10 ways I'll be saving water in my garden this summer

You would think that in rainy Seattle, we wouldn't give a thought to conserving water in summer. But in reality, the months of July, August and September are very dry. We do what we can to minimize water waste in our yard, but still keeping the plants healthy looking.

I've listed 10 of the ways we'll be saving water on our gardens this summer. Maybe something here will spark an idea in you. Share your tips in the comments. I'm always looking for new ways to conserve.


1) Soaker Hoses

Instead of watering an entire area (and encouraging weed growth in bare patches), I use soaker hoses to water specific plants and areas. I use leader hoses (non-porous hoses) to bridge the gap between the faucet and the area to be soaked.

2) Mulch Plants 
For the most part, I use free mulch -- coffee grounds (both from Starbucks and home), dried shredded leaves, grass clippings, compost, and when I see a tree company in the neighborhood, I always ask if they're trucking the clippings somewhere, and ask if they'd like to dump them in our driveway. I've gotten a lot of free branch chips this way.

3) Donut Berms
With trees and shrubs that are newly planted this year, I'm making donut-shaped mounds of soil to surround the trunk of the shrub/tree, keeping clear about 6 inches or so from the trunk itself. These berms prevent run-off of water, keeping it near the root zone of these new babies.

4) Homemade Drip Irrigation For The Yard

Using 1 gallon milk jugs, flip the jug over.

Poke 2, 3 or 4 holes into the bottom of the jug, with a nail, corkscrew or ice pick (I use a cork screw, and just screw it through the plastic).

Add a few small stones to the jug to keep it from blowing away on a windy day.

this is rain water, hence the dirty coloring

Place on soil near shrubs, fill with water, replace cap, but leave it just a tad loose, so air can come in as water seeps out. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour for the water to seep out, minimizing run-off. Refill as necessary. Great for places where you don't want an entire length of soaker hose, or are too far away from any water supply.


5) Homemade Drip Irrigation for Potted Plants 
Using 1 or 2 litre bottles with lids and a power drill with very small drill bit,

drill or poke 1 hole into the cap of the bottle.

Flip the bottle over and drill 1 hole into the bottom of the bottle.

bad photo, I know --
trying to get a pic of the hole drilled into the bottom

Hold 1 finger over the hole on the bottom of bottle, and fill with water, place cap back on.

Turn upside down and bury slightly in your pot of plants.

The water slowly seeps into the soil, instead of a huge rush of water that happens with a hose or can, and most of which then comes back out the base of the pot. In my pots, these take about 20-35 minutes (small vs. large bottles) to drain into the soil. These can also be used on house plants, tucked in the back of the pot, they're less noticeable and your plant will thank you for the continual sips of water.

6) Saving Kitchen Water
I have 2 watering cans, I keep one down by the rain barrel, the other I keep up on the deck, just outside the kitchen door. I wash lettuce and other leafy greens in a salad spinner. I dump that rinse water into the watering can on the deck, to be used to water plants up near the house.


7) Rain Barrels

We have 2 rain barrels under downspouts from rain gutters on our house and garage. Typically, the rain water lasts until late June to early July. One good rainfall in summer will fill each can to the top, and we'll be good on water again for a week or two.

8) Letting The Lawns Go Without Watering

We don't water the lawns in summer. The front lawn won't dry up until early August. But the back lawn will stay green all summer, due to shade.

We mow less frequently in summer, and keep the mower blade set to 3 inches. Longer grass blades shade the root zone and slow any evaporation of rain or dew. It may not look as prim and tidy as a short lawn, but it will stay green longer.

Also, with the front lawn, once June hits, we leave the clippings on the lawn, as a mulch. We bag the back lawn clippings, as that lawn stays green, we don't want to be tracking in grass all summer, and we can use those clippings as mulch around shrubs.

9) Repairing Hose Ends

We've driven over the ends of some of our hoses that were left in the driveway. This leaves the metal screwing end of the hose slightly crimped, just enough to keep the hose from sealing to a soaker hose properly (spraying water all over a walkway or driveway).

