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Gang::

 

Why I may think man made global warming should remain the venue of the George Noorey show there are some applications of environmentalism I can and do readily embrace.  For instance my garden is laid out in one of three configuration, 6x4 beds, 4x4 beds, or 25 foot rows. I use the 6x4 and 4x4 beds for what would normally be called row crops for intensive gardening and the rows for raspberries.  Anyways, in a practical sense what this means is I need at a minimum of either 10 gallons of water a week for a 4x4 bed or 15 gallons of water for a 6x4 bed.

 

For those curious the math is as follows:

 

(# square feet * 623) / 1000 = number of gallons of water equal to 1 square inch of water

 

A 4x4 bed is 16 square feet so:

 

(16 * 623)/1000 = ?

 

9968/1000 = ?

 

= 9.968 gallons

 

Now for the green, hug a tree, reduce the evil carbon footprint, and blue bird singing in the sky part.  In order to obtain a good portion of the water used I simply keep a 5 gallon bucket in the kitchen and bail the old dish water into the pail when dishes are done.  By also using the rinse water I generally get a minimum of 15 gallons of water a day this way, enough to water a single 6x4 bed each day of the week.     Between that and a few plastic garbage cans to catch rain water I am able a get a great deal of the water I need for my watering needs.  

 

Now because the “guberment” is here to protect me I am not allowed to install diverters or collect graywater in my household with any actual connection to my plumbing system, this simple method allows me a relatively simple and painless way to hug mother earth.  I am all for conservation of natural resources and frankly I am disgusted by the amount of water that is wasted in my household.  But once again Government regulation prohibits the efficient collection and storage of gray water for my watering needs.  This method gets me around the problem.   One side benefit is the liberal college chick next store likes to check out my biceps as I carry the two 40 lbs pail outside to do my watering, but I digress.  

 

There are several advantages to this system.  For one, as many know, often times watering is a guessing game.  This method eliminates the guessing.  It yields the equivalent of one square inch of water per square foot.  Some plants and bed need a bit more, but this gives you a very good baseline.  It is easy to amend the water.  Need some fertilizer, you can add some Miracle grow, fish emulsion, or for the more natural among you an old blender and a handful of stunted out blue gills or creek chubs dredged from  a local pond or stream can create a mild fertilizer that your plants greatly appreciate. 

 

So there you have it, my own tree hugging moment.  The blue birds are proud of me.  Hmm a glance out the window shows the college chick is sunbathing topless again; time to water the plants.  

 

fluffy

 

P.S. bonus tree hugging information…last winter I kept my Swiss Chard producing into February simply by taking two 5 gallon buckets of water from inside my house and placing them under a clear plastic tarp covering the Swiss Chard at dusk and then rotating the previous nights pails into the house.   Now understand we are mighty cold here 5a/4b but it did the job and kept the 16 plants going fine.  

 

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