Re: Re: HYB: Potential and daydreams

Griff
We are all completely at the mercy of the weather these days. The use of rainwater as the primary household supply in common in many country areas in Australia. A lot of underground water in Australia is very salty and unsuitable for drinking. Having grown up in NewZealand and then lived in Aust for many years the use of rainwater is normal for me. However when I mentioned that we use rainwater, while in the USA, I got some funny looks and comments on pollution. Have driven through parts of California, I must say I wouldn't want to drink water that had fallen through such an atmosphere. Here we get a little dust in our water, but very little else. Rain water is seen here as a clean water supply.
Most cities here get their water from reservoirs on rivers . However for Adelaide our local rivers are quite small and don't flow in summer, so our reservoirs are topped up in summer from the Murray River (the bottom end) which drains about a third of the country and has many uses before it gets here. There are a number of dams upstream on the tributaries (Darling River, Murrumbidgee River) and the Murray itself. These are supposed to have enough storage in them to enable the Murray River to have enough flow for agricultural usage and to provide Adelaide (and other South Australian towns) with drinking water. Current estimates are that these will all be empty by April (autumn). Many Australian cities on the East Coast have near empty reservoirs. Almost all cities are on some form of water restrictions.
Makes our 3x 5,000 gal tanks of rainwater look like a generous supply for household use. We run our toilets on bore water over summer as well. We collect off a large shed roof as well as the house. About 6" of rainfall will fill our tanks and our average rainfall is 35" (about half that, for this last year) 

Colleen Modra
Adelaide Hills
South Australia

colleen@impressiveirises.com.au
www.impressiveirises.com.au
----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Griffin Crump" <jgcrump@cox.net> 
To: <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 11:10 AM
Subject: OT: Re: [iris] HYB: Potential and daydreams
Colleen -- What you describe in terms of recycling will be familiar to some of our Californians, who go through this kind of water shortage every once in a while. But when you say that rainwater is your only household water supply, it seems to say you're living a frontier kind of existence where you're completely at the mercy of the weather. Wow! I take it that the "salty bore" is a well. I'm old enough to remember rain barrels and a snatch from a song from childhood, 

"Holler down my rain barrel
Slide down my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever evermore."
but my great-aunts and uncles had freshwater wells on their farms, and my grandparents, who were town dwellers, had pumps in their back yards which gave sweet water. I can still remember the welcome taste from the tin cups that hung on them.
So, for not just living in these conditions, but raising irises, as well, I salute you! -- Griff
----- Original Message ----- From: "Colleen Modra" <colleen@impressiveirises.com.au> 
To: <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: [iris] HYB: Potential and daydreams
Grey water is the water you recycle from the shower and washing machine (but not toilet) 
So in most cases it can be used on the garden.
Our only household water supply is rainwater (very clean as we have very little pollution) so to conserve this, this summer we have our showers with a bucket there to catch the water while waiting for the hot water to come through and to catch the runoff during the shower and then that gets emptied onto the garden. We do have a rather salty bore which is OK for most of the irises and daylilies but some of my species iris and my vege garden don't like salt. They get shower water and some rainwater. 

Colleen Modra
Adelaide Hills
South Australia

colleen@impressiveirises.com.au
www.impressiveirises.com.au
----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Griffin Crump" <jgcrump@cox.net> 
To: <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: [iris] HYB: Potential and daydreams
Jan -- For us folks on another side of the globe, what's grey ter? -- Griff
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jan Clark" <janclarx@hotmail.com> 
To: <iris@hort.net>; <iris-digest@hort.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 5:30 PM
Subject: [iris] HYB: Potential and daydreams



Betty wrote:

Even though I watered faithfully with the soaker hoses, I lost a large
number of new seedlings. Usually, only a few die and others have the failure 
to
grow and die eventually. This year, several died the first season. Maybe 
this was Mother Natures way of telling me I'm pushing  the envelope??
I haven't had the time to follow this thread closely, but this bit caught my eye. Now if I watered my seedlings faithfully with the soaker hose here, I would be kissing most of them goodbye too! I don't know what the difference is between your climate and mine. Today is the first day of summer. It is already too hot and we are in drought, so a soaker hose, or hose of any kind is out of the question. I have planted out 12 crosses into 12 polystyrene boxes and put them in the shade. The seedlings were previously in pots in the shade house. I didn't dare risk leaving the transplanting later than late October, even though it was dry and hot. I water them once every few days, with grey water collected in plastic bottles. 8 litres does all 12 boxes. The losses are high because of the conditions, but I feel they would be even higher if I was soaking them. Normally i would have put them straight into the garden, but not this year. The water situation is looking very grim here. I figure if they can't cope on minimal water, they are not seedlings that I want to grow anyway. 
Cheers, Jan

_________________________________________________________________
Be the one of the first to try the NEW Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programPage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index