What is your favorite method of conserving water?this year I am concentrating on mulch and removing all weeds
Water conservation
training my plants to grow deep roots by watering very deep but less often. removing weeds. in between rows if the weeds get to be a big nuisance and it gets too hot I will put down black pond liner which holds moisture and kills the weeds underneath. Fire ants love the dry zone so I only get away with this because I keep the fire ants out mostly.
compost dug in beats mulch hands down!
All the usual on water conservation of course and today, I put up shade cloth. It is amazing how it drops the temp under the shade cloth. I hope it will also reduce the need for watering.
Good topic Grits ~ sad more folks aren't interested in water conservation.
where is a good place to get shade cloth?
lowes usually has shade cloth also Tractor Supply
Yes, I've even seen it at Wmart in the garden center as well as other garden centers.
guess I'll search online and compare prices. I never walk into walmart if I can avoid it, even if their price wins.
Agreed !
I have seen it online with companies like Growers Supply. http://www.growerssupply.com/farm/supplies/cat1a;gs_shade_houses_shade_cloth.html
But this that I used had come from ebay earlier in the year.
There's a 10x10 ft on Amazon for 19.99 or so, plus shipping. Granted it is blue and white striped, but the one that is green in the SAME size is $50, no thank you... Home depot and lowes and TS didn't come up on search, I didn't order anything...
My neighbor has a nifty little triangle one over his herb bed, it's green and ties off the back 2 sides to a fence, front side to a pole of some kind.
For the moment, I'm still digging out wildflowers, grass, and wild volunteer kentucky wonder beans from the year of the drought when they had the texture of toothpicks, climbed the shrubs and shot seeds all over the lot...
I have vegetable and amaranth seedlings in the greenhouse. I still have probably 1200 lbs of compost, and it's 100 in the afternoon so I'm about to go to bed and get up before the sun.