“Like water, be gentle and strong. Be gentle enough to follow the natural paths of the earth, and strong enough to rise up and reshape the world.” – Brenda Peterson

A nice quote, to me it says - be gentle to our planet like water can be, be gentle to water itself. But be strong enough to change your habits to protect water and Earth, and strong enough to encourage others to do the same.

What do you think?

Posted: December 31st, 2007 under general, nature's gift.
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With stage 3a water restrictions in place across Melbourne, you need to know when you can water your garden - unless you only use tank and grey water of course!

You can’t water your garden on Monday, Thursday or Friday.

If your house number is odd, you can water on Sunday or Wednesday.

If your house number is even or you don’t have a house number, you can water on Saturday or Tuesday.

Whatever day you can water on, you can only water by hose/bucket/watering can/manual watering system* between 6 am and 8 am, or by an automatic watering system between midnight and 2 am.

Note that if anyone over 70 years lives in your house, you may manually water between 6am and 8 am OR 8 am and 10 am on the specified days.

You can not water your lawn with tap water AT ALL. Recycled or tank water is allowed, of course.

For a full set of the water restrictions, please visit www.ourwater.vic.gov.au

* A drip watering system can be used only if it uses less than 9 litres per hours for each lineal metre of hose

Posted: December 30th, 2007 under gardening, general, saving water.
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Younger children may be interested in our colouring in pages - just download them from our site, print and let the kids have fun with Mr & Mrs Droplet.

They may also enjoy a water based memory game called TipTank (can they keep the tank filled by selecting the right pairs?)

Yarra Valley water also provides some activities for juniors & seniors on their website.

See if the older kids can meet the challenge of 100 ways to save water in 30 days activities.

Posted: December 29th, 2007 under general.
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You can often find piles of leaves under and around the base of your house, garage, shed and water tank.

Why not rake up these piles and put them around your plants? It is useful mulch to protect your plants and it also cleans up your yard - which also reduces the first risk, too.

The result is a very organic looking garden bed and a natural source of nurtients to the soil and plants later on.

Posted: December 28th, 2007 under gardening, saving water.
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From everyone at Precious Water, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a successful 2008.

 Stay safe, save water and enjoy yourself.

Posted: December 25th, 2007 under general.
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There has been a huge amount of rain hitting Melbourne and southern Victoria over the last two days - what are you doing to collect any of it?

It may not have been possible to get a tank in when you saw the rains coming (which is a pity as it probably would have filled a number of times!) but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of that water…

• put out buckets, bowls, plastic tubs, etc and collect some rain to use in your garden next week or use to rinse clothes
• get out in the garden between showers (downpours!) and turn over your garden beds
• aerate your lawn to maximise how much water is soaking into teh roots (You can do this by poking holes in the lawn with a pitchfork, shovel, strong stick or whatever - it doesn’t have to be a fancy aerator to work)
• park outside so your car gets a natural clean
• put all pots out where they will catch some rain - protect them from eh harshest downpours
• prepare to mulch your garden in the coming days to keep the moisture in the soil
• continue to conserve water in the house, and remind others that rain now doesn’t mean restrictions have ended or that water is still not in limited supply

Posted: December 21st, 2007 under collecting water, general, nature's gift, saving water.
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If you run a business, do you make any attempts to make it a green business? For instance, Precious Water uses a green courier company for delivery of FlexiTanks to minimise the impact of our tanks and we recycle everything we can.

The February edition of the Business Mums Magazine will have an environmental theme, and we will be contributors to the magazine, too. It always has easy-to-read short articles so even the busiest of us can find time to read them!

Leading up to that edition, the Business Mums Network is running a survey about green businesses- we’re fascinated to see what the results will be as we’re not sure how much small business owners consider the environment within their business.

And while we’re on the topic of green behaviour, Save Time Online is running a survey about green shopping that should also provide some interesting results.

Posted: December 20th, 2007 under general, green products.
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It is possible to grow vegetables, even when you have to limit your water use - even if there is plenty of rain and water, the following tips can help conserve water which reduces your water bill and prevents us running out of water again after the rains.

• Choose your vegetables to grow in 3 layers - a ground cover (pumpkin, cucumber, strawberries, etc) in around medium crops (lettuce, eggplant, carrots, etc) underneath some tall plants (tomatoes, corn, etc). When you water the garden, water falling of each layer will water the roots for all 3 plants, the ground cover reduces weeds and evaporation and the taller plants will shelter the shorter ones from the sun and wind.
• shade young and vulnerable plants - hang some shade cloth, drape some gauze material over them, have some other plants in front of the garden
• add home-made compost to your garden between your crops to ensure the soil is nutrient rich and a good composition
• use liquid fertilizers rather than solid ones as this forms an addtional source of moisture as well as being utilised by plants more quickly
• keep the garden weed free so the plants aren’t competing for what water there is
• mulch the garden- organic sugar cane is great, as is the remains of your last vegetable crop and other garden prunings

Posted: December 19th, 2007 under gardening, saving water.
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It may not be the most glamorous job, but weeding your garden is important.

Any weeds growing near your plants will compete for whatever water is available so your plants get less water. Pull out the weeds, and your plants get more water. Simple!

Once your gardenis weeded, add more mulch and possibly plant a groundcover to reduce teh numner of weeds coming back.

Posted: December 18th, 2007 under gardening, saving water.
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Using commercial pesticides in your garden may be useful for getting rid of pests - although they don’t always work properly and most need to be reapplied regularly.

But commercial pesticides can have various disadvantages to them:

• they are often toxic so need to be stored and used away from children and pets
• they can contaminate the soil
• they can be washed into our water systems - killing organisms in those systems and resulting in polluted creeks rivers and oceans
• it took a lot of energy and resources to make and package and transport the pesticide to your garden

So what are the alternatives?

• leave the bugs alone - not all of them are harmful to the plants anyway
• try companion planting - various plants and herbs are natural repellents
• use organic pesticides - we’ll add some recipes to this blog in coming weeks
• manually remove the bugs - time consuming but leaves no residue and gets you out in the garden for some fresh air!

Posted: December 16th, 2007 under gardening, nature's gift.
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