It seems we’ve become obsessed with water. We’re absolutely amazed our rainwater tanks are full again, in mid-July, in Central Texas. It’s just unheard of. And all that rain brought up my problem with our insufficient way of collecting rainwater flooding into the front bed. So it was off to Tanks for Less in Austin, to get a bigger, better way to catch the rainwater. I wanted a 250 gallon, but the last one (in the color we wanted) had a sold sign, so we settled for a 200 gallon tank. It’s still plenty big for that area, and my hand-watering efforts. I’ll post more pictures, when it’s set up.
Apparently, the rain did wonders for my persistent arugula garden. It’s a solid mass of new plants in the garden, and in the field, where I threw the dried old arugula plants! I have to say, it’s really nice to have a year round supply of it.
Until our last rain event, we had resorted to watering with city water, because our 5000 gallons of water was gone. That always brings up another problem for us, because we don’t like city water (too high in chlorine, for one thing). So, we broke down and got a whole house water filtering system, along with a potassium chloride water softener. When we had the water tested, it was way too high in minerals, so we decided on the softener. We did not do reverse osmosis, because whole house RO is really expensive, and it really isn’t necessary. It’s the difference between spring water, and purified water. We’re good with having the equivalent of spring water coming out of our tap. We could’ve done RO just for the kitchen sink, like we did when we lived in the Dallas area, but given the purity of the water we now have, we don’t need to.
If you use nematodes for flea and grub control, now is the time. You need to apply them when the ground is moist. Organic Plus Nursery has had a good supply. They come in a very small refrigerated container, and are so easy to apply. You mix part of the container into water in a 5 gallon bucket, and just throw it on the yard. It doesn’t get any easier than that, when it comes to yard care! Nematodes travel where they need to.
I forgot to mention, we stopped at Taqueria El Mexicano Grill in Belton, on our way to pick up the water tank. Lunch was great, and we both had lunch specials. Don had beef enchiladas and I had mixed grill.