Hey all!

Remember that this summer, if you collect your water change water in a water butt or some other large container.. you can water your garden and greenhouses with it.

This can be easily done by shoving a hosepipe up your outlet hose to your canister filter (if you have one.. if not, improvise!).

Trust me, this makes FABULOUSLY tasty produce, and is also obviously is very good for the environment. Adding this to any growing plants, indoor as well, is extremely good for them as it contains a very balanced fertiliser range, and isnt way too strong either. OMG tomatoes love it as well.. hugely so infact.

Some of the bigger tanks will produce far more than youll probably use, but at least some of it going to be recycled, so its still worth it.

Happy hot summer days!

Flora

You come tell it to rain in California:-)

We get most of the rain in a 4 month period, then it's bone dry.
In the UK? Don't you folks get lots of rain?

Hah! Easy to do there, but we have snow metl the rest of the time.
But as temps rise, the level of snow will diminish.

Regards,
Tom Barr

hehe i didnt say collect the rain collect the water change water!

the UK is actually a whole lot drier than most people in America think it is, especially in the last few years.. technically some parts of the country have been in perminant drought since 2005 rainy UK is a bit of a myth thats getting farther and farther out of date.

We got the fog also, but they often take pretty pics only a few weeks after the rain, the place is pretty for about 8-14 weeks, then everything turns brown........except for the 12 million acres of infernal yellow star thistle

Irrigation with left over tank water is a what I always try to add into folk's systems. It's the prefect source. It's not that much water relative to the usage, which tends to be very poor still here in CA. Unless you have like 300-500 gal of tank or more, it's not that many cubic ft. Watering those lawns is the worst thing, then they never use the mulch/compost, they cart that off at a high expense, some add ferts to their lawns, otherwise the soil gets depleted.

So you are basically an irrigating grass farmer

I'm not a big fan of the grass lawn.
Takes a lot of work too, have to buy a mower.
Irrigation, overall a PITA.

Some claim it's for their kids.
My son and his cousins live in areas without grass, we call it native forest
Their friends and their parents are jealous, not sad for them.
Lawns can be found at parks and sports fields.

Having been all over the UK, it looked pretty darn green when I was there.
Foggy. Drizzly. That was a long time ago (1980).

But so is San Francisco and it's pretty dry here. So the myth may be true.
The fog is great here, cools things down.

Regards,
Tom Barr

hehe its warmed up ALOT since the 80s, word is is that the jetstream has altered path so the south of the UK gets much warmer drier weather now.

I like my lawn, Ive just totally reseeded it from scratch so ive gotton all anal about it! lol but its not very big, not like your big american lawns i can mow mine with a push mower in about 4 minutes

I live right on the edge of the Purbeck Hills in south Dorset which is very lucky for me we get very much warmer drier weather here than even 10 miles inland due to a large ridge of hills blocking us from the mainland. Our climate in Dorset is probably similar to mid-France 10 years ago.. which is kinda scary seeing as they told us it would take 50 years to get like this, that was only 2 years ago.

I live in SE PA, USA, where we don't have a problem with insufficient water, but my lawn has evolved into an ecosystem that doesn't need to be watered anyway, because i don't water it. Ever.

There are a number of species of green plants growing in it, at least 20. In dry conditions some stay green and take over the space occupied by those that need more water. In wet, overcast weather those plants that had been replaced prosper and spread. Or so it seems.

In any event, the lawn looks OK and is up to neighborhood standards, and worms and other things live under it, to the delight of the robins and other birds.

Bill

Hi, Flora,

Don't be scared. Climate changes take place over thousands of years, not years or decades.

In most of the USA (and other places in the northern hemisphere) there was a period of substantial cooling from the 1930's to the 1970's. In fact, for a time in the 1970's a best seller here was "Dark Visitor: The Coming Ice Age". Today there are "documentaries" about "global warming." Same thing.

The fact is, we are nearing the end of an ice age. I spent the weekend at a place in New York that was covered with several thousand feet of ice 12,000 years ago. Fortunately for the people there, it has been getting warmer since then and, hopefully, that will continue. But - eventually it will start getting cooler there and elsewhere.

Good luck!

Bill

Well, 90% certainty of the world's top climate researcher's rather conservative report suggest otherwise.............

I'm more inclined to believe it and plan for that.
Short term stuff no, but longer trends, most certainly.

The English Riviera anyone?

The issue with warming trends: less water and less snow.
Big trouble for California that relies on snow and the state's largest economic sector: 28 Billion $ in farming every year.

Read the DSM cycle with respect to Diatoms in this month's BR.
I wonder how that might figure into things.

It's 95F right now here and it's going to get hotter. Good news is that I can do the John Muir Trail early this year since there's hardly any snow in the Sierras.

I plant natives anyway and never cared for lawns, more darn work, I don't like grass farming

Regards,
Tom Barr

You are a scientist. Surely you aren't looking looking at what has happened in the last few years and using that to extrapolate a ten thousand year trend?

And, never mind that "90% certainty of the world's top climate researchers . . . ." That is a political statement, not a scientific one.

Here's a link to get you started on the subject of global climate change, not the political subject of "global warming." Climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Among other things, that site shows temperatures for the last 400,000 years, based on ice and sediment samplings.
It also shows the significant variations in atmospheric CO2 levels over time.

Bill