Water Woes

When we lived in the city we never had to be concerned about water.  We turned the tap on and it was there – plain and simple.  We didn’t think twice about giving it to our house plants or using it to water the flower beds and lawn.

Living on an acreage this is no longer the case.  We now have our own water well and city water is no longer an option.  Like many other homes in our area, our water is what locals refer to as “Soda Water.”  Soda Water is basically soft water; it has a high pH, a high concentration of sodium, and tends to have a lot of tannins.  If you were to drink it, it would be similar to drinking flavorless fountain pop.  It’s considered potable but one needs to be careful because of the high sodium content.

Like humans, too much sodium is not good for plants.  Although different plants have difference tolerances, a guideline for what is too much sodium is 69 ppm.  Our water has 354 ppm.  If we were to use it to water our plants, the sodium would stunt their growth and eventually kill them.  Because of this, we can’t use our well water to water anything. 

With our well water not being plant friendly, we are at the mercy of Mother Nature to provide enough rain to sustain our garden and lawn.  We have rain barrels at just about every down spout to collect whatever precipitation falls over the summer.  (Our storage capacity is about currently about 400 gallons.)  And when it doesn’t rain, we load our 120 gallon tank into the truck and head to the city for water.

To conserve water, we don’t use sprinklers and we don’t water the grass.  My husband says we have “acreage grass” meaning we don’t fertilize or water it – we leave that to Mother Nature.  (Maintaining 3 acres of grass is enough work as it is).  When watering the garden we use watering cans or a watering wand.  It takes a bit more work and concentrates the water around the plants where it is needed.  A welcome benefit to this is the weeds don’t get watered so there are fewer weeds.  Hooray!

This year having enough water is already becoming an issue and we haven’t even planted yet.  Despite the heavy snowfall last winter, we are in need of moisture as we have had very little precipitation since the snow melted. 

Thankfully, due to a few thunderstorms last week we now have about 150 gallons of water stored – it’s a start!

If you are unsure of your water quality, there are many laboratories that you can send a sample to for testing.  Results are usually received quickly at a minimum cost.  The last thing you want to do is kill your garden with water!

Helpful Tip:  Rain barrels can be expense.  Car washes tend to get their soap in plastic barrels that are similar in size to a 45 gallon drum.  We use these as rain barrels and get them from a local car wash at a cost of $25 each.  They require a bit of labor to wash out the soup residue(pressure washer works great) but its worth the money save.