Gardening in a drought, part 2

 Part Two: New This Year


1. I am not watering the lawn. It can die. If it does, I will replace it with appropriate landscaping when I have time. Of course, if fireworks are still permitted this year for the summer holidays (?!$^×>!?) I will be frantically watering everything close to the house so nothing catches fire (assuming there is any water left at that point). Thank goodness we have a brick house with a rubber roof.

2. I have been presoaking seeds before planting. Seeds need more water and warmth to germinate than the young plant typically needs to grow. With enough time soaking in a container of water, many seeds will sprout even in dry soil. I plan on continuing this in the future.

3. I am increasing the spacing between plants this year. This one was hard for me since the whole goal of my garden is to grow as much of our own food as possible, but I do think the community is going to fail to conserve enough water now to avoid getting our secondary water turned off early (the 1st week of August is the current prediction). Should that happen, I would rather give my best food crops the best chance to survive than have all of them die before a harvest. Greater spacing means more resources per plant.

4. This year we are setting up greywater recycling under our kitchen sink. If it works well, we'll keep that going for the future and I'll post pictures and a more detailed description.

5. Finally, I hope to do more community based things such as write our city council and county commissioners about policy changes, but sharing what I'm doing here seemed like a lot more fun for right now ;)

If you have any creative water saving tips, I would love to hear them! 

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