Watering to keep water bill down in drought

[charla]

I love to garden and have actually expanded my garden this year, but I'm incredibly worried about the water bill. The water bill from last year went up significantly. Our summers are incredibly hot and dry. I'm not sure how long we've been in a drought now but it's been at least two years, I think. We are on water rationing quite often. We've not gotten much from the garden to speak of because of it. Last year I planted early in March which helped to get a good crop before the summer burned a bunch of stuff out.

This year I have decided to the Back to Eden style garden backtoedenfilm.com/ and have woodchip mulched all of my garden beds. I'm hoping that that will help hold some moisture in. I pretty much do square-foot gardening in how I space my plants.

I'm not sure I can afford/setup a drip hose system which I think might be one idea to conserve water.

I thought I had seen somewhere where someone used pots with lots of drip holes sunk part way into the soil. Then you fill up the pots with the hose and then let the water soak slowly into the soil to water the garden. Has anybody done this? Does it work? How many and what size pots would one need per measurement of the garden? I'm a little worried that it would take up a lot of space that I could plant in but maybe that's what I need to do to afford the water bill. Any thoughts? I can't seem to find anything online.

[houseforjoy]

can you reuse water? like after bath time take buckets and fill up sprinkling cans to water, and catch the water from your washing machine? the soaps and stuff from bath water would be fine, but depending on your laundry detergent you might just want to catch the rinse water

[Teribear]

Do you have rain barrels already? A lot of folks I know make a strong effort to capture runoff in order to minimize their water consumption.

[JessicaTX]

I buried 2 liter bottles with holes poked in them next to my plants and would fill those up once a week. It worked pretty well, till I stopped filling them :P I've also just flung the washer drain hose out the window and duct taped a funnel and hose to it, just moved the hose to the area that needed water. But I live in the ghetto and can get away with such nonsense.

[cindergretta]

I love this thread. I am learning a lot. Great ideas!!!

(Taking notes... )

[charla]

I looked into rain barrels but at the time couldn't afford one. Maybe it would pay for itself though. I'm not sure how well it would work if we hardly ever have rain.

I could maybe bucket out bath water. I'm a little leary of the soap/shampoo/conditioner/shaving gel in the water. So it really doesn't hurt?

I'm not sure how to make the laundry water catchable. Would 7th generation laundry soap be bad? I also make my own from borax, washing soda and ivory soap. Would that be bad? We live in a situation where we need to keep things looking as neat as possible so that's a consideration as well.

Can you tell me more about pop bottles? Did you put one per big plant like tomatoes, peppers, etc.? Did you use it for smaller crops like leaf lettuce, radishes, beets, etc.? How did you space them for these kinds of plants? I think watering once a week would be ideal. I was having to water every other day last season to keep my plants alive. Maybe this type of watering with the woodchip mulch would keep the plants happier longer.

[houseforjoy]

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...118288694.html

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/gray-water1.htm

here is more info on bath and washing machine water. but yes all that stuff is safe to use

---------- Post added at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:56 PM ----------

you just have to be aware while "catching" washing machine water. you can plug the sink it goes into as long as you know it won't over flow, and then just scoop it out. but most sinks won't hold 2 washing machine fulls of water which means it won't hold a wash and a rinse cycle so you have to make sure to empty it inbetween or just plug it as soon as it is drained from the wash cycle.

[JessicaTX]

One pop bottle per big plant and one for each container. The 1 liter bottles have to be filled more often, the 2 liter one seemed best for me.

Oh look, other people had my idea! http://lifehacker.com/5906073/repurp...igation-system

[charla]

Both of those articles on gray water seem to caution against using it on edible plants. It seems fine to water the lawn, trees and bushes (which we don't water at all) and flowers. I suppose I could water the flower pots with it and that would save a little bit of water.

I'm thinking about using the pop bottle irrigation. I wonder how much plastic would leach into the garden from that. I'm thinking of turning it over so the top is in the ground since it's smaller. At least that's what I remember. I haven't had a pop bottle in the house for quite awhile. I'm going to have to ask people to save them for me.

[Rabbit]

I've seen the sunken bottle/pot trick used very successfully in hot and dry subSaharan Africa. Use unglazed pottery, and cover the neck after filling. You can google terra cotta pot irrigation for all kinds of ways to do it.

I'm not afraid of using grey water, either, when I know exactly what it's coming from. Grey water can get dangerous when it's a large scale project from multiple users, to feed multiple families.

You can also look at wicking beds and keyhole gardens. These are both raised bed types, used mostly for growing food (but there's no reason they can't be used for other types of plants too.

A wicking bed is a raised garden bed that is lined with plastic. A layer of drainage material like rocks is put down at the bottom, then a layer of weed mat, followed by soil, compost and newspaper layers, then you plant and mulch. The idea is that excess water will drain through to the bottom, but can still be drawn up into the top of the bed as needed.

In some African countries, keyhole gardens have allowed them to produce food with minimal water. It's shaped like a circle with a segment missing, so you can reach the middle. At the centre, a 'basket' allows space for compost and water to go in, where it breaks down and feeds and waters the garden. Again, it's a raised garden bed, with a draining layer, followed by layers of soil, compost, newspaper, etc.

[canadiyank]

I use drip irrigation. We live in a desert and get little to no rain in the summer. I have to rain barrels that I bought on sale (still an investment) and that helped a lot. It's just too bad b/c we get a bit of rain in the spring and then I don't have enough to store it for when I need it in the summer. We have surface water irrigation (diverted from the river) so the water is "free" (we pay an annual access fee) for outside water but it's not my favourite to use b/c it's full of pesticide runoff from the surrounding orchards, so I do what I can to conserve water.

[Macky]

Not quite the desert, but we on the prairies are no strangers to drought, often years at a time. Most farming done here (including by my in-laws) is dryland farming; irrigated fields are few and far between. My MIL doesn't water her garden at all anymore once everything has germinated. DH says that when he was a kid, they would flood the garden once a season and that's all it would get, even if it didn't rain. (My in-laws have to haul all the water for the house and cattle by truck, so it's pretty precious stuff.)

We have permission from our neighbours to water from their dugout (man-made ditch/pond) since he doesn't need it anymore for filling his farm machinery (he dug a new one a few years ago closer to their farmyard). Essentially, it's like having a REALLY big rain barrel. If we were in the city, we wouldn't hesitate to use a rain barrel system. Rain water is a lot better for your garden than chlorinated city water or well water that's often shockingly cold and hard (in the pH sense).

Regardless of where your water comes from and how it's applied, if you're having to water every other day, you're doing it wrong (or you have rapidly-draining soil). By watering that often, the water is staying in the top few inches of soil and being used up by the plants before it soaks down any further. Roots stay where the water is. For plants to be able to withstand drought, they have to be allowed to search deep for moisture. When you water, water slowly, but for a long time, until it soaks down really deep. Then you have to let it dry out. Really. Don't water again unless you poke your finger down into the dirt and it's dry a couple of inches down. That will train your plants to send roots further down and those roots will be better positioned to help the plant withstand drought.

[Lady TS]

[MarynMunchkins]

My shower takes about 2 gallons to get hot before I ever get in. I stick a bucket under the shower and transfer it to empty gallon jugs. Doing that all year nets me more water than I can use.