End of the World. Beginning of a new one. The Life of Amberwolf.

[dogman dan]

If the rains would return, you could eventually do what I have in my front lawn. When I moved in, the front was dirt, but being near the virgin land, I had lots of good native grass and wildflower seeds in that dirt, and it just happened to be a wet summer.

I simply weeded anything with a spiky seed, or cactus, and let the native grass grow. Then per city code, I do mow it when it's more than 12 inches tall. Over a few years, I collected and added native flowers to the mix. Now it's a really nice xeric lawn, with wildflowers in the spring, lantana and damianita shubs, and a small strip of non native summer flowers. I water the whole thing only in spring, and in summer just water the lantana and flowers, about 10% of the front lawn area. Summer rains bring in different grasses than those that grew in spring. Just get a tiny patch of native, and it will spread over the years.

Where you are, you will have to start with collecting some native grass seed. If you ride north on that bike trail, you should find some when you get to where the concrete ditch turns to dirt. Of course, the neighbors Bermuda will mix in like it or not. It might be you have to look for that seed in late spring rather than fall. It's that different a climate, even though we both have the same 5 inches of rain a year.

The other thing to do is keep mulching. When fall comes, grab that neighbors bags of leaves, and compost it. Better still some crusher fine, but you'd have to pay to have that delivered, and then have help to spread it.

 

[amberwolf]

12" high? I wish. Here 6" is the max, and people sometimes complain at 3". (usually realtors trying to sell houses).


As for the typical sparse desert landscaping---I don't want that. I know it would be the most practical, but it doesn't provide enough shade, and most of the plants I see around here in people's desert landscapes are sharp, pointy, spiky, etc., all of which are dangerous to me and my clumsiness, and probalby not any better for dogs running around not paying attention (Hachi would've been a prime candidate for losing an eye with a Yucca, for instance, as often as she would run full tilt right into walls and doorways not paying attention )

Plus, it's not what I want to look at. Not exactly the most practical of reasons for deciding to spend gobs of money I don't have on maintaining, but...there it is. :/

I do like the wildflowers and such, and some of the other things, but most of the ones I've seen around here don't look like they'd make good groundcover or screening or shade. Been a while since i've been down those trails like you rode while you were here, though.

What I would REALLY like is a forest around my house...but that won't happen. I guess if I work at it long enough, gradually I can get something like that, but it will be a very very long term thing. It took most of the time I have lived here (almost 14 years I think, when the fire happened) to get things where they were then, so...longer than I can wait to do this all again, for the practical parts of shade and screening from the street.

Of course, I wasnt' really working at it until the last 7-8 years, a bit after Mom died and I found that taking over what she'd been doing with it helped me, and was more productive than sitting around on the internet all the time. :lol:



As for gardening questions....most of them I've already asked (if not explicitly) in the last many pages of this thread, I guess. But I'll see if I can work up a specific list.


Gotta head off to work soon (at Samurai Sam's for wifi since they gave us some near-free-food coupons at work), so more next time, whenever that comes up.

 

[dogman dan]

I totally agree about Zero scape. Flaming rocks, and spiky cactus you can't trim near without bleeding. None of that shit in my yard for sure. I practice xeriscape. You can collect some of the wild grasses though, and in winter they may be much nicer cover than the Bermuda grass. For sure they do better on a tiny bit of winter rain. Mostly I keep the yard at 6" or less.



But if you can get more xeric trees than mulberry, it will save you a ton of water. The eucalyptus I don't know much about, but mulberry is I believe, illegal to plant in Phoenix or Tucscon, because it sucks so much water. The ones you have can of course remain, but I would not recommend planting more if you want to have a lower water bill. Arizona ash is a much better choice if you want a "real" tree.

Mesquite will turn into a nice tree in time, at the price of dealing with the spikes till it's taller. But very similar, and one you might look into is called Bird of Paradise. You might be able to collect seeds from one you find, and grow that for free. Another one I really like is desert willow. You can actually root cuttings of desert willow fairly easy. Or collect seed.

Lantana is my favorite plant for the flowers, but it's a bit of a water hog too. Try to find some Damianita. It's very very xeric, and also blooms nice in the early spring, and again in fall. Look for shrubs like that, not spiky, but in public spaces. Collect the seeds and try to grow them. Most of the really good xeric shrubs can be seed grown. The other really good one is texas purple sage. Most of these xeric and semi xeric shrubs can get by on very little additional water once they have set deep roots in the second year.

Screw that spiky stuff, cholla and crap like that. But if you can get some good native grasses going, they will do better on what little rain you do get than Bermuda grass, but they act like mulch when they die back to the root in mid summer. In my yard, few mowings are needed in the hot part of the year, but they crowd out other undesireable faster growing weeds.

It's a bit like, choose your weeds. Look for native grass species that naturally grow less than 12", some get 3' tall.

 

[tomjasz]

The concept is to have highest water use plants zoned closest to the house to gain the cooling effect. And as one moves away from the house the plant zones get less water. Mulberry were banned for their pollen not water use. They can be pretty tough in desert landscapes and were widely used until some idiot singled them out because some people were bothered by the pollen. Whenever ANY tree is planted as a near monoculture problems eventually arise.

Plant trees close enough to the house to be useful summer shade and use your water to develop that effective shade. Make sure you don't use evergreens that block your winter sun. You have tons of free local resource from people in the know in your city. Use them.

The older varieties of lantana are more drought tolerant. The hybrids are not so much. BTW you have fabulous gardens to visit and see how big plants and trees will get. Place plants and trees thinking about how big they'll be in 10-20 years, at minimum. I do everything on a 50 year plan. Leave a sensible legacy.

 

[amberwolf]

I took my first "solar shower" using the sun-heated ex-waterheater tank this morning. By 930am, even without a box around it, just the heater with half it's foam insulation pried off strapped horizontally to a dolly, on the east face of a shed for morning sun, with a big flat mirror behind it, it was hot enough for a comfortable shower using just that water. I don't know the temperature, but it was way warmer than body temperature, at least 100F probably 110F at a guess. I forgot to measure it.

This is the setup, for the test:


And it was just a test, anyway, just to see if the principle would work with the tank I have, and the redneck hacked-together system did do it's job, though I wouldn't want to use it like this long-term. Eventually a hose will sunrot enough to rupture from heat, and then it'd flood, if I left the input water turned on and I wasnt' there.

There's the green hose from the water faucet at the house, into the silver hose (borrowed from one of the aquariums) which is really just an adapter from the garden hose's male output to the tank's male input. Then the yellow hose is the output from the tank, goes to the house in thru the bathroom window, with an adapter from an aquarium pump (the one used to recycle the tub greywater to the tree) to get the size down from the garden house output to the showerhead input thread.





As soon as I can, I will put together a greenhouse box to stick on the roof over the utility room where the electric water heater tank is, and drain this tank and put it in the box, then get proper hoses/pipes to run down the outside wall and in thru the dryer vent hole in the utility room wall, and over to the electric water heater tank's input and output (or drain), to create a thermosyphon system.

