Dubbaman
A few toke's a day.
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2007
- Messages
- 3,266
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As man of us have noticed increases in electric bills and found ways to fight them using CFLs or by turning off more things around the house, Ive noticed an increase in my water bill. As i thought about how much water i have been using for my plants and the extra that i have been using with the extra hand and clothing washing that i do from being in the dirt with my plants. I started to think of ways to cut down on water use from the house,so i though about collecting water from natural sources, and heres what i found out.
In nature the rain that falls has a pH of 5.6 and this seems a bit acidic when most of the city water is a pH between 6.5 and 7.0. Water that has been refined and is of pH 7.0 is only considered pH perfect because it has been made potable for human consumption and processing.Though for any type of vegetative plants this is not true, a high pH in water can wash out vital nutrients from the soil. Let the collection begin.
This is a very simple way to collect rain water, take a few buckets and set them out when its raining and collect the rain for use. Best thing is you can do what with it the pH of water goes up when you add nutes to it and when using rain water it wont go up as much, which in turn will help the pH of your soil stay lower too. you can also do the same in the winter collecting snow. i recommend that you still don't use (or eat :rofl the yellow snow, or any from the pile out at the end of the drive way as this will most likely have a high salt content (from the street salting) and other things in it. I recommend getting your snow from off of things like picnic tables, swing sets,chairs,and even your car, anything that is off of the ground will be a bit cleaner. By this i mean it wont have leaf, twig, or debris in it as much as it would if you just scooped it off the ground.
As it is winter and my part of the world has already been pounded by Old Man Winter, my examples here will be in the form of snow. however if you are to do this (and i have) with just rain water you will get what you collect in your bucket and its ready to use,the snow (for obvious reasons) will have to melt and warm up before it can be used. Heres what you can get.
For my collecting i use 3Gal (12Qt) buckets that i bought from the local Dollar Store. I just set my buckets out in the yard in the open on a table when it rains and how ever much it rains is how much i get in the bottom of the bucket.As for in the winter you can pack away lots more.Again its a simple process of taking your buckets and going out and playing in the snow and filling you bucket.Again for snow collection i recommend getting it from places other than the ground. Fill your buckets up with snow and take in to melt.Thats easy enough, Ive found that when i pack the snow to the top of my bucket i get about 6Qts (1.5Gal) of water to every 12Qts (3Gal) of snow thats not bad when you think that most of us only use a few Qts every few days for our plants. It takes most of the day for a bucket of snow to melt but this process can be made to go faster with use of a heating pad, space heater,hair dryer etc.
So if your like me and want to lower your water bills (as well as the rest) this can be a very low time consuming way to get some good old nature pr oven pure water at a minuscule cost.Happy Growing, MOJO for all. :bong2:
In nature the rain that falls has a pH of 5.6 and this seems a bit acidic when most of the city water is a pH between 6.5 and 7.0. Water that has been refined and is of pH 7.0 is only considered pH perfect because it has been made potable for human consumption and processing.Though for any type of vegetative plants this is not true, a high pH in water can wash out vital nutrients from the soil. Let the collection begin.
This is a very simple way to collect rain water, take a few buckets and set them out when its raining and collect the rain for use. Best thing is you can do what with it the pH of water goes up when you add nutes to it and when using rain water it wont go up as much, which in turn will help the pH of your soil stay lower too. you can also do the same in the winter collecting snow. i recommend that you still don't use (or eat :rofl the yellow snow, or any from the pile out at the end of the drive way as this will most likely have a high salt content (from the street salting) and other things in it. I recommend getting your snow from off of things like picnic tables, swing sets,chairs,and even your car, anything that is off of the ground will be a bit cleaner. By this i mean it wont have leaf, twig, or debris in it as much as it would if you just scooped it off the ground.
As it is winter and my part of the world has already been pounded by Old Man Winter, my examples here will be in the form of snow. however if you are to do this (and i have) with just rain water you will get what you collect in your bucket and its ready to use,the snow (for obvious reasons) will have to melt and warm up before it can be used. Heres what you can get.
For my collecting i use 3Gal (12Qt) buckets that i bought from the local Dollar Store. I just set my buckets out in the yard in the open on a table when it rains and how ever much it rains is how much i get in the bottom of the bucket.As for in the winter you can pack away lots more.Again its a simple process of taking your buckets and going out and playing in the snow and filling you bucket.Again for snow collection i recommend getting it from places other than the ground. Fill your buckets up with snow and take in to melt.Thats easy enough, Ive found that when i pack the snow to the top of my bucket i get about 6Qts (1.5Gal) of water to every 12Qts (3Gal) of snow thats not bad when you think that most of us only use a few Qts every few days for our plants. It takes most of the day for a bucket of snow to melt but this process can be made to go faster with use of a heating pad, space heater,hair dryer etc.
So if your like me and want to lower your water bills (as well as the rest) this can be a very low time consuming way to get some good old nature pr oven pure water at a minuscule cost.Happy Growing, MOJO for all. :bong2: