ALL THAT IS GOLD DOES NOT GLITTER

A nice pile of compost given to three of us for our pumpkins. My two buddies are bringing my share in for me.
This is leaf mold that is at least five years old. The previous owners of the pile just flat out gave it to us. They were kind enough to bring me a share. It is black, moist, smells earthy and just has to be black gold of the finest Mother Nature can create. All piles that are fully rotted into humus should look like this. I firmly believe this is what all composters are looking for.

In the background is an eight foot water tower. It creates about four pounds per square inch of water pressure for my underground water system. The only thing the big eyes scared was my neighbors three year old grandson. He will not sleep on the side of the house that gives him view of the eyes.

doc, that is beautiful leaf mold, I am soooooooooooooo jealous. And love the water tower, too cool Thanks for sharing!!


The other doc, Cathy

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh thats some beautiful stuff right there!

beautiful !!!! had to reread your clever title.
How do you get the water up inthe tanks?

Sally...........Up to the present I just use garden hose run up to the top. If I contiue to use it I may get a bit more inventive and install a fill valve to make it a lazy man's rig. Before that I would get new plastic barrels. My system once filled can be delivered to four zones in the garden by working with valves. It will dump in an hour and twenty minutes and refill in twenty minutes. The pumpkin patch can use a hundred gallons a day.

So....the advantage of using the barrels is...warming the water? not walking all the way back to the spigot?

Yes to both of your guesses and two more big issues.....study easy saturation under the surface that lends itself to even supply of water. That water seeps down through the whole root zone evenly at ambient temperature of the soil and the big advantage in dry weather the surface stays dry enough to prevent weed seeds from germination. A light mulch in this instance holds prevents evaporation, and sets up a slow rotting of the mulch to evenly even more feed the soil the same as adding compost as a mulch. All of the above works against the ever feared downy mildew here in the Northeast. I have two other major flower beds that have underground watering by simply opening a couple of valves and shutting the garden system. I have my own well but there have been times recently when all water use was to be curtailed except on new plantings. I always have some new plantings in all beds. In this case not even my neighbors know when I am using well water. Therefore I need not explain or cause ill feelings. I likely save as much as most neighbors use when the sprinkle lawns and so forth. I never water the lawns unless there is a spot of newly planted lawn seed.

I purchase my underground T-Tape from Drip Works in California. They are or were aware of my system and how I use it. Very few tape users go underground. This is one of the few sources that tests their gravity flow tapes to insure a flow as advertised. I get five to eight years out of the tapes because UV can not be a factor underground.

You Da Man.

Yes I will accept the term...."da man" if you will understand that 'da man screws up once in awhile too. :)

your not allowed to use your well water for any existing plant irrigation? ohh gee... thats why I had my well installed!

Yep it can be that way if times get serious. Wells are all drawing from an area wide source either stream or underground pools. Our municiple water comes from that source too. My local point of contension is that the Country Club Golf watering is greater than the total of all homes in sight of the club all three hundred and sixty degrees. They always pay to have a public anouncement that they have cut their watering ten percent while the homes on the same water are ask to cease watering and non-important other use like swim pools and kids splash pools and car washing. Several times when it got down to no public use they were grandfathered. Money talks. Car wash places get grandfathered. That's my gripe for the year.

We went to no outdoor watering last year... except for golf courses and car washes here too! :) Our water is collected from ground water into lake lanier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Lanier
Sooo... technically if we have a well...and we are south of the dam, we are not taking the drinking water..so I can use my well to water plants. Still annoys those that don't understand the difference though. The lake is slowly coming back up and we are getting rain now. I don't see how the city could keep an eye on you unless they caught you in the act... Here they watch water use and send out letters if it's too high.. They also have patrols. Before i got the well, i was on a waving basis and they came down my street super regular.. Too see my garden in bloom I'm sure :)

Susan

Susan...........I do not know your water tables, stream flows and such. Here I could be six miles off of the flow or pool and yet be taking water from the same source as our city.