Water restrictions and gardens
 

0tterbot wrote:


anyway, i'm just wondering if someone who trolls a gardening n.g. is called
a gnome. :-S
kylie

Haa, yes!

Water restrictions and gardens
 

gardenlen wrote:

you can send the rain anytime you like mate, we will welcome it with
open arms.


With open buckets, Len, buckets.

Water restrictions and gardens
 

Linda H wrote:

Nearly every property in our area has these and it's always
green wherever one is installed.


I just wanted to add that the reason (of course) we care about treating
our waste and recycling water is certainly NOT because of wanting green
lawns. That's just an added bonus - lawns are so not important.

Not only is Peter Cundall right but it appears most of us are and if
according to Nick that means we all need to get a bit more sex... well,
maybe. He could always move to a country where water doesn't need to be
cherished and leave us water-wise to our apparent sexless dry romps.

Water restrictions and gardens
 

"gardenlen" wrote in message

salt is probably in everything even the natural landscape, and salt
is
bandied around as someway to influence chat eg.,. there is a recipe
on
our site to make liquid detergent for clothes etc.,. i contains 1
cup
of washing soda (salt), i've had people target that cup of salt
(mind
you when the regular off the shelf items don't even list salt), and
say that this is not good to recycle in the garden.

Huh? I know sod all about Chemistry but even I know Washing Soda is
sodium carbonate whereas salt is sodium chloride.

Are all sodiums bad for soil or just in significant quantities or
what?

Water restrictions and gardens
 

Linda H wrote:

Every ounce of our used water goes back into our ground as we have a
Septech treatment plant. Treated waste (black & grey water) is
dispersed via dripper lines - it's clean and clear enough to even
provide a veggie garden with but it is not recommended but really you
could. Nearly every property in our area has these and it's always
green wherever one is installed.

You can make the output from the septic tank cleaner by running it
through a reed pond.the plants suck up a lot of the stuff and can be
harvested (1/2 at a time?) and composted. This will make it safer for veges.

Water restrictions and gardens
 

gardenlen wrote:

salt is probably in everything even the natural landscape, and salt is
bandied around as someway to influence chat eg.,. there is a recipe on
our site to make liquid detergent for clothes etc.,. i contains 1 cup
of washing soda (salt), i've had people target that cup of salt (mind
you when the regular off the shelf items don't even list salt), and
say that this is not good to recycle in the garden.

Organic matter in the soil will suck up the salts. We have had awful
trouble getting a vege garden to grow here, until a neighbour informed
us that the previous owners had an above ground chlorine pool that they
dismantled each winter and thus dumped all that chlorine into the ground.

Our solution was basically just trucking (almost) in bags of compost
(chicken, cown and mushroom[1]) and layering the garden plots. Mostly
dug in. Eventually it comes good.


[1] How do peeps in Sydney get sheep manure. I keep hearing the greek
gardeners on TVS talking about it. The only source I have (shovel my
own) is 900 kilometres away.

Water restrictions and gardens
 

Ms Leebee wrote:

In my last 2x houses, the blend was mainly kikuyu ( which I hate for it's
tendency to run inot garden beds, but man, is it hardy and green ! ),

Basically kikuyu is hanging on in Sydney with minimal watering.

Water restrictions and gardens
 

"Ms Leebee" wrote in message
...
meeee wrote:

Time you people who've had water while the rest of
australia hasn't adjust your gardening methods, buy some tanks, and
get on with life. Moaning about how sad your dead lawn is and
expecting the government to build bigger dams won't cause rain, and
it will evaporate from the dams when it does. If you have a tank,
you'll be laughing over your green lush garden while those around you
complain. Oh, and learn to mulch.

Not all Victorians, meeee ;)
I've been disgusted with the 'hosing down the driveway' brigade for years
:)

I think it should be compulsory for every Australian home to own a tank
( looking forward to my own next March :)


:) I meant no slur against Victorians, as most of them are as waterwise as
any aussies....just the OP and all his water wasting friends (I don't think
i insulted Victorians...sorry if I did, didn't mean too!!)

