you using plastic in order to conserve water or are you trying to restrict the intake of water in your plants (i.e. dry farming)?

ffreidl,

I'm using the plastic in order to conserve water. Isn't that a similar idea to dry farming? I have only heard about the concept quite recently and think it's an excellent idea.

Linda

As I understand it, dry farming really has two purposes.
One is to conserve water, but the other, which seems to be the thing people are most excited about, is to concentrate the flavor of the fruits and therefore produce better tasting tomatoes.

In my case, I haven't needed to conserve water this year because we've had ample rain. I haven't needed to water at all. Now, I'm actively trying to limit the amount of water that is getting to my plants so as to improve flavor, but in reality, I really should have started much earlier to have the results I'm looking for. (in other words, this experiment is probably not going to work, but I'm doing it anyway!)

Hi ffreidi,

Thanks for explaining. I like the idea of concentrating the flavour! I also like the idea of not watering and not getting blossom end rot, but it seems difficult to dry farm when Mother Nature decides to bless us with some showers!

Linda

Yes. experimenting and practicing Dry Farming can be done where there is water/rain scarcity. Then you can easily implement it. But where you have too much rain , doing it is just like swimming against the current.

Unfortunately, I think people who do dry farming actually do get a lot of blossom end rot. They just do it anyway. I recall reading that a farmer said he gets smaller tomatoes, lower yield, BER, and the plants really struggle, but the taste of the tomatoes is superior. So... not for the faint of heart I guess.