We had a similar experience last week with irrigation in that after we irrigated our neighbor to the west of us over watered her yard and let it flood our yard a second time. Thankfully the water stopped before topping the berm that runs along the driveway so the garage didn't flood and there was no harm done really with the exception of wasted water. Pretty irritating all the same.
Your garden looks really lovely as do the flowers and all the mulberries look delicious.
thank you! i am so glad to finally have that garden in! it has been the site of much well-trenching and piled dirt all winter & spring. :)
i was more amazed than annoyed by teh flooding, but tristan is really bothered about it. we need to build a berm so that it can't happen. of course, then the water will flood onto Gherardi's land when nobody opens the gate, but maybe that will cause some communication to shake down into the system and get people to open their freaking gates. if anybody would tell us when water was going to come, we would just make sure our gate was open. we suspect our back-of-the-acequia neighbor, who owns horses, and who is accustomed to our land being a) available for him to walk on and b) vacant & neglected. he is going to need to change that idea.
Today was irrigation day again and this time someone shut the gate before we had finished irrigating. I'm sure that it was unintentional but I'm thinking there could be a little more communication or organization or both on our block and that would be a good thing.
OMG, my yarrow is ankle high. Yours is chest high!!! ENVY!
I'm definitely going to get the berry plants. Tasty!
In the fruit department, I used to harvest pears and apples from a neighbor's tree. I asked them last fall if they wanted me to prune it back as they were a bit wild and they said no. This spring, the pear looked dead and the apple trees were sorry looking; they had them cut down today. *sob*
We have both plum and cherries, I'm sure we could work something out if you wanted to come pick some. This year with so much going on its all likely to go to the birds if someone besides us doesn't do it. We have apricots too which as you mentioned went the way of the frost this year which is probably just as well given the lack of time to do anything with them.
we'd love to trade labor for those inappropriately located baby plum trees & blackberry canes. :) we can work it out so you get a couple or a few of us for a whole day of yardwork, sometime after Mabon (that's when the schedule loosens up).
you can just come and get some whenever you want, no need to exchange yard work. Just come dig them up and their yours. I'm sure there will be things to trade back and forth mutually as time goes by.
I know you have a well and a drip irrigation system, but would it be possible to do an underground cistern of some sort to catch some of the flood water? Although, then you would need a pump and stuff, but it would be a back up of sorts when there is less rain, maybe?
I'm intellectually attracted more to storing our water high, and letting gravity bring it out. That of course requires collecting it from a source higher than the cistern would be, limiting the amount of water it would collect in the first place.
From a purely technical point of view, pumps and dead simple devices, and they can be operating by hand as well as electrically.
In this particular case, the flooding itself should be directly addresses, both by improving the acequia near us but also talking to the ditch rider to work out the kinks in water deliver to our neighbors.
If we're going to flood irrigate this garden, we should do it directly from the acequia, rather than collecting acequia water.
More broadly, however, there isn't really a problem with an underground cistern for use like you're describing.
Beautiful pictures! Unfortunately, my (huge) mulberry is a non-fruiting variety, but it makes lovely shade...
My ditch water ardently desires to go water my neighbor's corn, to the east. Drummer and I are working valiently and steadily to convince it to just water the 'back 40' of *my* yard. This involves a lot of berming, trenching, and regulating of just how far we open the ditch gate - I get a LOT of pressure off of the acequia.
Fun times. And I hear ya about weed seeds and ditch water...probably not the best bet onto the vegetables, although it's soooooo tempting...but it would involve more berming and trenching, at least in my case. :-P
yeah, the other major hurdle in using acequia water on the garden would be the levelling, furrowing, and berming of the garden! a task we have not even tried to think about. :) the driveway and street are definitely lower than the garden, so the berm would have to be serious!
mulberries are awesome shade trees. the one by our driveway is almost perfectly located to complete the ring-of-shade around our house. :)
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Your garden looks really lovely as do the flowers and all the mulberries look delicious.
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i was more amazed than annoyed by teh flooding, but tristan is really bothered about it. we need to build a berm so that it can't happen. of course, then the water will flood onto Gherardi's land when nobody opens the gate, but maybe that will cause some communication to shake down into the system and get people to open their freaking gates. if anybody would tell us when water was going to come, we would just make sure our gate was open. we suspect our back-of-the-acequia neighbor, who owns horses, and who is accustomed to our land being a) available for him to walk on and b) vacant & neglected. he is going to need to change that idea.
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I'm definitely going to get the berry plants. Tasty!
In the fruit department, I used to harvest pears and apples from a neighbor's tree. I asked them last fall if they wanted me to prune it back as they were a bit wild and they said no. This spring, the pear looked dead and the apple trees were sorry looking; they had them cut down today. *sob*
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that is dreadful about the neighbors' fruit trees! the world needs more fruit, not less.
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Thank you!
I'm deeply sad that your neighbor's fruit trees were cut down. That inspires a quiet rage in me, thinking of how much time was destroyed in that act.
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From a purely technical point of view, pumps and dead simple devices, and they can be operating by hand as well as electrically.
In this particular case, the flooding itself should be directly addresses, both by improving the acequia near us but also talking to the ditch rider to work out the kinks in water deliver to our neighbors.
If we're going to flood irrigate this garden, we should do it directly from the acequia, rather than collecting acequia water.
More broadly, however, there isn't really a problem with an underground cistern for use like you're describing.
Reply
My ditch water ardently desires to go water my neighbor's corn, to the east. Drummer and I are working valiently and steadily to convince it to just water the 'back 40' of *my* yard. This involves a lot of berming, trenching, and regulating of just how far we open the ditch gate - I get a LOT of pressure off of the acequia.
Fun times. And I hear ya about weed seeds and ditch water...probably not the best bet onto the vegetables, although it's soooooo tempting...but it would involve more berming and trenching, at least in my case. :-P
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mulberries are awesome shade trees. the one by our driveway is almost perfectly located to complete the ring-of-shade around our house. :)
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