Since the heated tank will be a lot higher than the storage tank, it might be necessary to stick one of my aquarium pumps in the cold water return line to the solar tank, to force circulation periodically. (from what I have read, normally you want the solar heater below the storage, but I don't have that option).

I would ideally like to use one of the two thermostats already in the electric tank to switch the aquarium pump, but I'm not sure if I can do it that way or not. I have to investigate how it's wired, and see if I can directly switch or at least run a relay from it's output (which presently switches the 230V heater on each thermostat), so that the thermostat or relay then switches the aquarium pump on instead of the heater. Then the other thermostat/heater can be left intact so it can be electrically heated as well, for winter or nighttime use if I absolutely have to have water hotter than what's solar-heating-available at that moment. (at least, until I can make or find a point-of-use heater for each place I need the hot water).

I do have to fix at least one leak first, though. I already tried last night, but I guess I couldn't see well enough without anythign but the puddle being visible, and between that and my lack of skillz, and the inability to set the welder to a precise current setting (lo or hi only), I apparently kept burning thru the tank metal and had ot keep making the patch area larger and larger...and still failing to weld it completely, so water seeps thru my welds!


I'm gonna have to grind it all off and try making and welding a patch plate over my mess instead.

Oh, the pumpkins are doing ok. There's two bigger than my hand now, and a few tiny ones. (several tiny ones already got broken off from either cats sleeping on them or Tiny traipsing thru the pumpkin patch).
View attachment 4

The whole patch by the sheds is pretty big, and takes a lot of water right now, even with that it still wilts tremendously during hte day and only recovers at night, well after dark. Part of it is chanigng color and may die off. Probably damaged by being stomped on, possibly by water issues.

View attachment 2


On the previous topic: Well, I haven't planted any new mulberry in years. AFAICR we did the ones that are there when we got here, from seed from the one at the house we had been at before, and anything newer than that is from bird droppings. I did *move* some of the ones that sprouted from the bird droppings, when they were already a few feet high, so maybe that's "planting" them.... :/

I'll have to start looking into what's around here that I could deal with. Bird of Paradise ought to be easy, it's planted in parking lots and stuff all around here, and Bill & Anna have some at their place, too. I should be able ot get seed easy enough, and though it doesn't seem to give lots of shade, it would be better than nothing, especially if it is low-water-usage, great for the front yard especially.

Most of my reason for the lantana is that it is fairly hardy as long as it gets some water, makes a lot of shade and grows pretty quick once it's above a certain size. It's also pretty, and it is something my mom loved and I like it for that reason, too. Another reason is it's easy enough to grow from seed, as long as I ahve a shaded spot to do that in, that I can keep wet. Now that I've got those ex-animal-shippers as planters, it's pretty easy to do.



I've got a box of them now htat I need to split off to more boxes so they can grow without entangling roots.



Most of my reason for mulberry is taht again, I already ahve them, and it would take years to get anything nearly as big as they are already, or cost a fortune to have someone move big ones of something else to the house and plant them (cuz ther'es no way I could do that--it'd take a huge truck and crane!).

The mulberry shading the northeast corner of the house, back "porch" area, and doggie graves, for instance, is below, along with the lantana that's screening the porch/etc:
View attachment 1

I do plan for future use, size, etc., but I also need these things *now*, because I had already been growing htem for years to get to the stage I was just beginning to reach before the fire. If I have to wait *more* years to get to that point before I have the shade/etc I need, well, it's hard to sit back and twiddle my thumbs waiting while my life just passes by. Bad enough as it is that I can't do hardly anything I need to do when I need to do it, just cuz I don't have energy, time, and ability all at the same time most of the time.

 

[dogman dan]

Mulberry is a nice shade tree, but it does hog some water. But yeah, it was the pollen that got them banned from selling them.

It was THE tree here too, and when water conservation by jacking up the water bill kicked in in this town, the mulberries started to suffer badly. Dead ones all over town now, as grass lawns got too expensive to maintain. I'm not saying kill what you have, I'm just saying that a desert willow or bird of paradise will shade a wall just as good on less water. So try to find other free stuff, that's a lot more xeric than mulberry, Arizona ash, Bradford pear, pecan etc.

You can cut a branch off a desert willow, and root it. Multiple plantings can make a nice hedge, and once they get big enough to shade a wall, you can literally stop watering them completely.

You were talking about grey water earlier. Now you have a solar heater that will work great most of the year, even just as it is. I have one word for you bro. Outdoor shower.

All you need is a frame to hang your privacy screens on. Locate it of course, at the base of that larger mulberry tree. In winter, it will need real hot water. But on a nice winter day it's fine to shower ouside still. You can plumb some temporary hot water out the door with a hose.

 

[amberwolf]

If it weren't for some of our super-windy days, I probably would do the outdoor shower thing--but when it stays ~10-15mph with bigger gusts, which isn't that uncommon, it means that even if you did shower you'd be covered in muddy dust before you could towel off. And on really bad days, with habibs and the like, it tears stuff up outside that's loose at all (even breaks down those "cheap" fast-growing trees in parking lots all over town), and can be like that for hours at a time. If I had to take a shower then, I'd *have* to do it inside.

Another consideration is days like the past two and a half: I somehow managed to get (most likely) food poisoning, and when I was lucky could crawl around to the bathroom to let it out of one end or the other (or both)...and then flop into the tub to shower off. I could not have managed to get outside to shower (or anything else) until early this afternoon (it started late Saturday night, and was really bad by 3-4am). I was tempted several times to just stay in the tub and do whatever I needed to in there and just wash off afterward, but I didnt' have the energy to move teh greywater recovery pump out of there and open the drain...and I don't think it could deal with anything like this.

That sort of thing doesnt' happen very often, but when it does I gotta be prepared for it...and the outdoor shower wouldn't work, without a more complex setup than just doing the thermosyphon tank thing on the roof. (which I at least have all the materials except the plumbing (and glass top, but I have lexan I can use for now) for).

I have to get the plumbing anyway, because garden hoses are not intended to have pressure in them out in the hot sun all day even when they're new (they tend to quickly rupture, often at the end connections especially if there is any bending load on them). And mine are far from new--one of them already had damaged surface area on it, cracking, and now it has pinhole leaks in a few places, any of which could (will) rupture fully if left under pressure very long. So I gotta get piping or tubing that is intended to hold pressure while very hot (120-150F, minimum), no matter which way I go.


for an ourdoot shoower, I'd have to make a privacy screen that also kept out all the dirt and dust, so it'd have to cover the top of it too. And hte screen would need to be able to come down easily to put away for the big storms, and also to keep spiders from making their webs inside it. And it would have to have a tub of some sort for days I couldn't stand up long enough to shower. For normal people, an outdoor shower would probably work fine, but I am not normal enough anymore, I guess.


