Conserving Water in the Garden

This week we changed the irrigation sprinkler out in the vegetable garden for soaker hoses. We added soakers just to two beds, both tomato beds.  The other plants got a little thunderstorm shower last night.  What I was finding was that the heavy duty irrigation sprinkler - the kind that goes "ch-chc-chhhhhhhh" as it spins around and shoots water at you like a water cannon was also watering the grass between the garden beds. I don't want to water the grass, just my vegetables.  So we tried a little experiment with the soaker hoses and so far it seems to be working out just fine. 

I did, however, manage to douse myself with our old soaker hose.  We stopped using it in the garden in Long Island, and neither of us could remember why. Oh, I remember why now. It's got some sort of crazy flaw; the last 7 feet don't work and water doesn't flow out of it, but it SHOOTS out of the tiny holes along the rest of the hose length. I made the mistake of standing over it while I turned on the spigot. Use your imagination. I looked like I wet myself.  I may have too, since I was laughing so hard....

Water is a precious commodity and I never appreciated it until I moved to the country and we had to pay to install a water well.  If the well runs dry or a problem develops, I also have to pay to fix it. Water doesn't flow into the house when the electricity goes off, either. Back on Long Island, if you lose the electricity in a hurricane, it didn't matter, you still had flushing toilets and water to wash the dinner dishes.  Not here.  That's why I keep a stockpile of bottled water in the house at all times and old plastic milk containers filled with water to use for other necessities.  And if we heard of a snowstorm or hurricane coming, we have about half a dozen big pails that we fill with water and line up in the garage for toilet duty.  Plus the creek out back, which in a pinch I could do the old fashioned thing; haul water up to the house for the sanitary system should the need arise.

It's all so important, yet we take running water for granted. Then you look at the news and the south, the big states that raise a lot of food such as Texas, Oklahoma and the like have such bad droughts that their farm wells are running dry and their creeks and ponds too. 

Water conservation was on my mind this morning when I sat down to write an entry for Hub Pages' summer article content. I hope you will click through the link and enjoy my article. Give it a comment or a vote if you feel so inclined and share the links, please - the more the merrier!

Here is my article on: Be Water Wise: Water Conservation in the Garden