jason holdstock

I think you'll find the difference between a fresh water loch and sea water is fairly well known.
Also, since his family has been there generations, the fact he was the fire chief just officialises the muir burning experience people like him have in spades.
If putting sea water on a massive burn is a bad idea, it is possible they used it to dampen the heather before the fire reached it. I didn't question him on specifics I'm afraid.

It was my ex-firechief neighbour in Scotland who told me about them using sea water. Maybe he was talking nonsense.

The 2022 fires in the Gironde "shocked" France apparently. Translated from The Gironde Dept. website

"In the summer of 2022, wildfires of unprecedented scale and duration broke out in the Landes de Gascogne mountain range, destroying more than 30,000 hectares of forest in Gironde (notably in La Teste de Buch, Landiras, Landiras St. Magne, Saumos, and Arès).
The speed at which the fires spread forced the prefecture to carry out a precautionary evacuation of nearly 50,000 people.
An exceptional situation calls for an exceptional response. Unprecedented measures were implemented to avert disaster. Despite the scale of the fires, the crisis management system proved effective and functional.
A positive outcome despite the scale of the crisis
Although described by Emmanuel Macron as “the largest fires in our history,” these fires resulted in no loss of life.
Less than 1% of all built structures were destroyed—approximately 30 buildings and five campgrounds, out of more than 4,000 buildings at risk (including nearly 600 located in the burned area).
The risk of the fire spreading to the entire Landes de Gascogne mountain range was averted.
Sensitive sites, including a high-threshold Seveso site and several non-Seveso ICPE facilities, were protected.
Risks related to gas have been eliminated (industrial storage, pipelines, etc.).
This positive outcome was made possible by the implementation of an exceptional and innovative crisis management system, as well as by the outpouring of local, national, and European solidarity that supported the firefighters’ efforts.
An extraordinary crisis management system"

Hardly any building loss, no loss of life.

I visited the man made forests  behind the Dune de Pyla in 1992 and remember being shocked myself at the extent of dry fallen debris and mountains of dead pine needles just left, with firebreaks often not exactly cleared, that forest being all pines planted to dry out a massive marshy area. That summer it was certainly dry. If that burnt I don't see how anyone can have been shocked.

Meteo France has a forest risk page  which says today, and a few days ago when I last looked, minimal risk.  

https://meteofrance.com/meteo-des-forets

Forests in France are often quite old, mixed not many evergreens but not maintained leaving much dead underbrush. The rural depopulation that produces cheap, characterful old houses for expats like me to buy also gives increased fire risk because there isn't a young population to care for everything like it used to be.

As I said above, where I used to live in Scotland fireponds were the norm. A rural fire truck will only carry maybe 2-4000 litres of water so the average family temporary swimming pool would give one fill. Previously, sucking water from ditches, ponds and even the sea might be done because that's the only source away from a slow mains fill at the station. The sea would certainly damage the equipment but even then they would and have if needed.
Up there as now in France, the main cause of fires starting seems to be humans unfortunately.

Depending on the water restriction level at the moment where you are you maybe could buy an above ground swimming pool to give the fire brigsde a top up? Where I used to live people often dug fireponds just for that purpose because there were no hydrants.
We have restrictions on water use at the moment but if you have a pool and kids you can still top it up, and you can keep watering your veg :)

I'm thinking about setting up a catch system this winter, most of the roofs here don't have gutters yet. So rows of 20litre tubs under roof edges, decanted into a kids paddling pool is the current hi tech setup.

But although I can work out how much water to collect in theory if I was doing it for people, can anyone point me in the direction of how much water different plants require? Volume per lettuce, per pole bean, per kale etc?

I realise soil type plant type, etc etc will create big variables, and the answer will always be more than I have, but, any ideas?
Cheers

I just about stopped wearing waterproofs about ten years ago when I first move to northern Scotland. I bought an overshoot from a Sheffield UK company called Buffalo which is a quite heavy pile inside with a fairly tough Pertex outer. Lots of venting zips. Specifically their Special 6 shirt. You will still get wet in heavy rain, but not cold and not steamy, so less stink. If I stop what I'm doing all zips get closed, snug and warm. Working hard, all vents open, up to about 12 degrees C. Above that I then got their unlined Pertex top, same design, merino wool long sleeve under.

Waterproofs only now get worn if I'm doing something so grubby that hosing myself off after would be a good idea.

So I think less sweating in my buffalo means less washing :)

paul wheaton wrote:Crop rotation
  - corn it out

  - wheat is out

Move to a system that will pump out food without any seeding, fertilizing, irrigation ....   without any care at all ... the only effort is on harvesting.  That is the permaculture goal.  To design a system so well that years can pass with zero care.  And with zero care it grows more food and is spreading.

But until I achieve that nirvana in twenty years time I will still be fed mostly by the supermarket unless I have annuals, some of which will self seed to that future happy time.

Jeff Marchand wrote:problem with the fallow approach is you have no hope of ever controlling  weeds.  One approach I want to pursue once I have chickens next year is the 'dueling gardens' technique.  Keep chickens where last years garden was and where it will be again next year.

If you've spent three years controlling the weeds where you are growing, then put that to "fallow" maybe seeding clover at the start, you still think weeds would go nuts?

I just started reading "Gardening When it Counts" by Steve Soloman.
It has some very astute observations, like plant spacing to not need water (once the seedling sets off) which is kind of obvious but not what the lots of compost and squeeze as much in as possible brigade always suggest.
Anyhow, for a family garden he suggests having two areas, leaving one fallow for three years while only using the other. Plus feeding his design of universal compost.
So crop rotation from a wider perspective.

The only time I bought a dishwasher was having moved into a house that you had to run more water before you even got hot out than the dishwasher used in its whole cycle.