Right now I'm at Fry's for yogurt and some other stuff I might be able to keep down, and help me recover, using their wifi sitting at a table waiting for the energy to finish shopping.



As for the willow/bop, I think youre probably right, and i'll have ot look up rooting a branch, cuz i have seen those around, with gardeners trimming htem so i might get branches that way. bop i might get seeds a lot of places, could start with bill and anna's.

How far away from the house wall would I need to plant each one?

My lantana row in front of the house is a foot away from the wall and porch edge, mostly because they already had a trench there that made it easier, but also because it keeps the shade closer. What few survived startup are still very small, at best as big as my outstretched hand. There are plenty of big empty spaces there now, which previously i'd planned ot fill with lantana (presntly still sproiuting in boxes) once the heat dies down some.



OH....also, the solarheated water gets up to 125F at peak, which is just before the shed starts shading the tank, I guess that's around 1-2pm or so? I forgot to note the time, cuz I was too busy with "other things". But I already had the BBQ thermometer set up there in the path of hte shower water, so I'd know if I had to turn hte the regular shower on, too, so as not ot scald mhyself with the solarheated water; i did that once already showering at noon and would like to not repeat it. :/

at about dawn-ish, 5am or a little later, i guess that s the coldest time and the water is sitll 95F then.

It's actually problay aely hoter than the bb1q therm shows, because it cools some while in the hose on the way to the house, and is only partially hitting the bbq therm sensors in the tips of the fork, but it's good enough to know that it works reallyr eally well, and will only get better onc ie put it up on the roof in a box.

 

[Harold in CR]

JUst in case you are not familiar, you will probably need a hot water pump for that solar water. An aquarium pump will probably leak around the seals. The hot water from that tank can easily reach 160°. We used Teel, bronze hot water pumps.

 

[amberwolf]

I was guessing it might not work that easily. :lol:

Well, I can make something work out--a washing machine water pump may work, depending on what it's made of. I used to have a couple of htem around, though I don't know if they are still here nowadays. Hopefully I won't need any pumps at all, and it'll work on thermosyphoning alone.

In just the bare tank, before the sun goes far enough west that the shed starts to shade the tank, the water can get over 120F easily enough (I'm guessing it's at least 130F before it goes thru all the hose to get to the showerhead, and then thru the air a little bit to flow over the tines of the BBQ thermometer-fork).


HOwever, on cloudy rainy days like today, it doesn't get past abou 85F so far--the water was actually colder than the air this morning, and I ended up using the 90F water from the electric tank (which has been off for weeks now, I think, but the utility room stays hot even at night, as there's no cross-ventilation in there, and it can be well over 90F in that room when the rest of the house is cooled down to 80-85F by overnight ventilation--this keeps that tank of water about 90F and up most of the time, AFAICT).

Not unexpected. I think if it were in the box on the roof, so the rain didn't carry heat away from the tank itself, it would be at least a few degrees warmer. I'm thinking that when I make the box, I will also insulate the non-clear part of it, behind the reflective surfaces, with a couple of inches or more of styrofoam (got lots of it from the fish-delivery boxes at work each week).



Yesterday, I finally felt well enough to start digging in sheds again, and got DayGlo Avenger out so I can turn it back into an ebike (once I find the old front Fusin wheel for it). Or, possibly, strip it's lights and stuff off to use on the new bike, or *a* new bike, designed/built better than DGA was. :lol:

I also found the box with the Kepler drive in it, and my Andersons and some other connectors and things that Ebikefanatic and others have sent me (it also had a bunch of random water-logged/sootstained trashed stuff in it, too, papers, etc., from whoever packed it after the fire, like most of the boxes of stuff I've pulled out). I put the Kepler drive over in the room with the Nishiki, since the throttle for it and other stuff is sitll on that bike anyway. There were also two old style (smaller) dead CA's; I don't remember what was wrong with them or who gave them to me. I guess that's another project for later.


Unexpectedly, I also found the box with the 10 Thundersky 60Ah cells, although they are the only thing in the box and the DMM, spare connectors and hardware, notes, etc are no longer there, even though it's sitll the same box they were in when I last saw them before the fire. Dunno who or why the other stuff was taken out. Or when. But the cells are still charged, anywhere between 3.25V and 3.3V.


Since a few days ago I had put the correct plug onto the big Sorenson for the new dryer/220VAC outlet, I used it to start the project of charging each cell back up to 3.65V so I can then run them down for a capacity test. I was going to test how many Ah it would take to put them back to that voltage, but I forgot I'd need to power the wattmeter separately at that low a voltage, and I couldn't find a plug to fit the little pins on the side, so I will just do the discharge test for the Ah instead, as a whole 10-cell series pack.


Not sure how I will load it yet. Was considering hooking it up as a 12V setup, and powering the laptop (via inverter if I can find it) and all my car headlights and other 12V lights from it, but that leaves two separate cells (4s 2p for 8 cells). Not a problem for actually using htem, but not very efficent as a test. As a 10-cell pack, I can probably set up some of hte powerchair motors, and load them with wheels on them, probably with those wheels driving other wheels on separate powerchair motors that are directly wired to the old SLA that were on the dead powerchair, so they are generators with a load.

Or I can put them on the working powerchair, normally running off similar 2x 12V SLA (28V charged), and see if it will operate at the 36V the TS cells will be at. If it does, i can ride it around the neighborhood and see how long hte cells last, with teh wattmeter keeping track, and some voltmeters and cell monitors set up for me to watch each cell's voltage for LVC (since I have no BMS for these to do taht for me). Something for the future, most likely. (I have a possible potential buyer for them but have yet to find any shipper here that will do it--so they will probably stick around for my own projects).



I wish I had today off, though, cuz it's Independence Day, and that means fireworks, and that means Tiny is going to be very unhappy.

She's already been scared dozens of times in the past week or so, by people setting off stuff at random times of day and night (mostly late at night), and at this point will only go outside for potty/etc if I take her on harness and leash, or else she will just randomly bolt back inside and go hide in the bedroom, instead of going around the yard to pick a spot and go.

It'll probably take days, at least, after today, for poeple to run out of stuff to make noises with, and so this will likely traumatize her further, and it could be days to weeks after that before she will want to go back outside on her own and do things. (she does still go out the doggywindow on her own, but usually comes right back inside before even getting off the workbench. If she goes out the backdoor, she will usually not even finish going out past the curtain before turnign around).

Best I could do is give her a number of calming treats before I left, and leave the noisest fan running in the bedroom to at least help her have a "safe spot" to hide in when the worst of the noises start before I can get home. She's already hiding there because of the storm noises last night still making her afraid today, even though it's quiet out htere today so far.

At least with the storm lastnight / today, the house is nice and cool, only about 86F when I left, so if she does wanna come out, she won't melt.

