Water Ban and Drought HELP!!!!

Have any of you used any kind of (preferably organic) wetting agent to help during a drought? We are on a garden tour in a couple of weeks and our town issued a water ban- go figure this was the year! I don't mean to sound selfish, but I really want to keep our gardens looking good for just two more weeks. Any suggestions?

Mostly shade gardens.

Thank so much-

sjb

What are the restrictions with the watering ban? If it's that you're only allowed to water on certain days of the week, make sure you water extra thoroughly the days that you're allowed to and you ought to be fine. If it's based on restricting total amount of water, you might try some creative solutions like saving water from household uses (rinse water from the washing machine, leftover water after boiling pasta, use a bucket to collect the water that gets wasted while you wait for the shower to warm up, etc.)

There are products like Drought Defense that you can look at--I'm not aware of any organic ones but if you're trying to go organic for safety (vs for being certified organic) it sounds fairly non-toxic and non-harmful http://www.soillogic.com/products/drought-defense

Make sure all your beds are mulched real well, that will help. Yep, save all the household water you can, bath water, dish water, etc.
I only knew of the crystals you put in the soil in your pots, but while checking found they have garden ones too


http://www.gardeners.com/Terra-Sorb-Drought-Proofing-Crystals/Watering_DroughtProofing,14091,default,cp.html

I put a bucket under the drain from my air conditioning unit. It collects about 5 gallons a day. Washing machine water is good as long as you don't use bleach. My dad had an aunt who used to bail the water out of her bathtub, but that was back in the days when all they was water that was hand pumped.

This may not be exactly in either the spirit or letter of the law, but in years past when we haven't been allowed to water except to hand water, I've watered the things that were really desperate with a watering can so that I could claim it was "reclaimed water".

I suggest you look up the exact wording of the ordinance. We have restrictions in place during daylight saving time and there are some exceptions (like mentioned above) that allow watering for newly seeds lawns, by hand held devices, by soaker hose on a timer, and one exception that first you shall be issued a warning then fined if we're found to continue after warning. Of all the folks I know in my city not one individual has even been warned. I think our city is using it more as a scare tactic than city revenue.

Collect rain water

If there's no rain kinda hard to collect rain water. We had over a month with no rain, all rain barrells were empty.