The natural resources in the desert were like those of the Pima. The climate was the same. It was hot. It was dry. Only cactus and a few trees grew in the desert. The quail and rabbits could live in the desert. There were fish in the Salt River, but this was not enough for the Hohokam to live on. They became farmers. To give their families more to eat they raised beans, corn and squash. They made digging sticks to drill holes in the ground to plant seeds.

The desert was too dry to raise their crops so they learned to make irrigation ditches. The irrigation canals brought the precious water from the Salt River to their fields. They dug over 1,000 miles of irrigation ditches, six feet deep and ten feet wide. They had only digging sticks, their hands, stone tools and baskets to do this! The men worked together as a community to create this magnificent system. At this time there was always water in the Salt River.

The Hohokam grew one other crop, cotton. From the cotton they made their clothing. They found out how to make thread from their cotton. Usually it was the old men that wove the thread into cloth. They made blankets from the cotton cloth. The blankets protected them from the hot sun.

Tempe Part of the Hohokam Irrigation System
(The blue lines show where the canal brought the water from the Salt River to the fields.)