I live on a 2 acre country property, zone 9A, around 50 mi. inland from Corpus Christi. We have 5 family members. I think it is too small to ever allow us to be self-sufficient, but I am hoping to cut the grocery bill a lot. I am trying to grow lots of vegetables, and am not having a great success. Also we have grapes, blackberries, figs and Moringa trees (in pots). We have only well water here from the gulf coast aquifer. The water is very hard and brackish. I measured it with a TDS meter, and its 11,300 PPM. That is abt 1/3 of sea water. It is drinkable, but just barely. We buy our drinking water in town. We have a whole house filter at the well, but of course does nothing for TDS. I have been investigating how salty/brackish water damages crops. Now I am wondering if its even feasible to grow crops with such brackish/hard water. Its going to accumulate in the pots and soil and get worse and worse. Also, we are in a prolonged drought, and so heavy rainstorms which might flush the salt out of the top soil are rare.
I am also exploring possibility of using a large dehumidifier on top of a big plastic trash can to produce drinking water and water for the plants more sensitive to salt. Its very humid here. We have a 250 gal cistern which collects rain water, but rain is too rare lately to get much this way.
We also are looking into buying a RO unit, just for drinking water. They cost $210.00, and a new set of cartridges is very expensive. I am thinking that the hardness of our water will cause us to be changing the filters so frequently that it might be unaffordable. But I don't know for sure without trying it.
We would like some advice on growing crops.....maybe its not going to work out with such poor well water? Also on feasibility of using an RO unit or dehumidifier to produce water. Thanks to all.
Is my well water too poor?
I wish I had an answer but I have never had such a problem and have no knowledge of such a thing. We lived in deep south La. most of our lives just a few minutes off the gulf but our wells were fine. I sure hope you find a sollution. Please keep us posted of your progress.
Hello Jimigunne
ive been livin totally off grid for 8 years .. almost 9 now.. so imma gonna toss some off the grid ideas at you here ...
i think if you built a big distillation (still) but use for water only, you could provide your family with clean healthy water with no cost of filters.. could be set up outside with butane or natural gas, or inside on the stove ... for drinking water only .... what i mean about 'big' distillation still is .. a 10 gallon one would provide you with 10 gallons of pure drinking water with no containaments at all.. also it beats the stew out of buyin bottled water ..
also you could build a solar still outside connected to soaker hoses to water your garden .. it would work everyday the sun shine'd and no worries about turning it off an on .. if the sun shine'd your gardens would be watered automaticaly...
here's a fast link to a solar water still... i think we all know how to build a regular still .. LOL
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-build-a-solarpowered-water-purifier.html
That sounds like a fine idea.