If you are setting up a veggie/herb garden and want some tough (as in can survive in little water) plants, try any of the following:

• bronze fennel (will grow wild if not monitored)
• cherry tomatoes
• artichokes
• garlic
• garlic chives
• lemon balm
• warrigal spinach
• Japanese parsley
• marjoram
• apple mint (less so if you use the variegated specis)
• rosemary
• cucumber
• eggplant
• zucchini
• pumpkin
• burdock
• perennial beans
• zebra beans
• spring onion
• established silver beet

If you choose a mix of these veggies and others than use more water, try separating your garden bed into two parts so you only need to water one part frequently.

Plants grown from seed will be much hardier than ones you have transplanted.

Posted: January 6th, 2008 under gardening, saving water.
Comments: 1

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

We were recently offered some carpet offcuts to use as mulch on our garden. We said thanks, but no thanks!

Yes, carpet over your garden will reduce evaporation from the soil into the air and the growth of weeds. However, it will also reduce (stop) the amount of water getting to the soil so will actually cause the soil to dry out.

And a synthetic carpet isn’t going to break down into nice nutrients for our plants either.

So we’re sticking to natural mulch options!

Posted: January 4th, 2008 under gardening.
Comments: none

Overall, the water coming out of your laundry is perfectly usable on most of your garden or even for flushing toilets.

You can use this water by collecting it in buckets you then carry out to your garden, connecting a length of flexible pipe to the outlet and hand-watering your garden or by connecting pipes from the laundry to the garden permanently.

If you have the water piped form your laundry, remember to have a diverter added in as well. A diverter means you can control when the water goes onto your garden and when it goes into the sewer system.It is best to not use laundry water on your garden when:

•  It is raining heavily (there is no point overloading the soil and causing more runoff)
• The washing includes dirty nappies or other particularly dirty items
•  You have used bleach
• You are cleaning something greasy or toxic in the laundry trough

Posted: January 2nd, 2008 under general, saving water.
Comments: none

“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: none

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.
Comments: none

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.
Comments: none

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.
Comments: none

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.
Comments: none

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.
Comments: none