Sustainable Thursday

With the summer season upon us and in full swing, watering the garden or your trees and bushes becomes a frequent chore.  During last weeks rain storm, I stood and watched where the water was going and I was shocked to see a good portion of it running right off my property and down the street.  I have amended the soil in my garden beds and have been slowly trying to stop the water from leaving my property, however, it was clear that a lot of it was still running off.  So the question is how can I stop that and retain that water in my garden?

Since my house sits way at the back of my property, the majority of my yard is in the front of my house and gently slopes toward the road, which encourages all the rain to run right off my property.  So how could I keep more of the water on my property?  Rain barrels?  Sure, they are great, but once they are full, you are right back to square one with all the excess running off.   So I decided to do a little research.

I found Brad Lancaster's website, books and videos.  He lives in Arizona and is passionate about rainwater harvesting.  Here is a little blurb about him from his website, www.harvestingrainwater.com.

Since 1993 I’ve run a successful permaculture consulting, design, and education business focused on integrated and sustainable approaches to landscape design, planning, and living. And as I live in the dryland environment, rainwater harvesting has long been one of my specialties and a passion. Through my business I’ve been able to share this passion and many of the fun innovations and daily adventures that come about from striving to live more sustainably and comfortably in the Sonoran Desert.  At home my brother and I harvest over 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year on a 1/8-acre urban lot and adjoining right-of-way.

I found his website and the work he has done, to be fascinating and I ended up reading his website and watching several of his videos.  I plan to read his books in the near future as well.  He has a really good video about getting your soil to absorb water more like a sponge and retain it instead of letting it all run off.  You can save a whole lot more water by having your land absorb water like a sponge, then by adding rain barrels.  Here is a link to that video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbyUz4IkjM  It is well worth the 5 minutes it takes to watch it. 

Since I am in the process of creating a garden in my front yard, now is the perfect time for me to start implementing some of these ideas and incorporating them into my garden landscaping.  Imagine when it rained or snowed, if all or the majority of that moisture stayed right in your yard instead of running off down the street.  By implementing some of Brad's ideas, I will not only create a better water situation for my new garden, but for the plants and trees that are all ready established there as well.  So take a few a minutes to either watch his videos or read his website.  I think it is really full of helpful rainwater harvesting and he has ideas we can all implement without going to the expense of adding huge rainwater collection tanks.