Hi,
Thanks for your information. I live in Lanzarote, Canary Islands. Hot sun, hot winds, no rain. Couldn't grow anything for 10 years or more, until I did an online Permaculture course with Geoff Lawton and was hooked. I finally saw the light!. So, as the property was new (we bought 1000m2 in Nazaret) I quickly raised the garden walls with wooden pallets. That added 1,2m to the height. I planted acacias as my support trees (free, quick growing, nitrogen fixers, produce lots of mulch) (don't you just love it when something has more than 3 functions?) and began to plant fruit trees with a lot more success than previously. I dug a hole 1m3 for each tree and added with lots of compost to the dry dusty clay soil. I also planted a 8lt plastic water bottle close by. All these bottles are connected and I 'deepwater' my trees with them once a week from a 1000lt tank at the top of the property so they are gravity fed. The acacias also give shade of course. I also have another water system that allows water to be dispersed around the base of the tree, so that the fine feeder roots also get humidity. Deep mulching has taken place over time - I went through a black and decker chipper and a Bosch chipper before I got my hands on a Hansa. Expensive but well worth it.
So, the wooden pallets stopped the wind around the property (it still howls overhead on windy days though) and the acacias have lessened the intensity of the sun and helped reduce the impact of the wind chafing of fresh young leaves.
Back to the water supply. Water here is incredibly expensive and after using up your maximum of 20 tonnes per month of cheap water, it quadruples in price. Hence the need to save every drop. I diverted all grey waterfrom the bathrooms out onto the back garden. Luckily, the land slopes away from the house, so gravity assists naturally. The kitchen water gets used too, but I put that through a 'trough' I created using swimming pool liner and gravel. I made the container from pallets. the water first passes through a fat separator, then travels through about 2 m length of gravel (filled with compost worms which eat up all the gunk) Then it slowly trickles out onto the highest part of the garden where it drips incessantly. The washing machine water is also used, but that's in the garage under the house so it's the only water which requires a pump to get it up to the top part of the back garden. This water gets separated into several 'feeders' which in turn pour out the water onto day lillies, No filter system is needed and the lillies do fine. The fruit tress are a good 3m further down hill from this water, so I figure that by the time it hits them, it's clean enough.
Lanzarote has no natural water supply, it comes from a desalinization plant (hence the expense) It also contains a lot of chemicals (yummy) especially chlorine. The water that feeds the 8lt bottles hidden in the soil by the side of the fruit trees, sits first for a week in a 1000lt tank, so that the chlorine has time to evaporate. I have no idea if it does, I'm just going on what I've been told is beneficial for the plants!
Finally, I collect all the rainwater I can off the roof - I have gathered/bought over the years a total of 10 1000lt square plastic tanks and if I'm lucky, they all get filled over the winter months. This water gets used during the especially hot months of August and September.
If I could think of any way to make my own water, I would!
So I have several different tap watering systems, the use of the grey water from the kitchen and bathroom
and the rain water - the pallets to protect plants from the strong winds and acacias to shade the land
but my water bill is still way too high!
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