How wonderful it was to go to sleep last night with the sound of rain on the roof, and to look out the window this morning and see damp ground!

Did you make the most of the rainfall?

Some things you may have done were:

• put pot plants in open areas
• put out some buckets or containers to catch water
• remove the cover from your pool to get a top up
• danced in the rain, enjoy the feeling of rain and be grateful for the water in our gardens

Posted: March 25th, 2008 under nature's gift.
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The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.

Robert Fugram

  Do you agree with him?

It’s certainly true for gardening – instead of watching your neighbours’ green gardens, care for your own and it will be a green haven for you. Conserve your water, plan your garden carefully, and it will stay green despite the weather.

Posted: February 1st, 2008 under general, nature's gift.
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Have you ever thought about the creation of water (oceans, rivers, etc) on Earth?

Most of us have heard about the Big Bang theory and evolution, but the story behind water is less known – certainly less talked about.

An interesting blog entry called Water: the lifeblood of our planet outlines the most common theories of water arriving on Earth in large bodies and is worth a read. Or just look at their magnificent pictures of masses of water.

Posted: January 8th, 2008 under general, nature's gift.
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In 2000, we ranked 3rd of daily urban water use in the OECD – not something we want to rank highly in really. Denmark manages an average os only 120L per person.

According to estimaes from teh Australian Bureau of STatistics (ABS), AUstralian domestic water usage is n average of 272 litres per day (about 103,000 litres per year) in 2004/05. That’s a LOT of water.

Per state use varies a bit:

Victoria – 222L
WA – 493L
NT – 419L
Tasmania – 392L
Qld – 340L
ACT – 260L
SA – 258L
NSW – 230L

Picture the 10 litre bucket in your laundry – now imagine 22 of them full of water. Does it shock you that you may use more water than that every day?

Posted: January 5th, 2008 under general, nature's gift.
Comments: 1

“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.
Comments: 1

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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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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While this isn’t specifically about water, the speech made in this video is powerful and carries an important message about protecting our planet, our world.

We like to think that helping Victorians and Australains to conserve water we are doing something positive, but Severn Suzuki reminds us there is much more to be done. We thank her and share her speech with you.

Severn’s speech

Posted: December 13th, 2007 under general, nature's gift.
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We Love Water.

We Thank Water.

We Respect Water.

We Are All Water.

We Are All One.

by Masaru Emoto, Messages from Water

Water is precious and essential. We respect and save water as part of our thanks.

Posted: December 4th, 2007 under general, nature's gift.
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Well, it certainly felt like the drought broke in Melbourne and Victoria over the weekend! It poured for hours and hours, which was wonderful to see and hear. Not so wonderful to see the floods in Gippsland, though.

Hopefully, a lot of people were collecting some of that rain water to use over summer.

And now is the time to put down some new mulch to keep as much of that moisture in the garden beds as possible.

But back to the rain! Melbourne received over 27mm of rain which is incredible after the last 10 years. For everyone who planted tomato plants over the weekend (Cup Day being the tradiaional time to plant them), it is a great start to your vegetable crop!

What did you do to celebrate the rain if you got rain over the weekend?

Posted: November 7th, 2007 under general, nature's gift.
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