The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity…That’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. - Gaylord Nelson (Founder of Earth Day)
April 22nd has been set aside to celebrate one thing that we might take for granted, the Earth. Billions of us call this beautiful blue marble home. We are dependent on its resources - the very air we breathe to remain alive, the water that we drink, the food that grows from its soil. On this particular day, we take a step back from our everyday lives and acknowledge the state of our beautiful planet.
Whether you believe in global warming or not - or you feel an urgent calling to recycle in your own home - we should all, as humans, take into account what we have left in our wake. That once-unblemished lake you swam in as a child now sits with its banks strewn in garbage. The wooded area outside of town you played in is now full of the hustle and bustle of a mall. Little by little, the Earth we once had is permanently gone.
On April 22nd we should all take some time to give a little something back to our planet. Think about this: For years, scientists have searched the universe for another planet like ours. They come up empty each time. There is no other planet like ours. We should act accordingly.
The Earth is made up of over 9 billion people.
What is the one thing we all have in common?
Earth.
Happy Earth Day, everyone!
From Mister Landscaper
Happy Earth Day!
Our deck does not have stairs and the only outdoor faucet is at ground level, so watering has always been a pain. Once my wife saw that this "gadget" I was adding to the deck for my veggies really worked, it sunk in (pun intended) that it meant no more running back and forth to the kitchen with a watering can several times every morning. That meant she could now double the number of flower pots on the deck without any extra effort beyond the initial setup.
So, 25 dripper stakes later, we were able to spend Earth Day morning enjoying a cup of coffee on the deck instead of making watering can runs. Looking forward to many more mornings like this.
That sounds awesome! I've been looking at the patio sets for a birthday or Mother's Day gift for my mom. The deck is about 5 feet off the ground, so my mom usually has to go down the seven steps and around the side to reach the spigot with a watering can, and make several trips back and forth.
So far, do you see any potential drawbacks to the patio watering setup? Anything like certain things that would make the visibility of the pipes less noticeable? What about changing the configuration of the drip lines if things move around, or like in the summer my mom takes her hanging baskets down during thunderstorms so they don't fall and get destroyed -- how much extra work is it to relocate drippers or remove hanging baskets that are watered by the drippers?
To help hide the tubing, I used the tan 1/4" hose and ran it around the perimeter of underside of the deck, held in place with the 1/4" hose clamps. Wherever the line ran close to a pot, I cut the line and inserted a barbed tee connector. Then I ran a line from the connector up to the pot, running along the outside of the desking so that most of the tubine is not visible by someone on the deck. If the spaces between the boards are wide enough, you could also push the tubing up from underneath right next to the pot.
I end the run to each pot with an adjustable dripper stake. I used these instead of the fixed-output drippers because it lets me adjust to fit the needs of each plant as it changes throughout the summer. So when my tomatoes get big and need more water, I can open those up more without worrying about overwatering smaller plants. And when a plant has run its course, I can just close the dripper all the way so that it functions as a shutoff valve too.
I left a little slack with each run so that we could move the pots around some if needed. If we decide to permanently remmove a pot or relocate it to another part of the deck, we can remove the tee connector and replace it with a straight coupler to reconnect the tubing where it was cut. There's a coupler included with dripper stake that you don't need when using 1/4" tubing, so I've saved them for this purpose.
At first, I was a little worried that I might not have enough water pressure for such a long run of hose and so many tee connectors. The main loop is 8' above the spigot and some of the drippers are another 5' above that. Well, I'm using 225' of 1/4" tubing (no 1/2"), 25 tee connectors, and 25 drippers without any problem. I was even able to use the recommended 25 psi pressure reducer.
Great information! Thanks! I can't use timers yet because the outdoor spigot leaks quite a bit -- I need to fix that before I add-in a timer. There's a separate Mister Landscaper setup for my vegetable garden out there, but I keep that confined to the garden about 100 feet from the house and run a hose to the Mister Landscaper connection fittings out there.
I'll have to do a bit more investigating -- the deck is 15x20feet with planters on the rails, hanging baskets, and random containers around the edges and down the steps. I need to check spacing between planks, rails, and all that.
Thanks again for the good information and tips!
@RichardC
Yeah, I disconnected a turned off mister from the main line a few weeks ago and forgot that the water on... got a shot of 70psi in the face =)
Starting off composting seems to take a while (a few months) to get the first good batch of usable compost, but if you stick with it you have a continuous supply. Seems like I have heard something about a rapid compost technique somewhere that involved putting plastic over top of the materials to be composted, and within 2-3 weeks it is usable -- here's a publication with more information about that: http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/compost_rapidcompost.pdf
Also, check your local town or city for free (or low cost) leaf compost from the public works department. The leaf compost or mulch is good to use around plants as a mulch, then as the leaves decay you can work it into the soil to improve the soil nutrients.