Garden, Plant, Cook!

Monday, June 03, 2019

Plant The Rain!

Curb Cut illustrating runoff diversion.
Dear Folks,

Our Monsoons will be arriving later this month, so I thought I would encourage you to think "plant the rain" aka water harvesting.  As simple as curb-cut to rooftop rain catchment and storage, find one or more that works for you and your gardens.

Images here are from the video (link below) illustrating "curb cutting" which notches through curbs to direct rain runoff, otherwise lost.

I have written many times about our property which is bermed in such a manner as to catch up to 3 inches of standing water (never has happened) everywhere but the driveway.  This means every drop of rain which falls, stays on our property, except for that which goes on to the driveway.  This allows us to turn off city water to the gardens frequently during rainy times, to the point where we stopped irrigating main gardens (I have a series of pots on watering schedules that needed to be kept on) for about 6 weeks this year.

"Plant The Rain"

Brad Lancaster is a desert permacutlure and water-harvesting guru.  His amazing journey is shown in this video and worth the approximate hour of time to watch it all.

From "under-the-radar" water harvester to internationally recognized authority, Brad Lancaster shows how the simple process of rain harvesting makes a huge difference, creates an entire permaculture area using plant litter and recycled materials, and life filled with color, shade and food!

He shows how his sustainable homestead functions from water, to food production to a total permaculture environment from input to output.

Coral Vine (Antigonon leptopus) is an edible - I just learned about from this video.  His website is in the "more" section below the video.

https://youtu.be/KcAMXm9zITg


Brad Lancaster is a frequent instructor on training Watershed Management Group offers.

Watershed Management Group is the go-to for help in harvesting water. 

WMG offers a complete array of water-harvesting landscape services for your home, business, school, and beyond. We also provide unique hands-on educational programs, customized trainings, and municipal watershed planning support. 

As more and more developments seem to be planning to "use" water, they do not address harvesting it.  Rather they want to rely on plans to distribute state collected water "to them."

It is more than time for existing residents to take advantage of the rain which falls on their property.  Legally any person or business can harvest rain fall on their property in Arizona.  Some states are actually moving to take that right away from their citizens. 

My fear (and others have the same fear) is that with drought contingent plans memorialized recently, developers trying anyway they can to fiddle with how they prove water access, and farmers to be the first losers in a drought, individual home owners/gardeners NEED to consider potential water restrictions on their gardens.

You have a water right - use it! 


-- Catherine, The Herb Lady

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