So long story short, I’ve been thinking about doing this anyways, but the city had to put its worst water restrictions into place with an unprecedented water main break. The cities Largest main break which is a 2m pipe (6 foot 6 inches for the neighbours). This means zero outside watering, it’s a great thing I recently installed water barrels.

BUT they are out already trying to keep my top inch moist for my seedlings, so here we are, straw mulch and trying to use as little water as possible to do my part.

  • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    19 days ago

    If the barrels aren’t enough, could you install a cistern? It may only be subject to regulation if you’re collecting rainwater in it.

    • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      19 days ago

      It probably won’t rain in the next week before it’s fixed and the restrictions are hopefully lifted anyways. I would probably just buy a few cheaper barrels at that point as that’s a lot of physical labor.

      Edit, yeah checked the forecast, less than a mm expected next week unless we get some afternoon boomers.

      • Etterra@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        18 days ago

        In that case you might want to just water sparingly regardless and eat the fine if you get caught. No idea how much it is of course, since it varies from place to place.

        • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          18 days ago

          It’s $3000 for a stage 4 violation, RIP.

          I would hope they wouldn’t come after the people trying to do the right thing, they usually go for education over punishment with bylaw issues, but with the severity of this I think they’ll skip that this time if you’re blatant about it. It’s just food, people gotta eat. I’ll let my lawn and my flowers go.

          Like I spent $100 damn dollars on mulch to use as little as possible already.

  • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    19 days ago

    I’ve never done much gardening but this seems like a great reason to try to do more rainwater harvesting. Thought about funneling gutters into a barrel with some debris catchers. Might make for a good backup in times like this.

    • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      18 days ago

      We were on stage one water restrictions last year and were on an advisory up until a week before the main broke. So I had already installed 2 just a couple weeks ago, looks like I may get 2 more this year or next now though. They didn’t last long.