http://preciouswater.com.au/blog Saving water and ourselves Fri, 23 May 2008 07:49:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The federal budget was announced on 13 May and includes some green initiatives. Water for the Future A national water policy framework is being introduced and called Water for the Future. There is funding of $12.9 billion over the next 10 years.Objectives/projects include: $1 billion to attract investment in  major projects such as ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/2008-federal-budget-its-green Books are a valuable resource we should be treasuring, but the reality is that creating books is not very environmentally friendly. And ebooks will never have the same feel and appeal as holding a new book in your hand and reading it curled up in bed or stretched out on ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/green-publishing The Australian website, Save Time Online, has had a listing for Precious Water for some time. But now we have also joined in one of their seasonal promotions which we thought might interest many people. The promotion is called May Madness and (not surprisingly) runs between 1st and 31st of May. A ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/may-madness All of those prunings can be used directly on the garden as mulch - saves trying to break it down or add it to the compost! The big prunings may not be what we are used to seeing in our gardens, but they are very good for muclhing trees: like all mulch, ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/pruning-the-garden We were recently visiting and saw someone using cold water to help defrost some meat from the freezer - it is so long since we have seen someone do this that we had forgotten it as an option! Of course, using water in this way is not a constructive use of ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/defrosting-food Yesterday, we visited the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. The weather and gardens were beautiful, but we really noticed how lush and green the lawns were. It was inviting and refreshing to see all that green - and the number of people picnicking there proved the appeal. What was interesting was to ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/testing-watering-systems 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 ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/it-rained The cost of a litre of water is actually very low in Australia - which means that saving water by harvesting rain probably won't save you a huge amount of water. That is, you won't save a lot on your water usage charges. However, collecting water in a tank can save you money in ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/save-water-save-money For many people, just having a lush or at least a living garden is enough reason to use water on your plants. But there are actually some other advantages to keeping the soil moist. If the land around your home gets overly dry, it can lead to changes in the soil ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/benefits-of-watering-the-garden Did you know that to grow $1 worth of rice in Australia needs over 1700 litres of water? That is a lot of water for a small amount of food. I'm not sure how much water it takes in other countries but it is less than Australia because they grow rice in ... http://preciouswater.com.au/blog/2008/rice-is-expensive