 

[dogman dan]

I definitely can see how there would be many days you could not use the outdoor shower. But you'd be surprised how many you could. I had an outdoor shower and tub for years, and Las Cruces is just about as dusty, or more, than Phoenix. Now I don't because the back neighbor at the new house is two story, and would look down into a fenced area.


If you can have hot water outside, free, that can become where you do lots of stuff, AND the grey water goes to the tree. That's the real benefit. Even a crappy old washer can be put outside to run on cold and used 9 months a year, once you have that little privacy area to hide it in. Right there in the corner left of the back door. A gallon can be carried inside to do the dishes if it's close enough. Or set up an old junk sink out there.


Though prefab wood fence panels, or stout chain link fence you could permanently hang tarps to are expensive, it might still be cheaper than changing the plumbing to the house.

Sometimes you can get the wooden fence panels freecycle, from somebodies trash. Even just a few boards here and there can be put into a new wood privacy fence.

Sure, it might not be something you can do immediately, or even this year. But if you can divert that tub and washing machine water to your best tree, it will really grow. Make sure it doesn't all go one place though, move the drain hose regular so it doesn't rot the main root. Put that nasty washing machine water out by the drip edge of the tree, and cut the amount of soap used.

 

[amberwolf]

I was going to try hooking up the solar heated tank to the electric tank, and in anticipation of that moved it to the east wall (northeast corner) of the back room, instead of in front of the shed. That would let the garden hoses reach inside thru the dryer vent, just to test out the thermosyphon functionality at ground level, and see if it is even necessary to put it on the roof at all. It also lets the hoses (barely) still reach the outdoor garden hose faucet, and the bathroom window for the showerhead.

Then I went to Lowe's to check out costs fo plumbing, didnt' have enough time, but found it shouldn't cost any more than maybe a couple of month's power usage for the electric water heater, which I've *already* saved, for hose and fittings. Didn't buy anything yet cuz I need to draw it up and measure things first. I did buy a couple of brass garden hose Y-adapters with valves, cuz I need them out in the yard anyway, because based on my present experience iwth the solar heater tank I thought (wrongly) that the threads would be the same on the in-house tank/fittings. I would have bought thread-on T's designed for the house piping but according to the plumbing guy there, there is no such thing. I'd have to make 2 of them out of hose and fittings--might as well only do it once I have the list of stuff and measurements.

In actuality, neither tank is the same as the garden hose fittings, and I was just lucky: First, on the input side of the tank I used a hose off my aquarium, and it happens to use "National Pipe Thread" or whatever it's called, and that hose happens to fit fine on garden hose thread on the other end, either by luck or by design. So when i threaded it onto the tank it fit fine, and the garden hose onto it's input that then also fit fine. The garden hose used on the output is plastic thread, so I guess it reformed itself enough to fit the NPT on teh tank.

But when I tried to fit the brass Y's on the house-side fittings in the utility room, they would thread on but would leak hugely--they won't go on deep enough to engage the seals. I can see no thread damage on either, and putting the electric heater hoses back on has no leaks. I see very little difference in the NPT thread vs garden hose thread, but it IS different, enough to make my "quick test" plan fail.

So...I'll need to draw up my stuff and figure out all the hose and fittings I'll need, then buy and make those, and then test it out.

Also, the leaky area of the tank I welded up doesn't seem to be leaking anymore. Maybe the minerals in the water are sealing it up? I dunno. Probably still a really good idea to cut and patch it.

I definitely can see how there would be many days you could not use the outdoor shower. But you'd be surprised how many you could.

Possibly, but one problem is that the days I couldn't use it are often enough the days I would need it. :/ Sure, I could still use the inside shower for those days. I also don't know if there are any city regulations against it--with my luck, there would be--there are against many things I would already otherwise be doing.

If you can have hot water outside, free, that can become where you do lots of stuff, AND the grey water goes to the tree. That's the real benefit. Even a crappy old washer can be put outside to run on cold and used 9 months a year, once you have that little privacy area to hide it in. Right there in the corner left of the back door. A gallon can be carried inside to do the dishes if it's close enough. Or set up an old junk sink out there.

Well, the problem there with having all those things outside then becomes "items stored outside" in the view of the city's harassment/enforcement division. Even if the landlord has no objection to any of it, I only have a chainlink fence, and being a corner lot the entire backyard is visible from the street. I'd have to put up a visual barrier, which itself would have to look pretty nice to avoid trouble, to prevent anyone from seeing any of those things. Essentially "walling off" a section of the yard around the back of the house. It couldn't be just a curtain, because of the winds--it'd have to be a reasonably solid barrier, of matching materials, etc., to avoid potential problems with the city.

The other option is to put everything in the shed under the tree, and use that for my "outdoor" shower, washing clothes and dishes, etc.

Either way I sitll have to buy some stuff to use for plumbing, including y-adapters or tees. Garden hoses (at least not the ones I have now, or any I've ever had before) arent' going to stand up to having pressure on them constantly especially when it's hot. Even if I cover them so they don't get direct sunlight, they still go bad from that sort of thing way too fast. Might last a year or so if I'm lucky (sometimes they only last a few days or weeks before springing leaks, or having the ends come off, and at $30-$70 a pop, that's just not worth it). So I'd need to buy some sort of plumbing that is able to stand up to that for years, and if I am doing that anyway, I might as well buy what I need for putting the solar heating tank on the electric heater as a thermosyphon system. Then I don't have to waste the space in the shed for all that stuff, and can use it for my workshop as I'm currently planning to (since it's the most shaded of the sheds right now).

Though prefab wood fence panels, or stout chain link fence you could permanently hang tarps to are expensive, it might still be cheaper than changing the plumbing to the house.

Can't use tarps in any permanent method--city doesn't allow them. Found that out the hard way a few years ago, when I had to move all my stuff into the house with a broken ankle.

Plumbing to the house all I have to change is to add T's to the connections at the electric water heater, and run pipes (probably that flexible plastic stuff just like the house is itself plumbed with) to the solar heated tank. I checked it out at Lowes' and in the short glance around I had time for, it doesnt' look that expensive...but I have to use a special crimper for the fittings, and THAT is $60--I think that is actually as much or more than all of the other tubing and fittings put together! But I can probably find someone that has the crimper that I can borrow, or maybe have them crimp the fittings on for me if I take it to them, for cheaper than buying hte tool.

Sometimes you can get the wooden fence panels freecycle, from somebodies trash. Even just a few boards here and there can be put into a new wood privacy fence.

Yeah, I'd been collecting that kind of stuff for years, just for the purpose--unfortunately it's almost all gone now, stolen or hauled off after the fire. And it doesn't matter, because the city's regulations require that all fencing be of consistent materials/appearance, and in good condition. So whatever I get I'd either have to get all the same kind and condition and appearance, or I'd have to go buy good long-lasting paint to cover it all with. Given my luck so far with the city, I'd be harassed or fined if I did it the way I can actually afford to.

