Monday, April 27, 2015

W is for Water




Water is something that any homesteader needs a lot of. As of now, all we have been using is a hose and watering our gardens by hand. It takes a long time and is quite hot in the middle of the summer. I have been known to start hosing myself off to keep cool. We tried using sprinkler systems, but there was always areas the water never hit and we have to leave the water running for hours.

I would like to start gathering rain water into rain barrels to help save us money from using the water from the house. Everything I see for a set up requires you to have gutters on your house. This is something that we do not. In fact, no one in my mobile home park has gutters on their homes. I was thinking of putting up some just to collect the water, but not sure if the hubby wants to put holes in our metal roof or aluminum siding. Gathering the barrels wouldn't be too hard, we just need to make sure they are food grade and never held chemicals.

Another way would to use an irrigation system. Something that will cost a bunch of money up front, that we do not have. The hubby wants to go this route. We vetoed using drip hoses already.

I have been over on Pinterest looking up ideas to help water certain veggies better, like tomatoes. Tomatoes don't like to get their leaves wet, it causes blight, so to water down near the roots only. It hurts my back to lean over to water the many tomato plants we grow every year. I have been thinking of making a drip system of sorts using a old soda or water bottle half way in the ground.

We will have to play around with a few different things this summer to see what will work for us or not.

Anyone have any other ideas for us to try? Something that doesn't require a lot of money? Free or nearly is always welcome.

1 comment:

  1. Originally I was going to use water as my "W" topic because it's so much on our minds out here in drought stricken Southern California. I'm lousy at maintaining plants so we don't have many that need much care. We do have a sprinkler system for our very small front lawn but now the state is saying we can only water twice a week. The grass will not do well this summer with that little water. I'm thinking of getting artificial turf so I don't have to worry about watering.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Tossing It Out

    ReplyDelete

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