I've got a neighbour who hoses down her driveway...constantly, very
annoying. Needless to say she has year round green lawn which she is
probably very proud of, but I don't think living in the tropics is any
excuse for water wasting....and when we buy a house, I want a tank!! I agree
on the compulsory bit!!

Water restrictions and gardens
 

On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 11:39:50 +1000, Terryc
wrote:

[1] How do peeps in Sydney get sheep manure. I keep hearing the greek
gardeners on TVS talking about it. The only source I have (shovel my
own) is 900 kilometres away.

This Sydney peep is unwilling to pay the exhorbitant prices garden
centres charge for sheep poo (having grown up on a sheep property, I
find it offensive to have to pay for the blasted stuff!).
I got around the problem of getting organic matter into our very
depauperate sandstone "soil" by getting onto freecycle and asking for
people with herbivorous pets and a waste disposal problem. I now have
a very satisfactory arrangement with a rabbit breeder whereby she bags
up about a trailer-load of bunny poo mixed with straw and wood
shavings each week and I cart it away and pop it onto my compost heap
and veggie patch (*). Bunny poo is, as far as I can tell, quite low
in nitrogen, so I mix in a pail of dynamic lifter per trailer load and
my garden responds beautifully. It composts down very quickly and
satisfactorily and costs me no more than a few pence in petrol to go
and pick it up.

(*) rabbit poo, like sheep and goat poo, is "cold" - unlikely to burn
plants, so is safe to pop straight onto the veggie patch.

Tish

Water restrictions and gardens
 

yes tish,

ok sheep manure is probably going to be hard to source from a major
city region, i reckon up in rural it would have been difficult as we
didn't live in sheep country.

but you source what you can eg.,. find someone with their own pet
horses (preffered above racing stables - lots of chemicals there), and
get the stable sweepings but see if they will keep the sweeping when
they wrom the animals seperate as you initially don't want that just
the good celan stuff, also you may be able to get to a dairy farm, so
that fine manure from the yards is good stuff.

we use green mulches eg.,. hay and sugar cane mulches plus add all our
kitchen scraps along with grey water and night water to our gardens,
and they aren't needing us to put manures in, i would if i could
source some easily enough but that's the limiting factor hey, not
going outa me way for it. anyhow check our garden oics reckon the
plant couldn't be healthier.


On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:44:01 +1000, Tish
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.gardenlen.com

Water restrictions and gardens
 

While I agree we have a drought, I also note that the corporations that
run things in Australia are acting like tin Hitlers when it comes to
enforcing and look like charging like wounded bulls for a resource that
belongs to every one.
Mismanagement of water resources, failure to act quickly when something
has sprung a leak, (when its been notified for weeks, some times months
like in the suburb of Belmore, that something is leaking) and then
charging people for water they dont receive, because they have water
allocations, but as there is a drought cannot have any this year but
still have to pay.
Water used by home consumers is only 8 to 9 % but we are being asked to
do more than any business to conserve water.

I would suggest that water used by business has to have certain things
in place to conserve water like the Car washes have. Every business
should if they use over a certain amount.
A study should be conducted for each business over a certain size in
water comsumption.

A Desalination plant should be set up near Geelong and other places
where salt is harvested to speed up salt harvesting instead of pumping
grossly saline water and wasting this precious salt enhanced water and
the nucluer power station should be set up near the sites that do so.
With the proper systems in place, it would create a worthwhile system
which for the moment slows down pollution and look for ways of spent
fuel disposal in the great australian deserts. We have vast tracts of
land and can go down miles in those places to bury this waste after
safely encasing this stuff.. There are alternatives to d(r)ying out as a
race, but I feel some thickheads could do so screaming at the top of
their lungs to save the ecology.
Anyway, thats a bigger picture than most would present here.
Am I to be run out of town for these ideas. What to others think?

