I suspect the needing to water thing isn't going to do away. For me, the heavy mulch works most of the time. I only had to water twice. For next year, maybe you want to consider investing in drip hoses? I used them around the little trees when they were planted and it saved a lot of time and water.
I don't have the where with all to buy or set up drip hoses in the big gardens. Deep mulching has worked well there.
I've seen how you use many bales of straw to mulch your gardens. Isn't that a rather big expense every year? Does it rain very often in the summer, where you live? Here, it rarely rains in July, August, and the first half of September. I've considered drip hoses, but then I'd have to be very careful about where I placed each plant or hill, and I don't think I, personally, would be physically able to set them up. Nor can my husband. Hiring it out would be yet another big expense. I have to carefully weight the cost/benefit factors of gardening. Currently, the cost is about to outweigh the benefits. The Farmers Market is looking better all the time!
I use hay exclusively, NOT straw. Yes, it is an expense but budgeted. I’ve found the best food is NOT the cheapest. Some years we have tons of rain, some years months of drought. Never know from year to year.
The setting up of drip hoses in the veg gardens is well beyond me, as I said, so hay it is. I could not afford to pay someone to do it either.
The benefit of figuring out a system that will provide you with enough food is that you aren’t dependent on someone else for food. As I don’t drive, I can’t get to farmers markets or stores easily. So it’s good to know I have enough here for a year if I need it.
I do enjoy the fresh produce straight from the garden. I have to figure out how much I can realistically do by myself and still have enough time and energy to spend with my grandchildren.