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livingontheland - [Livingontheland] water was: growing potatoes

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Laura McKenzie" <laurabrownmckenzie@worldnet.att.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] water was: growing potatoes
  • Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:39:33 -0500

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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