Conserving Water With Aquaponics…
Even if you haven’t decided to build your own backyard aquaponics home system yet, chances are that you already have an indoor herb garden or a small organic garden in your backyard. As most gardeners know, conserving water can be difficult, and to maintain a decent looking garden, we need to water it regularly.
Sure, lush green lawns and a flourishing herb garden will make some of your friends and neighbors envious, but what is the cost to the environment and to your bank account?
The need for and use of water is increasing for industry and personal use at a pace which is higher than the fresh water supply in many of our cities and rural areas. When the demand is higher than the supply, the prices of all commodities, even water, increases.
The cost of storing fresh water and transporting it over long distances is rising each year and demand shortages are occurring in areas all over the world on a regular basis.
The solution to conserving water is literally in our own hands, providing we learn to use the limited supply more efficiently and effectively. This is also the reason why indoor herb gardens have become more popular, as there are less pests to deal with, and the water does not evaporate nearly as quickly as backyard gardens.
Seven Quick Tips To Start Saving Water
1. The first thing to do is to check your piping for leakage. if you have a dry lawn, look for any green patches or strips of grass where the leaks may be occurring. Also, look carefully at your garden. There may be plants that look much healthier or are larger than the other plants around it, and this may indicate a water leak near that area.
Tree roots can grow around pipes and break them, and earth movement is another reason why pipes and pipe junctions crack and break.
2. Make sure you have no leaky seals on water taps since a water drip can easily cost you 1500 gallons of leakage in a year or more!
3. Use your water more effectively. Check all of your spray systems, and adjust the water path where it wastefully is spraying water on concrete paths or gravel drives. Also, be sure to set your water timers to spray at night. By spraying your lawn ans garden at night, the water will stay in the ground and will not mostly evaporate like it will if you are spraying during the day.
Evaporation is often the number one waste of water for homes, not to mention the waste of time and effort of those spraying their lawns and gardens in the heat of day.
To be most effective, you should only water your lawn and plants with a hand held hose during the early morning and evening.
If your kids want to be cooled down, then spray them and the lawn at the same time and make a game of it.
4. Use compost in your garden instead of soil. This has the benefit of retaining moisture and preventing evaporation.
By using bark chips or mulch around the yard, you will provide a layer of protection as well as keeping weeds down. This will reduce the evaporation that naturally occurs each day.
By using compost in your garden and for plant life around the yard, it will use less than 30% of the water of ordinary soils and your plants will tend to grow faster having more nutrients.
5. If you are using green detergents for your laundry and kitchen, be sure to save that water for outdoor use. You can recycle this water this way, and it will work as fertilizer for your plants and vegetables because it contains many valuable trace elements.
6. You can cheaply install grey water systems that are effective in conserving water, but be sure not to use the ones
that need large amounts of energy just to pump the water to where it will be used. There is no point in solving one problem by replacing it with another cost to your household!
If you can, collect rainwater using a rainwater tank. If you have a roof that might have potential heavy metal residue, test the water using a common testing kit to make sure it is fit for your garden or lawn. These rainwater tanks are easy to install for the average DIY enthusiast and can provide a convenient supply of fresh water when others around you have watering restrictions.
The only real problem with this is explaining to your friends and neighbors in drought times – is why you have the only green lawn in the neighborhood!
7. Get rid of that pool or spa in your yard if you use it infrequently.They may appear visually attractive, but what is the real cost of having thousands of gallons of water just sitting there evaporating?
Just filling a pool one time typically uses as much water as your family will use at home in three months of washing and bathing.
You can use the empty pool or spa as a space to plant a small aquaponic system in, or to create a restful area that can give you just as much pleasure as the old pool – without needing to clean the pool regularly or using harmful chemicals to make it usable.
Having a pool is not nearly as popular as it used to be, especially since the cost of filling, cleaning and treating the water continues to rise each year.
Believe it or not, local governments are starting to tax folks with home pools to discourage water being used in this way. This often makes the backyard pool a liability, and not an asset as it was originally intended to be.
Alternatives
Keeping our gardens and lawns green may only be viable if we all learn to conserve and store this precious resource.
If you are concerned about the high costs of maintaining a backyard garden, it just makes sense to learn more about how you can have an indoor herb garden using aquaponics. It is cost-effective, easy to set up, and requires very little ongoing maintenance.
