Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Laura McKenzie" <laurabrownmckenzie@worldnet.att.net>]

Sharon, thank you for the offer.  First my apologies to those who have heard 
of my woes already on the OGL list.  Second, I'm in a really bad mood 
tonight after reading two newspaper accounts about our town's population 
boom.

Restrictions:  "No irrigation of any type except for between 10 pm and 3 am 
on Monday and Thursday."  "The police will be closely monitoring your water 
usage."   Keep in mind that this town's mayor and most especially the 
previous mayor as well as some members of the city council allow development 
unchecked in our town.  My husband was on the planning and zoning commission 
for years and any attempt to curtail development was overridden by the city 
council who had final say.   Land here is very expensive as our quaint town 
is now "the" town to live in.  Developers can make millions quickly.  Our 
open space for capturing water to help the water table is quickly dwindling 
to nothing due to greed and short sightedness.  Ignorance and greed always 
to blame, aren't they?  Oh yeah, I'll add that farmers and market growers 
are most welcome in the area as long as they hide any sort of sign of 
enterprise or farm even if they lived here before the quaint developments 
intruded.  We even have a covenant against hanging laundry!

 On Monday night I went to bed at 3 am after moving the hoses and 
sprinklers for several hours.  I have soaker hoses for many of the beds but 
they take time to do their job. Also keep in mind that we have *no* money to 
buy anything to help the problem.  Our budget is stretched beyond bad.

 Several of the apple trees and chestnuts are showing signs of stress. 
Thursday, last night, we got 1/4th of an inch of rain. It was the first rain 
in more than 8 weeks (I think).

My garden is on a hill and is terraced down the hillside. I think its about 
a 30 foot rise over the 200 feet from house to top of garden.   From the 
house its a 30 foot drop to the bottom of our property (a slope of about 300 
feet I think... I'm bad at estimating. ) My home sits in the middle of the 
rise so anything we collect at the house must be hauled up hill for the top 
gardens.

We have two downspouts tapped for catching the little bit of rain we had 
yesterday and today (about 1/4th of an inch both days).  Another downspout 
is directed down into the 2000 square foot garden adjacent it.  The guys had 
to leave for the weekend for a scout campout and I have no more trashcans so 
I'll have to wait to get the other downspout fixed.  The parts on all were 
riveted together for some reason and Sean (my middle Sean) used tin snips to 
cut the spouts off.  (My hands are arthritic and not very strong.)

  The kiddy pool is filled and we are siphoning this into the gardens once 
my youngest (age 5) uses it a couple of days.  On the days she swims in 
fresh water, I let that be her bath for the day to save water.  I have the 
tops of the cold frames at the top of the hill set so that they capture rain 
and direct the rain into 18 gallon tubs.  The cold frames are at the top of 
the garden.

 Once the guys get back from camp, they are setting a solar shower up 
behind the blueberries at the top of the garden.  We'll have to use it at 
night because the mountain has homes at the top looking right down into our 
land.

  We have always been careful with water but I've asked the guys to take 
even shorter showers unless they use the solar shower. We have always done 
the wet body, turn off water, soap and scrub, turn on water and quickly 
rinse.

 I have put every bucket, tub, pot, pitcher, etc that I can spare out into 
the lawn and rock patio area to capture more water.  I don't know if the 
rain yesterday and today indicates that the drought is over but we always 
get a drought from August until late October and usually the water 
restrictions get rougher as the summer progresses.  This year they just 
started two months early.

   We live on a mountainside full of huge boulders. Subsoil is right at the 
surface except where we have built topsoil ourselves.  The subsoil is really 
mostly sandstone rock.  I don't think a well is possible.  An old timer 
indicated that we could just "tape a pipe into the mountainside" to have a 
year round spring but we haven't figured out how you "tap" a pipe into 
boulders.

     I'm also capturing dishwashing water and hauling this out to the 
garden.  The guys and I are already stressed for time so hauling water is a 
bit of a pain (literally for me since I'm on week 16 of physical therapy for 
a knee injury and for scoliosis that has just been discovered.)  My husband 
has plans to redirect our laundry water down onto the apple trees in our 
front yard once he returns from scout camp.  I can use Octagon soap to clean 
the clothes and I don't think that will hurt the trees.

    Those are most of the ideas I have come up with so far.  Of course we 
mulch heavily but I sure wish I had planted MORE rye for mulch this year.  I 
refuse to buy straw because I'm nearly positive it was herbicide laden straw 
that ruined about 200 square feet of garden a few years ago.  This is the 
first year that bed has shown signs of life and its been 7 years of me 
trying to fix the mistake.

Laura

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Laura's Homeschooling, Garden, and Genealogy Site
is found here: http://home.att.net/~ekyorigins
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