It’s in the headlines everywhere “India is facing its worst water shortage in history.” “A summer heatwave has seen Britain’s water supplies run dangerously low in some areas.” “Cape Town rationing water… Supplies low… Day Zero may occur.”
It’s scary to think that one day we could go to our faucets, our wells and the one thing needed more than anything… Water… Is not there. Scary… I know. I lived in Monterey, California during the recent drought where I seen massive reservoirs go from completely full to showing their ghostly, bottom-dwelling contents in just 4 short years. We lived on a military base and we were rationing our water, short showers, minimal watering of garden plants… Not fun. But we survived… The drought… The fires… The mess. The rain and snow returned to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the reservoirs started filling back up.
So, what can we do? We can start by taking shorter showers, using low flow toilets and shower heads, turning the water off when we brush our teeth, in general, just being water-wise. Even little acts can have a large impact when the masses join in. All it takes is a spark!
So, how am I helping? I’ve installed drip irrigation. Not only does it save water, it saves me an immense amount of time. Before it would take me 1 hour to give 38 trees in my orchard just 5 gallons of water. Since the ground was hard, and hot, not a lot got down to the root system where it was really needed. So, to save time, effort, get the water to the roots, and more importantly save water… I installed drip irrigation. It was actually very simple. I’ll give a play-by-play on the whole system in a later post.
Right now, I’m just enjoying the Independence and Freedom of simply turning on the system, setting my alarm for 1 hour and reaping the benefits of: no pesticide, home grown Honeycrisp, Frostbite, and Zestar apples! I’m enjoying my new freedom so much that I’ve ordered new drip irrigation items to try out in my containers throughout the inside of my house, on my deck and around my patio. This should give me even more freedom and satisfaction from growing food for our family, with less wasted time and water.
I’ll blog about the new irrigation items once I get them and get everything setup. More to follow!
Until then… Get dirty and Happy Gardening!
Would love to know more about this. We want to implement a drip irrigation system in our garden this year!
Drip irrigation is an excellent addition to any farm, garden, house… you name it. It just so happens that I’m in the process of finishing a post on designing a drip irrigation system. I’ll have examples in the post on how I designed my orchard and raised bed drip and low water irrigation systems. It should be out next week, so stay warm, have fun gardening and stay tuned for details shortly!