pleasures of hand-watering

It’s not a proper gray­wa­ter sys­tem, but we’ve got­ten used to show­er­ing with a bucket below us, both to catch the water before it gets warm enough to use and to catch what­ever water splashes into the bucket. We still lose usable water down the drain, but we’re putting what we save to good use in the garden.

hand-watering-a-buckwheat

With only a small part of the yard on auto­matic water­ing, I’ve always done a lot of water­ing by hand. Now I’ve been doing it a lot more using reclaimed water.

Most of it’s been spot-watering. Not every­thing in the gar­den needs the same amount of water, so why not water only the things that need water? This is a tiny buck­wheat seedling I’ve been encour­ag­ing to get established.

It’s a great way to get to know your plants bet­ter. At the same time you learn a lot about the soil they’re grow­ing in, with some areas of the yard accept­ing a lot of water, while oth­ers just pool up and drain slowly.

graybeard

Another water-conserving thing I’ve been doing is to let the facial fuzz go a few more days than I used to–Good thing facial hair is in these days. More fuzz = less water needed to take it off. (Don’t let the color of the hair get you off-subject. Remem­ber that I’m talk­ing about graywater, not gray hair…)

But back to gray­wa­ter: One con­cern I have with using water from the shower is what hap­pens when bath prod­ucts get dumped in the gar­den. I’m work­ing on find­ing out more, but in the mean­time I’m only water­ing the orna­men­tals with the gray­wa­ter. A local blog Linda turned me on to, Angel with Dirty Fin­ger Nails, did an intro­duc­tion to the sub­ject. The post made some rec­om­men­da­tions for laun­dry deter­gents and linked to a list of a few things to avoid.

Sure, water­ing by hand is more labor-intensive than turn­ing on the sprin­klers. But I think I’ve men­tioned it before that I count myself among the gar­den­ers who enjoy gar­den­ing, not just gar­dens. Water­ing by hand is one of those great plea­sures that only gar­den­ers like us will understand.

June 27 2009 05:28 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: •

9 Responses to “pleasures of hand-watering”

  1. Alice Joyce on 27 Jun 2009 at 9:21 am #

    Good morn­ing LL,
    I also hand­wa­ter, and fill buck­ets while wait­ing for hot water from the tap! I’m plan­ning to write about the process of cre­at­ing a hand-watered gar­den, and share some tips that have devel­oped over the years of gar­den­ing in Cal­i­for­nia. A gray­wa­ter sys­tem would be great. Hope­fully one day in the not too dis­tant future, it will be an inte­gral part when build­ing or ren­o­vat­ing. For now, it’s incred­i­ble costly to install in an older home, as I under­stand it. Alice
    aka BayAreaTendrils

  2. bangchik on 27 Jun 2009 at 6:14 pm #

    Water­ing has always been real plea­sure to many peo­ple. Mod­ern water sav­ing tech­nique in drip sys­tem is good, but the plea­sure is gone.…

    The place i live, Putra­jaya, water is in abundance.

    Happy water­ing,
    ~ bangchik

  3. tina on 27 Jun 2009 at 7:06 pm #

    Ha! The gray hair is the word of the day, lots of it here too. I think it great to water by hand-you need some patience and time though, both in short sup­ply in the heat of the day, but occasionally.

  4. Country Mouse on 28 Jun 2009 at 5:38 am #

    I agree — a lovely activ­ity for slow­ing a per­son down. Water absorp­tion is not to be hur­ried. I love see­ing the hum­ming birds hover and dive across the stream of water — I usu­ally water with a hose.

  5. lostlandscape on 28 Jun 2009 at 3:18 pm #

    Alice, I’m look­ing for­ward to your piece on water­ing by hand. It’s a rich sub­ject that could eas­ily become a book. Gray­wa­ter sys­tems are so slow get­ting online, but for­tu­nately there’s move­ment locally where peo­ple may soon be able to make mod­i­fi­ca­tions with­out spe­cial permits.

    Bangchik, for us, the drip sys­tems are a bet­ter choice for many plants in that they can use less water. But it’s still an auto­mated sys­tem that sep­a­rates you from the plants.

    Tina, water­ing in the heat of sum­mer might get a tad unpleas­ant. You’d almost need to water the gar­dener at the same time just to stay cool.

    Coun­try Mouse, I haven’t been dive bombed by hum­ming­birds while water­ing, but birds of every kind seem to con­gre­gate around a drip­ping water fea­ture we have in the back yard. Even recy­cled city water is bet­ter than noth­ing dur­ing these dry months.

  6. Bird on 29 Jun 2009 at 4:35 am #

    We’ve always hand­wa­tered, and when it’s sum­mer bath­wa­ter is saved spe­cially. We use biodegrad­able soaps so it’s fine to put on the gar­den and none of our plants appear to have suf­fered. And I’ll tell you one good thing about using water­ing cans… it does won­ders for upper body strength! Why pay money to go to the gym when you can get a healthy colour, bond with your seedlings and work out in the sunshine?

  7. fountains outdoor on 30 Jun 2009 at 1:36 pm #

    I also hand­wa­ter because my gar­den is too small for auto­matic water­ing… I never tried gray water, I heard using them over an extended period can dam­age the soil struc­ture and maybe dam­age the plants. I will check the posts you mentioned.

  8. Sylvana on 30 Jun 2009 at 7:44 pm #

    I have been using grey water for a few years now. I always have a bucket by the sink when I wash dishes and have pur­chased plant-safe, biode­grade­able deter­gents. I catch wash and rinse water and water the gar­den with it. It makes me water the plants that like lots of water a lot more which is bet­ter for them. I haven’t worked out a shower or laun­dry sys­tem yet, but have been think­ing about it!

  9. lostlandscape on 30 Jun 2009 at 8:33 pm #

    Bird and Syl­vana, I’m glad to hear of your suc­cesses with the biodegrad­able soaps and detergents.

    Bird, my cur­rent proper water­ing can is more of a one-quart lit­tle dinky thing that deliv­ers water slowly and weighs next to noth­ing. Not much of an upper body work­out heft­ing it around…

    Foun­tains, it stands to rea­son that the soaps in water could affect mois­ture reten­tion and soil struc­ture. I’ll be curi­ous to see how the gar­den takes to more recy­cled water. The water out of the tap is gross enough. I sus­pect some plants will be thrilled with the extra water. Oth­ers will prob­a­bly com­plain at the qual­ity of the water.

    Syl­vana, I’m both­ered when­ever I dump a pot full of pasta water down the sink. It seems like such a waste. I should fol­low your exam­ple and keep a bucket in the kitchen.

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