If I am going to build a fence, and have to comply with all these regulations, I might as well just save up for a long long time and build a block wall. At present I am spending more than I make, so it won't help. Maybe once I can get enough of my plants/trees recovered to the point where they can survive the heat without so much water, and get the less-water-intensive plants started, I can cut back on water use (which right now is $150-$200 a month for summer, even with me putting all of my household water back outside as greywater, except for the toilet, and with ONLY watering the specific plants I am keeping alive and trying to grow big enough to survive on their own). At that point I might reach a balance between income and outgo, assuming costs of everything haven't gone up to eat that up by then.

Sure, it might not be something you can do immediately, or even this year. But if you can divert that tub and washing machine water to your best tree, it will really grow. Make sure it doesn't all go one place though, move the drain hose regular so it doesn't rot the main root. Put that nasty washing machine water out by the drip edge of the tree, and cut the amount of soap used.

The washer presently drains out to the southeast area of the backyard, by the carport, via a drain hose extension thru the unused dryer vent in that wall. I don't wash except every couple of weeks, most of the time, so I don't have very much greywater from that.

The tub drains via a soaker hose that goes in a circle around the biggest tree at the southwest corner of the backyard/house; it's pumped up and out the window by a little aquarium pump I only run for about 2 minutes (or less) once done with a shower.

The only water presently not recycled is whatever gets used to wash Tiny, cuz the fur would clog up the pump. Once I find my intake extension for hte pump, I can wrap that with a sponge filter to keep the hair out and then recover that water too.

The kitchen sink water goes into a kitty litter bucket on a dolly, and gets manually hauled out, until I find enough of my other hose and fittings to use another aquarium pump (when necessary) to route it outside automatically.



Sorry I'm rambling a lot...there's just so many things that would be really really easy and cheap to do if it werent' for rules and regulations and easily-offended people. But I have to be careful to stick with their rules and not offend people so I can peacefully stay where I am.

 

[Solcar]

I know what you mean bro about offending. That concrete block wall idea is the type thing that I did.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, even with the partly-cloudiness last week and a half the water still gets hot enough, even with only part of the sun-time to get hot (cuz the trees over where it is now cast some shade on it for parts of the morning/midday). Doesn't get scalding now, but it is still too hot to use by itself comfortably, by midday, so I don't htink I'm going to have much of a problem with this system once it's in a reflector box with glass or plex on top, even in winter.


Am out and about in a big loop for groceries, wifi, goodwills, and if theres time a trip past Lowe's or Home Depot for the plumbing bits needed to hook it up as thermosyphon. It's been breezy but very hot: 95F when I started things earlier this morning, and already 112F by almost 3pm when I stopped to cool off, eat, and use wifi, and still getting hotter, cuz it's been mostly sunny today. There are some thicker clouds rolling in from the east now, and I can see rain under a few of them pretty far north of here (can't see directly east from where I'm sitting). So it might get cooler again instead of hotter, if it keeps rolling in like this, but as I sit here it's still brightly sunny where I am.


Tiny has been staying almost exclusively in the bedroom because she is still VERY spooked by any little sharp noise, after the fireworks of July 4th (which actually started more than a week before it, and are still happening every so often even now, as kids or whoever find more to blow up, usually late at night, and usually very loud ones (louder than shotguns at close range)). Even her own claws sometimes ticking on the laminate flooring will spook her and make her scrabble back into the bedroom and hide on the bed or in the corner.

She's getting better each day that fireworks don't happen, but every time they do they set her back a couple of days or more, and since there's rarely two days in a row that there's no fireworks or other loud noises, it's tough on her.

She doesn't go outside on her own unless she REALLY has to pee or poo, and that results in much more leakage while she's sleeping. Last night I came home to find the whole corner of the bed soaked thru the blankets/etc (thankfully the mattress is covered in plastic again now), and even the floor around the corner was puddled, and her backend was all soaked too, cuz I guess she didn't go out of the bedroom the whole time I was at work.

She'll go out with me into the yard, but any noise will send her scrabbling back into the house and the bedroom. If hte bedroom door is closed she will go into the bathroom and hide in the tub, trying to dig her way into it to hide further. If both of those are closed she will stand with her nose in the corner of the hallway and trying to squeeze herself into it.

I can walk her on harness and leash in the yard and she's mostly ok, and she'll just lay down and refuse to move when she gets scared by something, until I can distract her from it and get her walking again.

This is the same basically as last year when I first got her (just before the 4th), and at New Year's. She will probably be like this all month, I'm guessing, and slowly get better again....



In the meantime, having to wash all the bedstuff (and the clothes and towels/etc I hadn't yet washed from work and while I was sick a couple weeks ago or so), at least the whole southeast corner of the backyard is now well-watered wiht the greywater from the several loads of wash. It was still wet-muddy there when I left for today's trip, so it ought to be good for a while before needing more water there.

 

[amberwolf]

Oh, I also meant to post that the big pumpkin patch is doing terrible. Both the big pumpkins reached the size of my head, then the whole section of vine they were on just died, along with a few others. One of the pumpkins was just rotted and squishy on it's bottom half, and the other one was hard outside and soft inside, with seeds in it, but nowhere near ripe. There are still a bunch of smaller ones, golfball-sized still, on other vines, so maybe osme will still make it.

I cut off all the vines that looked damaged by heat/etc, to help reduce it's water usage and help it be more able to supply enough water to the parts that are still thriving.

I think it is happening because it no longer cools off that much at night (used to get down to high 70s or low 80s, now that it's humid (for AZ, >30%) all the time it doens't cool off nearly as much at night, so even though its a little cooler in the daytime much of the time with cloudiness, it stays hotter at night, 88-89F > 95-97F at the coolest, and takes a lot longer to reach that low, so the average temperature is higher, and the pumpkins don't seem to liek that much.

Everything else seems to be doing ok, except for the little tree sproutlings (that I thought might be eucalyptus but still don't know what they really are), in the east row in the backyard. All but one of htose seem to have died now--only the one that is east of the orange tree/mulberry tree set is still thriving, though it's still very small. It's probalby only still around because it is the most shaded one during later afternoon/evening--all of the others are almost completely sunny all day until late evening. Probably why it is always so hard to grow anything at all in that part o the yard.


I think the big plants in the front yard that I've been letting grow for shade might be an Amaranth, based on this page:
http://www.gardenstew.com/about16108.html.

They're very tall now (one is almost as tall as me) and they spread out a lot of wide leaves. I've been cutting off all the seed stems before they grow much, to prevent them spreading in case they are something I really don't want in the yard, until I find out for sure what they are, cuz right now I just want them to shade the rest of the yard (and porch) that I am trying to grow things in, to keep water loss down and let the tiny things grow better.

It is helping, cuz the lantana is growing well along the porch now, those that survived. And the one betwen the trees in the former "forest" before the fire is now a small bush, and is even flowering. None of them did that well before these tall plants shaded them.



