This week's podcast guest is Brittany App, professional photographer and documentary filmmaker. Brittany is completing her film, Where There Once Was Water, which dives into the California drought and the quest for a sustainable future.
Here's a question urban gardeners ask themselves at least once while standing next to a garden hose as the smell of chlorine wafts across the yard. George from Wisconsin proposed it this week on Ask Gardenerd (edited for length): "Hi, A few years ago I noticed that my garden never looked as good after I watered it with tap water as it did after a rain. At first, I attributed it to laziness: maybe I was stingy since I had…
Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency as California has yet another year of lower than average rainfall. In the case of 2013-2014, almost none. Not only is rainfall at an all-time low, temperatures have been at an all-time high. (Excuse me, 80° in January?) Is this just a new drought, or is it the new normal? There's no way to know for sure, but we all need to prepare for having less access to water. What can we do…
A forward-thinking gardenerd wrote in this week:
"I am considering a gray water system to use on a vegetable garden. Is this safe to do? If so, is it considered organic?"
My first thought was, no - it's not really safe to use, but it might be with the right system. Then I took to the cyberspace waves and found a few bits of information:
In many states it is actually illegal to use gray water on vegetable gardens. You should check with your municipal sewage service to see what laws apply where you live.
In states where gray water systems are legal, they ...
A recent addition to the Gardenerd community asked:
"I am wondering what kind of water source is acceptable for organic vegetable gardening. Specifically, I am on a city water supply which contains chlorine and other additives. Should I try to find a garden hose filter (if these exist) or would it be better to use my reverse osmosis system indoors and carry the water to the garden? Thanks for all your help."
This is a great question; thanks for writing in. My opinion about filtering water for the garden is basically that if you can do it, all the ...