I am

Water restrictions and gardens
 

"Ms Leebee" wrote in message
...
meeee wrote:
"Ms Leebee" wrote in message
...
meeee wrote:

Time you people who've had water while the rest of
australia hasn't adjust your gardening methods, buy some tanks, and
get on with life. Moaning about how sad your dead lawn is and
expecting the government to build bigger dams won't cause rain, and
it will evaporate from the dams when it does. If you have a tank,
you'll be laughing over your green lush garden while those around
you complain. Oh, and learn to mulch.

Not all Victorians, meeee ;)
I've been disgusted with the 'hosing down the driveway' brigade for
years :)

I think it should be compulsory for every Australian home to own a
tank ( looking forward to my own next March :)


:) I meant no slur against Victorians, as most of them are as
waterwise as any aussies....just the OP and all his water wasting
friends (I don't think i insulted Victorians...sorry if I did, didn't
mean too!!)

No you didn't .. I just wanted to dissassociate myself .. :)



From all the eeevil Victorians...:) Glad I didn't put both feet into my
mouth again!!

I've got a neighbour who hoses down her driveway...constantly, very
annoying. Needless to say she has year round green lawn which she is
probably very proud of, but I don't think living in the tropics is any
excuse for water wasting....and when we buy a house, I want a tank!!
I agree on the compulsory bit!!

My personal favourite is those that have not set ( or forgotten ) a
watering system, and their sodden grass is running into the gutter ... at
high noon ...

Must admit though, it's been a while, although this kind of thing was
rampant only 10yrs ago ( or maybe because I was working for a water
company at the time and more observant ? )



--



In my area, people have become more water wise; the Cairns council has us on
permanent sprinkler restrictions, even though the dam level is fine,
because, as they wisely say, it may not always be fine. So i think the
councils are maturing on water wise-ness, and people are following their
example

Water restrictions and gardens
 

"Tish" wrote in message

(*) rabbit poo, like sheep and goat poo, is "cold" - unlikely to
burn
plants, so is safe to pop straight onto the veggie patch.

The only poo I don't use fresh is chook. I like my cow plops and
horse plops to be very fresh and have never had any problems using
them anywhere.

Water restrictions and gardens
 

Farm1 wrote:
"Tish" wrote in message


(*) rabbit poo, like sheep and goat poo, is "cold" - unlikely to

burn

plants, so is safe to pop straight onto the veggie patch.


The only poo I don't use fresh is chook. I like my cow plops and
horse plops to be very fresh and have never had any problems using
them anywhere.


Case in point.
These idiots wouldnt know where to start saving except at the edge of
the general public...It wouldnt be businesses that are wasting water and
they have to blame us?
One moment the Labour party in Victoria says more dams wont solve the
problem, the next we have a Labour polititcian saying (tonight) "istn it
lucky we have the huge Thompson Dam." Huh?

Anthony O'Brien from Energy Australia says that is time taken up doing
activities such as shaving, playing with toys, singing, daydreaming and
brushing teeth.

"That's an activity that perhaps people can look at whether they need to
do that in the shower or whether they can just do it over the sink," he
said.

Er Sorry mate, havent sung in the shower for years. I cant you guys are
making all the wrong noises...Its too deperessing!!!

Vote well vote often but not for the ones in power....Vote for the ones
who sing in the shower....

Water restrictions and gardens
 

Jonno wrote:
lucky we have the huge Thompson Dam." Huh?

Anthony O'Brien from Energy Australia says that is time taken up doing
activities such as shaving, playing with toys, singing, daydreaming and
brushing teeth.

"That's an activity that perhaps people can look at whether they need to
do that in the shower or whether they can just do it over the sink," he
said.
What a thick dipstick.
So, what is the difference between the water running continuously in the
hand basin whilst you shave and/or clean your teeth and it running
continuously in the shower for the extra time it takes to shave and/or
clean your teeth,.


Coming up to a long hot summer and I've just had Integral Energy out to
butcher my street side shade trees, including one poor struggling
Melaleuca amarillis[1] that would need a tone of dynamite to have a
icecube in hell's chance of touching the powerline.


[1] Yes, I know they can grow into a medium tree, in wet area, but we
are on a sandstone ridge and it has intense root competion with half the
dripzone covered by road and guttering and has done little other than
survive for 20 years.