This week started what most people knowledgeable about the weather think is going to be a long spat of rain! I almost wish I hadn't wasted all the water planting everything last summer, but this rain will pretty much assure that everything is going to take successfully without any water this year! I sat outside for a while the other day during the heaviest rain and just watched the rain gutter work. It never got more full than in this picture, even with a good gallon a minute(atleast) pouring out of the gutter that you can see at the top of this picture. I am wondering how long it will take for it to silt up. My guess is several years at least, but for now it's working like a charm and we are making use of so much water that would otherwise collect where it isn't needed.
I also made a make-shift rain catchment with a 35 gallon garbage can on wheels on a down spout in the backyard that I have emptied twice in 4 days! The other down spout in the backward was easily redirected to the base of our orange tree, which is probably really loving the water right now.
This is a low tech solution to things like water shortages, and run-off issues that everyone can do. It's super fun to problem solve, and ultimately it saves money, water, and our wetlands(run-off issues).

I spent a good deal of time this memorial day weekend working in the front yard. I had some help one day from my sister in-law and cousin and that made the work speed by as we shared stories not worth repeating, but no less meaningful(not to mention funny!). [For some really good writing on the subject of (repeatable) stories, check out this posting by our friend Chad working in Chattanooga on a farm.] I tried to share my thoughts praising manual labor, I think maybe a little bit got through, but they peeled off after a while to play cornhole. Can anyone blame them! Our pile of weeds mounded up tangled with a green plastic mesh that must have been put down under the sod when it was laid decades back. I continue to work through my difficult feelings on labor, suburbia, living, and the environment.

In planning the front yard, I would like to make a landscape that doesn't require any watering during the dry season. My mom suggested that we make a creek bed down the middle of the space, so I worked on a design that will route rainwater runoff from the down-spout into a depression lined with rocks that will become our little creek. To form the creek, dirt would be removed to form a depression running down the middle of the yard and mounded up on either side to create little hills that run parallel to the creek. My only concern with the creek bed is that we would need a lot of rocks which require a lot of fuel to transport from where ever they come from, but I thought we might be able to get a few car loads from a beach or something. On the mounds next to the creek we would plant dwarf fruit/nut trees that would benefit from the water that collects in the creek. Around the outside of the trees I have indicated bushes of lavender which attract bees and have a nice flower in the summertime. And the rest of the space around the lavender would just be seeded with California poppy for a nice seasonal color. And for an added touch, we could move the planter box that is already there and transplant some artichoke from the backyard into the front. It would be in the shade of a young oak tree during the hot months and probably do really well there.

Slowly, I've been working on transforming our front yard from something that commands an enormous amount of resources and gives very little value in return, to something that hopefully re-aligns with the natural growing patterns of our local environment. Before I cut off our lawns water supply some two years ago, it was probably consuming water in the ball park of 10s of thousands of gallons in one summer! According to the this article,

"Most single-family homes use about 20% of the water coming through the water meter for household use. The remaining 80% is used on the lawns, trees, shrubbery borders, flower beds and vegetable gardens. It is said that about 50-75% of outdoor water usage is given to the lawn."

Put those numbers next to the "160,000 gallons of water per family per year" that the Santa Clara Valley Water District figures we use, and its pretty clear we are using WAY too much clean, drinkable water on our lawns each year.

I remember in primary school reading about America during WWII and how people supported the community by growing small gardens at home. I am reading more about this historical reference in articles about urban mini-farming and community gardens. Like the gardens in Detroit, which would otherwise be rotting corpses of homes once lived in and furniture once used.
I learned to appreciate vegetable gardening from my Grandpa in this backyard and I carry on the tradition and find new hopes of freedom and living in America. But even with my optimism and all the hard work of sustainable agriculture, the picture is still a bit grey, the color and vibrancy of it's reality are still waiting to spring forth to the masses. Here's to growing our own food together; for health, for education, for social reconnection and urban development. It's in our hands.
go gardeners!