Balancing the tanks
More often than not what was planned to be a quick job can turn into a mind stretching test and take a lot longer than we’d expect. This job certainly did.
rainwater
Watering in Winter?
It might seem counterintuitive but late Winter and early Spring are excellent times to start your watering regime for the warm weather. Unless you garden in wicking beds, this is the time to check down into the soil to see how much moisture is held in the ground. The preoccupation with mulch that some gardeners have can be detrimental to their garden by actually preventing water reaching the subsoil. Unless designed to allow water to penetrate, mulches can absorb or even repel water falling on them. In a wet Winter, enough rain falls to overcome this but rainfall is decreasing and I reckon that in a couple of years, it may not be enough to penetrate thick mulch beds. At Ligaya Garden, we water just before it rains, even in Winter. A little water at that stage helps the rain soak in and penetrate deeper into the root zone of plants This way, the rain even helps wash away the
New water
Over the last couple of days Lon and I have moved one of the 1000 litre tanks and redone the downpipes that come off the rear roof and the carport. The car port used to run to a 300 litre tank that is now in the front garden, so the capture of rain water will be far more efficient. I recently ran 20 mm PVC pipe from the other 1000 litre tank to the newly positioned 300 litre one in the front. This way we can pump from the bigger tank to the smaller. The smaller tank is linked directly to the front dripper system and positioned at a good height. Now we can spread 300 litres around most of the front at the turn of a tap. It doesn’t have enough pressure to run the sprinklers, but that’s why I’ve fitted them all with taps, so I can turn them off when using tank water and just use the
