(gr
n
hôrn
) n.
2. A newcomer, especially one who is unfamiliar with the ways of a place or group.
No doubt about it. I feel like the wind has been taken out of my sails over the last couple days. Nothing big, just a few small bubbles burst. Firstoff, for anyone who uses rain barrels, you need to know something immediately - you NEED to attach a filtering system if you want to water your vegetables (or drink) this water. With all the unseen pollution in the sky, the pollution comes down in rain, and is washed off of your roof, through the gutter, and into your rain barrel. Here is a helpful link.
Now, from here, I have 3 options:
- Ignore the warnings and put dangerous chemicals & E. Coli into the vegetable beds.
- Filter the water
- Remove the Rain Barrels altogether.
Speaking of work, let's talk hoeing. Or, lack thereof. You see, I have weeds in my garden...I think. They look like corn. But it's not where I put the corn (The corn is growing really well by the way!). There's 10x as many, also. And when I pulled up the green weeds, low and behold, there was a seed at the bottom. So, is it a weed? Or is it some mysterious vegetable? Has my corn multiplied overnight, literally? Probably not. But I would hate to hoe all these suckers up, and as it turns out it was something useful.
What are these suckers in the middle?
Other than that, I am happy to report just a few buggy plants, and the rest seem to be growing well. We should be getting rain almost every day over the next week, so it'll be interesting to see how the plants respond (I hope well!).
Thanks for stopping by :)
Update!
With the help of a friend I think I figured out what the "grass blades" were. I'm fairly certain it's wheat! Kind of sucks, the reason I bought wheat straw to mulch was so it would not go to seed. Oh well, time to hoe!
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you posted about your rain barrels tonight. We were just talking about that. Tomorrow I am scrubbing out the barrels. I am not too worried of the polution in rain water. We do not drink out of ours and the plants will get rain water anyways, but it is very important to clean the on a regular basis. Our garden is large enough that we empty two barrels in about three days. So I am rationalizing that if I clean them after each time we empty them, we should be safe.
As far as being a greenhorn... me too. This is our fifth year of a bust with raising our tomatoe plants from seeds. They just arent doing well in the big garden (the ones in the raised bed are doing a little better, but not much).
We also have more veggies growing in our compost pile than in the garden!
As far as what is growing in you raised beds... you can thank your straw for that. That happened to us the year before last. I would start weeding as soon as possible. We are talking about getting wood shavings from a saw mill, letting it cure over winter (so it wont burn the palnts) and using it as a mulch next year. (We got a late start on everything this year).
Send some rain my way! We need it. :)
lol, after forecasts all week for a week of rain, we haven't gotten a drop. COME ON!? lol
ReplyDeleteI have lots of veggies growing in my compost bin as well! Hahaha
You might look into that "first flush" thing, or something like that. Basically, the first couple gallons of water that wash off your roof are diverted, so you don't get all the dirt/leaves/bird crap/bacteria, then the water starts flowing into the barrels. It should help quite a bit :)
Good luck!
You can, as you say, divert the first few gallons off the roof so you don't get debris and bird poop and the like in your barrels, but after that it's really fine for watering the plants with. I wouldn't worry about it. As for drinking, that depends on what type of roof you have. We plan to catch rainwater off our barn roofs which are metal (fine) but not the house (asphalt shingles).
ReplyDelete