Drought and Gardening: What Can I Do?
By MARK G. STITH
Been a little dry in your neck of the woods? You're in bad company. Every state in the Southeast is suffering some level of drought conditions. The National Weather Service ranks droughts according to their severity, using four levels. It gets bad when the ranking is Severe, and goes worse at the Extreme level rank. Exceptional is the worst of the bunch. There's only one state in the entire country with that dubious honor. That state is Alabama, where I live and garden.
Alabama is in the middle of the worst drought in 50 years. Actually, the drought (unofficially) ranks as the worst in 100 years. What does that mean to gardeners? Let's look at the statewide effect first, then I'll get personal. Bottom line: It's made me be a more responsible gardener. And a better caretaker of Mother Earth's most precious natural resource.
Here's the bad news. Alabama has had to date 39 drought-related incidents, from fires to dry wells and low water reservoirs. What about the states bordering Alabama? Mississippi has had 6 incidents. Tennessee and Florida, 19. Georgia has had 13.
Huntsville, Alabama, in the northern part of the state, reports 16.49 inches of rainfall as of mid-July, and that's a deficit of 19.06 inches. And guess what? October is typically the driest month of the year. Not good.
Lake levels are down. What used to be lakefront property has turned into muck-front land. Outdoor water restrictions across the state range from prohibiting any watering to odd-even day alternating rationing.
And here I am putting in a new landscape with dozens of plants, including trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals. Oh, plus a vegetable garden. Not exactly good timing. What can I do? I can't afford to let these plants die. But outdoor watering is prohibited. Period.
Necessity really is the mother of invention. Here's what I'm doing to save my investment:
1. Using "gray water," including collecting drain water from the washing machine and shower.
2. On the rare occasions that it has rained, placing at the gutter drain spouts and setting out large plastic buckets at natural drain areas.
3. Placing a shallow container, like the one used to collect oil from the car's oil pan, at the air conditioner's pipe outlet.
The total amount of water collected using these measures, varies from a minimum of 10 to as much as 30 gallons. And that is plenty to water my babies. Yes, it means a lot of hand watering. I have a small fountain pump that saves a lot of time by pumping otherwise wasted manually watering each plant/flower bed. But since my washing machine is one of those new front-loading high-efficiency models, the drain water is too soapy to use on plants. I just mix it about half and half with the other water collected, and that works just fine.
Is this a lot of trouble? Yes. Do I miss just turning on the spigot and walking away? Yes. But I'm doing at least two things that make me feel good. One, I'm saving my plants. If those newly-planted river birches croaked, I would feel like dying, too.
The second thing I'm learning to recycle water. Water that I pay for and would otherwise go down the drain. Considering the powerful move towards going Green, I think what I'm doing may become a permanent practice, drought or no.
So come on, exceptional drought. I'm ready to take you on. I may lose a plant or two in the battle, but I'm going to win this war. I have to. There's a planet at stake.
Copyright 2007 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
