[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Of course, not everyone uses sprinklers that use electricity. In fact, I do not know anyone who does. The closest I can think of is someone whose water well uses an electric pump to supplement the weak artesian effect. Use hoses and sprinklers that work on water pressure and that electricity cost will be negated. Better yet, learn to make best use of whatever water falls from the sky. Here in the Mississippi valley, water falls from the sky pretty reliably and well spaced through the growing season.

To the original poster, another thing that is helpful in water saving is to plant rather closely together in blocks or wide beds rather than in rows. That way the leaves of the plants shade the soil and really reduce evaporation. Also if you have space, you can plant your vining crops such as tomatoes, melons, squash, pumpkins, and perhaps even beans so that they scramble across the ground rather than up on a trellis, fence, cage, or other support. Again, that allows the plants to shade the soil, reducing evaporation.

If you live in a very arid area, doing the opposite of raised bed gardening can help with the water situation. Dig out planting beds recessing them into the soil. The planting area will look like a shallow pan. Put the soil you dig out around the outside edges of the recessed planting bed. Being recessed, the plant roots will be closer to the more deeply penetrated water in the soil and they will be partially shaded by the sides of the beds/pans. Do make use of compost and other organic material to enrich your soil and to hold onto moisture in these pans. This method is historically and currently used in Morocco and also in the American southwest.

Addressing anyone who thinks gardening is a waste of time-- It provides high quality food, good exercise including balance challenges, stretches, steady aerobics, squats, various kinds of weight bearing--all with no gym fee. For me, it often provides social time with neighbors who stop to visit. A single apple tree will more than pay for its purchase the first year of harvest. After that it is free. Many of my plants provide not just food, but the means to propagate them next year without having to buy anything more: I save seeds, cuttings, root pieces. The people who do not come out ahead money-wise are probably the ones who think they have to buy soil in plastic bags, buy lumber to hold up raised beds made of that plastic bagged soil, buy fertilizer, buy special (electricity consuming?) sprinklers, buy more and more special tools, buy gimmicky stuff from catalogs and garden centers, buy commercial row markers, poisons, weed killers, animal traps, insecticides, fungicides, special carts, ...... etc.