I've bought one of these inexpensive hose end repair kits and will be attempting to repair the hose myself (first time for doing this -- hope it's easy). Likewise, with hose reels which have developed leaks where the hose attaches to the reel. Ours needs a repair with some watertight glue and a crimping band. I'll be attempting to make this leak-free once more.

10) Relocating Plants to the Correct Placement for Their Sun and Water Needs
In our dry patches (which believe it or not we do have here in the pacific northwest), sedums and other succulents are the way to go. I am slowly moving these succulents to the dry spots where I don't wish to spend my precious summer hours with a watering can. In addition, I have some water-loving plants which could really benefit from being placed out of direct, hot sun. A little plant swap is in the plans.

Ten of the ways we'll be saving water this summer. I remember a time when water was so cheap and plentiful, my parents didn't give much thought to water conservation. But times have certainly changed, haven't they? Do you have any tricks for saving water in summer?

A case for cooking with single-ingredient foods

What is a single-ingredient food product? It's a food product that either needs no ingredient label at all (whole fruits, vegetables or grains), or when you turn the package over, the list is short, maybe just the base food and water (and maybe salt), or possibly some vitamins and minerals added (as in the case of liquid milk).

In the last two decades, there has been an explosion of flavorings, colorings and additives to the foods that line our supermarket shelves. Foods that used to be so simple, have now been re-created as complex products, with proprietary information that is rarely divulged to the general public. Have you ever phoned a food manufacturer for ingredient information? You would think I was asking for the top secret pass code to the vault at Fort Knox. All I wanted to know is, what goes into a brand's flavored coffee?

Single-ingredient foods seem to be passing the way of the covered wagon. Nostalgic to think about, but not really profitable for the giant food manufacturers. And this is a problem.

Food manufacturers have been working to create ultra-appealing products, through the use of added ingredients, such as flavorings, colors and other additives. Teams of market researchers work in tandem with kitchen chemists to produce more lemony lemonade, yellow-er cakes, cheesier-appearing mac and cheese, and softer whole grain breads, than any home-cook can do using basic ingredients. These contrived food products are as enticing in their aroma and looks, as they are memorable on your tongue.

Check that box of cake mix in your pantry. Are there any colors added? A common trick of the trade is to add coloring to the mix, to fool you into thinking the product is richer in flavor. Do you know what? I don't like to be fooled. I had to bake a cake using a mix last month. It was yellow cake mix, and it called for whole eggs added to the dry mix. So, it should have come out yellow on it's own, right? My scratch-baked yellow cakes always come out yellow. But the manufacturer of the mix didn't think their product would be quite YELLOW enough. More yellow coloring implies richer flavor.

A product with more implied flavor, sells better. Plain and simple. The main goal of the major food manufacturers is to get you hooked. You see a boxed product on the shelf. It looks better than you have ever baked from scratch. And so, you return to the supermarket, week after week, to buy your family's new favorite manufactured food products. Don't be deceived by the pretty picture on the front of the box. Always check the ingredients to know what you're buying.

Besides being deceptive, why is ultra-enhancing a food product a problem? Well, for starters, how can you get a child to choose a plain piece of fruit over a additive-filled, super colorful, aroma-enticing pouch of fruit snacks? And it isn't just children. Fully grown adults have trouble making the healthier selections. Have you ever made scratch mac and cheese? It was probably a pale shade of cheesy orange, in comparison to the blue-box mac and cheese product. You set the two dishes side by side, scratch-made mac and cheese, and blue-box mac and cheese. I think that the bright orange stuff is going to have a lot of appeal for the non-nutrition savvy person. And yet, the scratch made mac and cheese, if made well, can be a main course, with protein, calcium, and whole grains. While the blue-box stuff is best left as a side dish to an otherwise healthy meal. So, nutritive value is another very compelling reason to opt for the close-to-nature version of our foods.

The other significant problem with these ultra-enhanced food products affects so many in our population. These extra ingredients, even in minute amounts, cause allergic or sensitivity problems for many of us. Case in point, I have a strong allergy to malted barley flour and extract (as well as some gluten sensitivity). I had bought a small bag of decaf French vanilla flavored coffee for myself to have as a calorie-free treat, without even thinking about the ingredients. It's coffee, right? How bad can that be?