And in other research, it appears that the new variety of thorn plant that has been growing around the yards since the fire rebuild is probably "puncturevine". Hasn't helped me get rid of them any easier, though--the only good way I have found so far is still the old "pull em as soon as I see em" method....which is pretty much all the time, everywhere.

 

[The fingers]

I had to leave Oliver outside on the 4th until I got home right at dusk. He was hiding inside his doghouse, poor guy. Unusual noises like sirens don't tend to bother him at all, but the golden retriever next door really gets a yodelin' when one goes by. Now we've got another reason besides Mars worship and all the smoke to hate the 4th. The best thing about the 4th is that you can go out to dinner anywhere and have the whole restaurant to yourself. :wink:
Not much residual noise around here now, but being in a war zone on the 4th really stinks. :x

 

[amberwolf]

Yes, it does.


Tiny is perfectly happy when I'm home and we're in the bedroom...outside of that, it depends on noises. Almost any noise will make her scrabble back in there, if she's not actively doing something that keeps her from noticing (unfortunately rare).


Since we're at the time of year now where the sun strikes the north wall of the house a little in the morning and afternoon, I put up a little bit of shade/awning made of styrofoam lids off the fish-shipping-containers, over the window AC unit, to keep the direct sun off of it. It helps a lot, letting it put out air several degrees colder and not having to run as long. Unfortunately it wont' stand up to any stiff gusts of wind, which we're likely to have anytime now--mosty those don't come from a direction that will hit it directly so it might survive anyway.

I also moved the "gardening shed" to the west wall, north corner, of the house, which is hte northwest corner of the bedroom, to shade it from direct sunlight striking the wall in the afternoon. It only shades a portion of that wall but it helps a little. I then took some of the larger flat scraps of wood/etc that were behind the sheds rather than in them (and thus already out in the weather) and leaned them against that wall elsewhere, to do as much shading as I could.

Then inside the bedroom, on the west and north walls, especially in the corner that gets the most sun exposure, I stacked as many of the styrofoam fish-shipping-containers as I could from floor to cieling. That also reduces the amount of heat that gets into the room, and keeps the window unit from having to run as much. it also provides a little bit more noise insulation, which Tiny appreciates. I'd rather put htem on the outside wall, but unless I do a lot more work (fixing them in place, weighting them down, etc) than I'd have to on the inside wall (just stacking) then storms are likely to blow them away, and the sun will disintegrate them.


I didn't have enough of the containers to do the whole wall, though--we've been ordering a lot less fish than usual at work, due to slow sales, so there's only one or two a week now, instead of two to four of them like we have had in years past. So the collection will grow a lot slower than before, though now I have more uses for them than before.


I'd also like to line the west wall of the music room too, but there's no containers avialbe to do that yet.

Eventually all of these containers are planned to be cut up to make sheets to insulate the sheds isntead, but until I get the sheds emptied out (at least one at a time) there's not much point to that, since I can't reach the roof/walls of each one completely enough to get it done right. I also haven't determined a really good easy cheap way to secure them to the inside of the "tin shed" panels.






Regarding musically-related stuff, I've got good and bad news....

I've nearly got my "music room" set up. I actually have a computer mostly working and set up for doing the recording and editing of MIDI and audio, and the second ASR88 keyboard workstation (that I bought used to replace the unreliable mostly-not-working original ASR88) and the EMU rack workstation Hora sent me after the fire are also set up to do recording/editing of MIDI.

A second, slightly more powerful computer is almost done--the hardware is setup, but the OS doesn't like me, and BSODs during setup. The hardware tests ok, so it's probably a corrupt transfer or a driver problem, since I'd copied over my old WindowsXP setup from my original workstation (that burned up in the fire) and then reinstalled over that, so I wouldn't have to go recustomize and reinstall everything. But since that's not working I will probably have to do that anyway. It'll almost certainly take less time than fixing the other problem, if it's software. At least reinstalling WindowsXP from scratch will tell me if it's hardware or not.


Now the catch is getting one of my audio interfaces actually working to record with--the AVID Fastrack USB I'd bought used to replace the missing maudio Fastrack USB turns out to only work properly on Win7 or above, despite the assurances I got before buying it that it would work fine on XP. Well, it DOES "work" on XP, in that XP just loads a standard USB audio driver for it, and it can be accessed and does playback and record.

But it only does so with a very long delay between input and output, just like any standard soundcard or built-in sound on a motherboard, and doesn't work with low-latency (very short near-realtime delay) audio streaming, which is required for the music that I do, because it's CPU usage is beyond my system's capabilities to handle when set that way. (it would probably still not work even with the fastest XP-compatible computer made today, and mine are several years old at best).

The AVID-made drivers that would let it work correctly only work in Win7 and above, which A) I don't have, and B) some of my other stuff I need at the same time won't work in anything but XP (or maybe Vista). So I will probably have to sell this AVID box and go find the older version instead.



I did finally find my old GadgetLabs Wave8*24, which was a very good audio/MIDI interface, but which didn't work in anything but Win98 and before when it was made, though the company promised XP drivers would be out "soon". A guy named Mostek in Europe wrote XP drivers for it, with the help of one of it's developers (after GadgetLabs went out of business before finishing the promised XP drivers). They work well...but between the fire and now I have lost the cable that connects the rack box to the card that goes in the computer (the card and the box weren't even in the same shed!), and none of hte straight-thru cables I've tried so far that SHOULD work actually do. So either the cables are bad or there's omething wrong in the box or the card, and I cant' tell which, since all the cables test ok with a multimeter, but that doesn't test them with the kinds of tiny signals actually passed between card and box.


On the other hand, at least the card is detected, and it does work with the drivers...I just don't get any audio or MIDI in or out of it at the box. I may have to just get the oscilloscope out and check for signals at the card's output jack. :/




I've got msot of the rackmount stuff bolted into a rack box, and the EMU on top of htat, and the old TG33 FM/wavetable synth box on top of that.


In the rack are my MidiverbIII, which works liek it should, and my MOTU MM7s midi-controlled mixer, which doesn't work because it's power adapter was physically broken apart when I finally found it in a shed. I haven't yet found one that will work iwth it, because it has to be isolated, voltage output not connected to voltage input at all. Otherwise it could smoke something.

The Opcode Studio 128X 8x8 MIDI interface does work fine, though, which is very good because it's the only MIDI I/O I have that works reliably and without delays or timing issues (almost all soundcard built-in MIDI ports have wierd glitches causing problems with what I record, or losing random data). Nice thing about it is not only does it work to pass MIDI from keyboard ot PC, I can also use it to route data internally WITHOUT the computer from any device connected to it to any other device connected to it, without changing cabling around. So even if the computer isn't working I can still play stuff, and record it on the ASR or EMU sequencers.


