I was reading about crescent shaped pits used to create farms in desert climates, and learned about Lazarote Island doing the same.

Most of the world’s wine regions rely on at least 300mm of annual rainfall, but Lanzarote receives only about 150mm, and frequently less. Adding insult to injury, the island is routinely buffeted by intense trade winds from the northeast and must also contend with the calima, dust storms that kick up several times a year, sometimes lasting for days. Sand and soil from the Sahara get suspended in the hot, dry air, turning the sky an otherworldly sepia hue, and veiling the island with thick haze. When a calima rolls in, locals joke that someone must be playing soccer in Morocco.

Under these circumstances, farmers had no choice but to get creative. “From one day to the next, their fields were buried in ash, and everything they knew how to do had disappeared,” says Nereida Pérez, the technical coordinator of Lanzarote wines’ regulatory council. Their solution? Dig hoyos, or conical hollows, three meters wide by three to four meters deep. After planting their grapevines, they covered them with a thick layer of picón and girded the north-eastern side of each hoyo with a low semi-circular wall, built from lava stones.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240418-the-ingenious-wines-birthed-from-black-volcanic-craters