So, I was enjoying my cups of flavored coffee, over the course of a month or so, and I wind up with a severe gluten sensitivity reaction, the one that brought me back to GF living. But I didn't realize that it was this coffee that I may have been slowly poisoning myself with. (Obviously, without lab testing, I can't be 100% certain, but with a series of eliminations, it appears that this was one of the culprits, at the least.) No where on the packaging was there any mention of malted barley extract. It simply stated that it was artificially flavored.

After about 2 weeks of feeling pretty good on a GF and dairy-free diet, I had another reaction. I scoured my food journal and could not come up with one single slip. I had been faithful to the GF thing, completely. No eating out, cooking all my food at home, watching out for cross-contamination in the kitchen. The only change I could identify was that I had run out of my plain decaf coffee and been using the artificially-flavored French vanilla every day, several times per day. I went online. Did some research, and discovered that I am not the first to have a gluten or allergic reaction to this kind of coffee or artificial vanilla flavor in general.

It appears that, in the US at least, some artificial vanilla flavoring is made with some sort of malted barley extract. This does not have to be listed on a product like artificial flavorings or flavored coffees, here in the US. Simply "artificial flavorings" is enough in labeling. Well, not only do I have some gluten sensitivity, but I am also allergic to malted barley. I've known this for 25 years, and have done a good job reading labels on food products and avoiding ones which clearly state this as an ingredient. But some things have managed to slip past me over the years.

Recently, I had been sipping "poison" several times per day, completely oblivious to any possibility that I was bringing harm upon myself. The flavored coffee has since been put away. My husband, who does not have gluten or malted barley issues, will probably enjoy the last few cups. And I am symptom-free once again.

I never paid close enough attention to all-purpose flour, either, in my home-baking, thinking that if I made it at home, then I was in control of the ingredients. Well, in my kitchen audit this last month, I really read all packages, including my 50-lb sack of all-purpose flour. Malted barley flour is an added ingredient to many US brands of all-purpose flour, as it feeds yeast, caramelizes the crust and improves texture and flavor of many baked goods. It's typically not added to 100% whole wheat flour, just so you know.

I had always known not to eat malted barley extract, but not thought about malted barley flour. If I return to gluten baking for myself, I'll be trying one of the brands that is free from malted barley flour.

And what about artificial vanilla flavoring that we buy in small bottles for home baking? I have started another batch of home-brewed, real vanilla, but it won't be done infusing for another couple of months. So, to tide us over, I bought a small bottle of artificial vanilla. All the ingredients' listing states is "water, sugar, caramel color, artificial flavor, citric acid, sodium benzoate". There is no information on the ingredients used in the artificial flavor. I had been adding this artificial vanilla extract to my gluten-free brownies, for the past month, and did have a few stressful days, when I ate more than a couple of the brownies. Here I thought I was "being good" in my eating.

If I had been smart to begin, I would have researched every ingredient that went into my home cooking/baking. You live a little, you learn a lot. I know better now.

So where does this leave me? My cooking (and eating) style has shifted to using primarily single-ingredient foods. I've cooked and baked this way, for the most part, for years. But now I'll be even more diligent about what I consume. Any multiple-ingredient foods that I cook with will be scrutinized. That means I may be making my own ketchup, worcestershire and steak sauces this summer. I'll forgo manufactured extracts and flavorings. Even something as simple as baking powder has more ingredients on the label than are really necessary. A home-blend of cream of tarter and baking soda will work well in practically all baking (you just can't "hold" the batter or dough, once the dry and wet ingredients are mixed, without losing some of the leavening power). I'm now very glad that I make yogurt, bake bread, can salsa, pickles and chutney, and make pie dough from scratch. These activities that seem so very homemake-y, are the very activities that will keep potentially allergenic and sensitive food products and additives out of our family's diet. When you cook or bake using single-ingredient foods, you can see in an instant, the harm or health you'll bring to the table.


You may not have any food allergies or sensitivities in your household. But you may care about the wholesomeness of your meals. Cooking and baking from scratch, using single ingredients, will deliver whole foods' nutrition and save you some money, to boot. What's to lose?!