Most of my good cables are still missing--possibly taken by people recycling wire, since they were good thick wire and often pretty long, and I know most of them were in the front of one of hte sheds that was broken into (and werent' there afterward). So I'm still finding old cables that are broken and replacing the wires, re-using the connectors, as I have time, since new cables just plain cost too much to go buy. Even at Goodwill tehy want almost-new prices for many of their cables. Somewhere I have a "patchbay" I made years ago that should have a couple dozen 1/4", RCA and MIDI plugs and jacks on it, that I should be able to reuse to make new good audio cables to hook up the rest of the stuff like I used to have it.


So right now I can at the least go in there and play music when I feel like it, even if I can't yet quite sit down and just create stuff like I want to and used to.

 

[dogman dan]

Re the pumpkins, the joy of SW weather. So hot and dry it fries stuff, then when some rain comes, you get rot disease. It whacks the chile crop here most years to some extent or another. It's phytopthera fungus spores in the soil, that go nuts when it finally rains.

Likely helped along by the sun cooking the stem the pumpkins were on a month ago. Then they started to rot because the stem was suffering. Hopefully new growth will do better.

I had to try a do over on my tomatoes. They cooked, despite the semi shaded spot I use. New ones planted July 4 are doing better.

Keep cutting off the flower pods of the amaranth, when they pollinate, it's a huge allergen for people. I understand you need shade, but don't let them flower. When very small, like a foot tall, they are quite edible. Similar to spinach. Any bigger, pretty bitter.

 

[tomjasz]

Phytophthora can be lessened with teas made from worm castings.

 

[amberwolf]

Re the pumpkins, the joy of SW weather. So hot and dry it fries stuff, then when some rain comes, you get rot disease. It whacks the chile crop here most years to some extent or another. It's phytopthera fungus spores in the soil, that go nuts when it finally rains.

Likely helped along by the sun cooking the stem the pumpkins were on a month ago. Then they started to rot because the stem was suffering. Hopefully new growth will do better.

Maybe. Unfortunatley all of the pumpkin vines died off in the last couple days, even the ones under the tree at the other corner of the yard...though *those* kept getting crushed by the feral cats sleeping on them, and Tiny plodding thru them, so no big surprise on them--just that they all died at the same time. My guess is average temperature was just too high, never cooling off far enough for them, or something like that. Oh, well---they were just random growth anyway. :/

If it's a fungus, well, it hasn't affected anythign else I know of (although there are those unknown-type tree seedlings that died for no apparent reason, but those were almost all while it was still just really really hot, before it got muggy).

WQhat signs would I see in the soil of fungus if I dug up the roots?

Keep cutting off the flower pods of the amaranth, when they pollinate, it's a huge allergen for people. I understand you need shade, but don't let them flower. When very small, like a foot tall, they are quite edible. Similar to spinach. Any bigger, pretty bitter.

All but one of the amaranths died off anyway--torn down by the winds from the storms (hardly any rain, but LOTS of gusty winds). Even when they're as tall as I am, their rootballs are still only about the size of my fist...can't handle much more than a gentle push if the ground is damp at all. So since I watered that area just when it got really cloudy, (since there's less evaporation then and it has more of a chance to soak in) , the winds hit later and blew all but one down, pulling their roots out completely and breaking off their very fragile stems. There's still one big one at the west corner of the front porch, but that's all. I expect that one will go the next storm, cuz it's so tall.

There's one more small one at the intersection of the side fence nad hte fence parallel to the front wall fo the house that cuts off the side yard, so it won't be affected by the winds, but I am probably not going to leave that one cuz there's a lantana I'd rather have that is very close to that.

I may move both of these amaranths to the side yard itself, though, and encourage growth of more, to quickly get shade along the side of the house since nothing else has grown at all there except dandelions I have to keep pulling out. Not even grass grows there. So I have been "plowing in" all the dead amaranths and other vegetation into the ground there, if nothing else to add "food" for other things eventually as it decomposes.


I also trimmed trees of sapper branches, and put them over there, too, on top of the ground, to "shade" the ground a little bit and let some moisture stay in the top layer of soil so seeds (if any) can grow. There's lantana seeds in there by the hundreds or even thousands, too, but I don't expec tany of those to grow successfuly till it gets a lot cooler.

Phytophthora can be lessened with teas made from worm castings.

"Worm castings"? do you mean the "silk" larva-transformation casings from various insects? Or something else?

 

[dogman dan]

I would agree with that, worm castings are the poo from earthworms, chock full of beneficial bacteria and fungus varieties. A phytoptera killed plant will have obviously rotted roots. Some trees, such as mulberry btw, and lots of the garden veggies like squash, peppers, pumpkin, etc can also be more vulnerable to root rot than other plants.

The problem is the f ed up soil biology in the SW. For example, my rain gage as of today has .6 inches of rain since January 1. The soil is for all intents and purposed dead at this time. Nothing alive left, but lots of spores. Now suppose, you suddenly get a huge rain. Some bacteria and fungus will get a head start and take off, and phytopthera will be one of them. Overwatering will promote it. In time, the now damp soil will balance. Adding the worm castings or tea from them would be a great way to shorten the time to get back to a balanced soil biota, that will help control the root rotting fungus varieties.

Lots of people in the SW get intense mold allergies when we finally get some wet. All the fungus in the soil explodes into growth at once. It's just weird out here, we finally get some rain, and it's too much at once.

 

[tomjasz]

You can build a soil biology that will outcompete the diseases.

I have a little experience with the desert SW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiAFrSEryek

http://www.livesoil.com



FWIW, now before I get the critic about the waste of growing turf, the same principles apply to the growing of fruits and vegetables. I've done many weeks of work in SW food production as well. There is always a way. But adopting the use of heritage varieties and ancient species is also a path to better success. Funny thing about being a professional horticulturalist, most home gardener thinks we are full of baloney. But our jobs hinged on providing much lower failure rates than a home gardener experiences regularly.

 

[dogman dan]

HA! So true. When I quit my job running the grounds and building maintenance at the condo's, it was because I was too sick to keep working.

But I'd been having a running argument for years with some retired engineers from Minnesota about how to manage the grounds. Demanding a cut in watering by 50%, something I'd been preparing the 178 flower gardens to stand for 10 years, they then presented me a watering schedule that they calculated, an 80% cut in water use. For engineers, their math was awful. But to their defense, they'd read some NMSU pamphlet about how much to water. The pamphlet didn't take into account the microclimate, which reaches 150F by 9 am in June. Like trying to grow in a car with the windows up. Of course we had to water more than the book says.

They tried it the spring I left, and by June everything that bloomed was dead. LOL. Adjusting back to what I'd planned on doing (50% less water) kept the perennials alive. All those were semi xeric stuff, Damianita, Purple sage, Creeping Rosemary etc. The other thing they did was dig up a rose garden we'd been building soil tilth in for 10 years. Replacing the soil with free city compost, the vegetables they planted all died. The city allows poison plants like oleander into the compost pile, so the city compost is actually a great herbicide. One of my workers left there tried to tell them that, but they knew better.

