A gardeners nightmare – drought and water restrictions
Here in the Western Cape, South Africa we are experiencing drought conditions and as of 01 November Level 3 water restrictions apply. In a nut shell .. no hosepipe watering, no irrigation systems, no filling swimming pools and so on…
Our back garden as seen from our back patio door….. we are already losing the lawn (this will be sacrificed) and focus our efforts on the garden beds which have some exotic plants. Thankfully we did plan an indigenous garden to encourage the birdlife…. And these plants are water-wise and hardy so hopefully will survive.
After a lot of soul searching we have decided to forego our vegetable and herb garden and only do container gardening. There are still a few crops in our vegetable patch which we will hand water, as well as some ‘seed’ plants. We will not sow anything in the ground this year###
Peas
Green Beans…bush variety
Carrot plant going to seed, these will be dried and kept in freezer until required
I recently blogged about Bokashi tea and I will be doing an experiment around the container crops this time around.
I planted cayenne chilli seeds in the three back trays, and baby marrow (corguettes) seeds in the front two trays. I will be watering the back trays in the following manner …. First tray on the left with plain water only, middle tray with diluted bokashi tea once a week and the last tray twice a week
In the picture, the tub with the bokashi tea contains tea diluted about 15:1 and I will use 100ml to the litre when watering. I will make a short follow up post in three weeks time, and then weekly if the difference in growth warrants it.
Hopefully this drought will break soon. It is relentless. Last week the temperature was 35C here most days.
ahhh, if u only know how sad this makes me... and summer is only starting !!
That's an interesting plan. Do you use any gray water, like from your kitchen, showers, or washing machine? Some crops will do alright in even drought circumstances, like amaranth or Jerusalem artichokes. Drought is no fun at all, though. Here's to more rain, soon!
We do use gray water from the showers and wash machines. We use eco friendly soaps and detergents. I also have a cold water shower which I move around the garden and shower outdoors..... But that only in hot weather :)
That extra water will help a lot! It would be great to see a post from you about your gray water!