Most houses try to divert water from gutters into the street as quickly as possible, which then goes into storm drains and in our area, eventually into the Bay. What if we thought about our watersheds as a water capture system. Your house can be part of an effective water capture system returning thousands of gallons of water to the local environment.

Let’s Rethink Rain Barrels:

Typical use of rain barrels is to store rain to be used later.  

House roof area - 1000 sq ft - most single story houses will be twice that.
1” of rain = 625 gallons of water.

Average rain barrel - 50-65 gallons so you could refill one barrel 10 times with 1” of rain. 

A low annual rainfall, 10” = 6500 gallons. Average rainfall, 20” = 13,000

The most efficient way to store thousands of gallons of water is in the ground. 

My rain barrel method:

Divert gutter downspouts into 65 gal rain barrels. When the rains come, I attach a garden hose to one of the spigots on the barrel and run the end of the hose into the yard, preferably an area with mature shrubs and trees. Especially good if you can heavily mulch the ground. From time to time, I move the end of the hose to different areas. Even if all you can do is move the the end of the hose a short ways from the house and into the ground, it will have plenty of benefit. At the end of the rainy season, I close the spigot on the barrel to store some water for the dry season.  Rain barrels are designed to have a spill over area. In a heavy rain storm, you might get water overflowing the barrel because the hose can't divert it fast enough.  That doesn’t happen often in my experience..
That water not only can soak deeper into the ground and send roots deeper, thereby protecting them from the hot, dry surface in the summer.  An inch of rain falling on the ground only goes about 1” deep into the ground.  With enough water, it will slowly seep deeper into the land, hydrating and nourishing all the living soil organisms which will in turn store more water in your soil.  

Basic permaculture principle regarding water - slow it, spread it, sink it.  Capturing it in rain barrels (slowing) long enough to divert it to the land (spread it) where it can slowly sink.  If enough water is sent back to the land, we could begin to refill our water table.  It will also return to creeks and rivers more slowly and over time so more water stays on the land, supporting a steady habitat for wildlife! Water is life - capture more life for our yards, our communities, our planet. A virtuous cycle!

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Raised planters with drip irrigation (black tubes)

In the Garden

It’s been a pretty dry couple of weeks, and I was just thinking about turning on my drip irrigation again. If you don’t have drip irrigation installed yet, it’s a pretty straightforward thing to do and it has many benefits:

1. You save water — drip irrigation uses lots less water than sprinklers or watering with a hose. It also prevents evaporation. You can save 30-50% water using drip irrigation over conventional watering systems.

2. Much more focused watering — since drip irrigation aims water at the roots, your plants get a longer, more concentrated watering time. The water goes where it needs to go, without getting on leaves (risk of burning in the sun, or getting a fungal disease) or around the plant (more risk of weeds taking water, not your plant).

3. Very adaptable — more conventional systems are hard to move around. Drip irrigation can be moved easily and customized to whatever plant system you’ve got.

According to this guide from Green Thumb Nursery, there are a couple types of drip irrigation components:

• Porous Soaker Hose: these are made from recycled car tires, and are great because all the water goes right into the soil. They’re especially suited to plant beds and rows of shrubs.

• Raindrip Drip System: “The beauty of the Raindrip Drip System is that you just have to set it up and forget it. You simply attach the timer to the faucet, connect the supply line, lay it around your garden, and let the automated system do the rest. It distributes water more efficiently than traditional watering and saves water, time, and money. It is a great method to use to water your plants during a drought, and when there are watering restrictions.”

• Micro-sprinklers: these can mist or be run to specific plants, and they use much less water than conventional sprinklers.

Main line hose (black), with drip hose (brown)

You can get drip irrigation systems at all major home improvement stores. My system is from Dripworks and I really recommend them — it was an easy setup and has been very straightforward to maintain over the years.

Happy dripping!

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

In Our Community

Image: StateOfIsrael

It’s the worst drought we’ve seen for years here in California and in the west overall, and I’ve been thinking about how to reduce my personal water usage. Granted, the individual can only do so much, but together, we can make a collective difference.

Surprisingly, some of the methods to reduce water use are a little counter-intuitive, but let’s start with the ones that are obvious:

• Shorter showers. Turn off the water when shaving, time yourself (I like to play music, and when I know two medium songs are done, so is my shower), use 2-in-1 products to cut down shampooing time.

• Reduce landscaping water. Use drip irrigation instead of sprinklers, plant drought-resistant plants, reduce or get rid of your lawn.

• More efficient laundry. Only doing laundry with a full load, and using high-efficiency washing machines if you can.

• Better dishwashing. Most dishwashers these days are high-efficiency, and even if they’re not, they use water MUCH more efficiently than handwashing dishes. Reduce or eliminate hand-washing.

Now for things you might not expect:

• Lower your electricity usage, and switch to renewable energy - electricity production in California requires a lot of water, and water requires a lot of energy.

• Eat less meat, particularly red meat. Do you know what food has the largest global water footprint? Beef. It takes approximately 1,847 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef — that's enough water to fill 39 bathtubs all the way to the top.

• Move away from high water use crops. The biggest water use crop in California is alfalfa, which is used to feed livestock, but after that, it’s almonds and pistachios, and then rice.

• Advocate for high water use crops to be grown in other parts of the country where there is no drought. The Midwest is full of commodity grain, but could grow many other things. Get involved with The Farm Bill and advocate for diversification of crops across the country and supporting farmers.

Together we can make change and help turn things around, making California and the west a more sustainable place to live. The only way we’ll get through the upcoming crises is together.