Annie Collins

They love mountain mint plants! It's crazy! All the bumble bees, native bees, and honey bees, actually weigh the plants down so that they're bending over from all the weight of all the appreciative insects on them. And they're so easy to grow as well. Nothing fussy about them. You'd just need to see if you are in the right area for them, of course.

Ooh, this does look quite doable to build. And if one used a couple of pallets screwed together and a bit of higher 2x4s, one could start to have something big enough for some serious storage. I like it!

I knew a person who had a very expensive and very high quality custom house built in the mountains. He was very impressed that after a particularly bad storm, just a little bit of water had trickled in, I think on one of the walls. My point is, it seems that if there is enough rain and wind together, even an amazingly well built house can show a bit of water intrusion. He never saw it again. Maybe your situation is just a one-off as well, especially if there was higher wind involved with the rain.

I am going away this weekend and will be trying the method shown in the below linked video in a non-air conditioned garage while it is supposed to be about 98 degrees outside. Here's hoping it will do what it claims!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUoj_DGsOZY

Yeardly Arthur wrote:
Our answer is to catch as much as we can however we can, starting with two rain barrels harvesting water from the roof. I've seen criticisms elsewhere that all this does is gather a uselessly small amount of water, and threatens foundations in the process. Unfazed, I dug shallow gullies from the barrels to the gardens to allow immediate runoff to the front gardens, while setting up wide spillover containers to hold more of the water right next to the barrels. I use these to fill 1.5liter wine bottles for direct irrigation to individual plants..

Wow, quite the set-up! It sounds to me like you would greatly benefit from getting at least one IBC tote. You'd be going from a 55 gallon barrel to a 330 gallons container (at least the ones I have, which I think are pretty standard). I just put ours up higher so gravity helps us get the water where we want.

John Wolfram wrote:
The soil in that area is a heavy clay soil with a CEC of about 30. This is my first summer using the setup, but I have not had an issue with it drying out.  Admittedly, June in my area has been crazy wet with 12 inches / 30 cm of rain, so the real test has not yet begun. So far, mosquitos have not been an issue. My hope is that the depth and volume of the trenches will be sufficient to support a population of wildlife that eat mosquitoes. So  far, lots of frogs have shown up along with a few muskrats and the ducks seen in the picture. If it becomes an issue mosquito dunks / BTi is something I would definately consider for mosquito control.

Thank you, John, very helpful. Being that this is your first year with it, and add to that that you've had a lot of rain, I think I will check back with you in another year or so (if I remember). Meanwhile, I will probably just set up more IBC totes. I'd much prefer capturing water that doesn't involve any plastic, though, which is why I am very interested in your set-up. Our CEC is around 25 which is quite a bit lower than yours. The whole thing may not work in our situation anyway, at least not with just using soil as the "holding vessel".

Nick Tragotsalos wrote:   Hello,  
Would it be possible to send me 20 comfrey bocking #4 roots to Australia New South Wales Sydney?
Kind regards, Nick

Australia is very strict with what it allows to come in. I am sure it is illegal to send any live parts of plants in.

John Wolfram wrote:I’m in the process of building out my irrigation system. For collection, I’m digging out trenches in a low section of my property that are two feet wide and 2-3 feet deep. Then using a trash pump to send out water via agricultural sprinklers at a rate of 100-150 gallons a minute.

Hi John - I'm wondering if the trench is lined with anything? I like this simple set-up and it would be inexpensive to do, but I am wondering how the water is staying put? Do you have heavy clay soil? Also, what about mosquitoes? Do you use those dunks? Dealing with a drought at the moment in an area that normally gets decent rainfall, like so many others, really has me thinking about setting up alternative systems. I have the IBC totes, but when needing to water a young growing food area with its roots not independently reaching into the earth for water yet, well, those totes run dry pretty quickly. I'd have the room for digging a couple of trenches on the property and even have a slight slope for leading the water to them, but just trying to figure out what's keeping the water in there with yours. Thanks for any information on that.

What a beautiful, beautiful home! So soulful!

Tereza Okava wrote:

I haven't seen this video since I was a teen (!!) but it still had to be said, for people of a certain age....

And yet-- is there anything more important to plant?

Amen, Sister! It's how I start the day every morning... sitting a few minutes in quietude and putting this beautiful planet along with all its inhabitants, right down to the microscopic, in a bubble of love.