Two times in my life I've left a major horticulture job. Both times, a 50% die off happened in 60 days. Both times, because of a "new and smarter" watering plan designed by some kook with no horticulture degree. Both times, they wanted "more science" applied to the watering plan. Like 15 years of watching those flower beds and learning what they needed was unscientific.

Back to your yard AW, part of your problems this season was nearly a year of neglect while the water was shut off. It's killed off most of your earthworms, and all the beneficial fungus went dormant. So if stuff tends to fail this year it's not so unusual. You lost what tilth the soil had. Tilth is a general term for a healthy soil, not too compacted by construction workers feet, or poisoned by where the cement mixer stood. Soil with tilth is naturally fluffed up so roots can breathe, and is full of worms and other beneficials.

Keep on trying, and when the neighbors put out bags of good leaves next fall, snag one each day to make a nice compost mulch to put around your plants and trees next spring. That will give those worms you need some food to live on, and then your watered areas will regain the healthy soil tilth they had before the big dry and the army of a holes stomping around in boots, and driving the truck in your yard.

 

[The fingers]

Keep on trying, and when the neighbors put out bags of good leaves next fall, snag one each day to make a nice compost mulch to put around your plants and trees next spring. That will give those worms you need some food to live on, and then your watered areas will regain the healthy soil tilth they had before the big dry and the army of a holes stomping around in boots, and driving the truck in your yard.

And don't forget to work the mulch into the soil to keep it from blowing away. :wink:

 

[amberwolf]

I would agree with that, worm castings are the poo from earthworms, chock full of beneficial bacteria and fungus varieties. A phytoptera killed plant will have obviously rotted roots. Some trees, such as mulberry btw, and lots of the garden veggies like squash, peppers, pumpkin, etc can also be more vulnerable to root rot than other plants.

Is there a good way to check the mulberries for that, without digging really deep or damaging the trees? I tried to check the pumpkin remains, but I couldn't find any roots...so I guess they'd already rotted away, or else the ants had carried them off (there are several kinds right there at that still-disconnected faucet). The stems just kinda went into the ground and disappeared a couple of inches later.

The problem is the f ed up soil biology in the SW. For example, my rain gage as of today has .6 inches of rain since January 1. The soil is for all intents and purposed dead at this time. Nothing alive left, but lots of spores. Now suppose, you suddenly get a huge rain. Some bacteria and fungus will get a head start and take off, and phytopthera will be one of them. Overwatering will promote it. In time, the now damp soil will balance. Adding the worm castings or tea from them would be a great way to shorten the time to get back to a balanced soil biota, that will help control the root rotting fungus varieties.

Lots of people in the SW get intense mold allergies when we finally get some wet. All the fungus in the soil explodes into growth at once. It's just weird out here, we finally get some rain, and it's too much at once.

And we did get a little rain just before all this happened...but I'd already been keeping the soil damp in that area pretty much constantly for weeks (months?) since the pumpkins started coming up.

You can build a soil biology that will outcompete the diseases.

I have a little experience with the desert SW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiAFrSEryek

http://www.livesoil.com

FWIW, now before I get the critic about the waste of growing turf, the same principles apply to the growing of fruits and vegetables. I've done many weeks of work in SW food production as well. There is always a way. But adopting the use of heritage varieties and ancient species is also a path to better success. Funny thing about being a professional horticulturalist, most home gardener thinks we are full of baloney. But our jobs hinged on providing much lower failure rates than a home gardener experiences regularly.

True. I have yet to have fast enough access to wifi to watch YT stuff, but hopefuly will soon (I have ot take a couple of computers over to Bill's to activate some software that requires internet access to do so, at some point in the next week or two, hpefully that will give me time to look at YT too).

But I'd been having a running argument for years with some retired engineers from Minnesota about how to manage the grounds. Demanding a cut in watering by 50%, something I'd been preparing the 178 flower gardens to stand for 10 years, they then presented me a watering schedule that they calculated, an 80% cut in water use. For engineers, their math was awful. But to their defense, they'd read some NMSU pamphlet about how much to water. The pamphlet didn't take into account the microclimate, which reaches 150F by 9 am in June. Like trying to grow in a car with the windows up. Of course we had to water more than the book says.

They tried it the spring I left, and by June everything that bloomed was dead. LOL. Adjusting back to what I'd planned on doing (50% less water) kept the perennials alive. All those were semi xeric stuff, Damianita, Purple sage, Creeping Rosemary etc. The other thing they did was dig up a rose garden we'd been building soil tilth in for 10 years. Replacing the soil with free city compost, the vegetables they planted all died. The city allows poison plants like oleander into the compost pile, so the city compost is actually a great herbicide. One of my workers left there tried to tell them that, but they knew better.

Yeah, well, some people just can't be bothered to listen, cuz they're motivated solely by short-term stuff, usually money. Just like most companies (including hte one I work for), who discard long-term benefits for short-term results, and hurt a lot of people (and animals) in the process. Unfortuantely all the other companies doing the same business are, AFAICT, even worse.

Two times in my life I've left a major horticulture job. Both times, a 50% die off happened in 60 days. Both times, because of a "new and smarter" watering plan designed by some kook with no horticulture degree. Both times, they wanted "more science" applied to the watering plan. Like 15 years of watching those flower beds and learning what they needed was unscientific.

It seems that people don't understand that science is a process: that of observing the world, seeing patterns, applying those patterns and/or variations on them based on thougths about the observations, and then basing future applications upon the new observations and results, constantly refining to get whatever result happens. It's possible to do science based on just trying something without regard to any prior observations/results, but it's stupid because then you are discarding all the information already presented to you.

Back to your yard AW, part of your problems this season was nearly a year of neglect while the water was shut off. It's killed off most of your earthworms, and all the beneficial fungus went dormant. So if stuff tends to fail this year it's not so unusual. You lost what tilth the soil had. Tilth is a general term for a healthy soil, not too compacted by construction workers feet, or poisoned by where the cement mixer stood. Soil with tilth is naturally fluffed up so roots can breathe, and is full of worms and other beneficials.

yeah, I need to deep-till the whole area on the east part of the yard north of the east gate, cuz I'm sure that's half the reason it's so hard to grow anything there. :/ And the whole area where the trash bin stood, too, though that's always ended up compacted by dogs (and me) going thru the area constantly.

Keep on trying, and when the neighbors put out bags of good leaves next fall, snag one each day to make a nice compost mulch to put around your plants and trees next spring. That will give those worms you need some food to live on, and then your watered areas will regain the healthy soil tilth they had before the big dry and the army of a holes stomping around in boots, and driving the truck in your yard.

Yeah, well, I havent' seen anyone bag up their leaves/etc and put htem out anywhere. I'd guess they are just dumping i tin the big alley trash bins. I know that the people right across the street do that, cuz they dump it in "my" alley bin without bagging it, usually when the bin is empty so I can't get it out cuz its all down in the bottom, and then other people dump their bagged and unbagged trash on top of it before I even know it's there. ("my" bin is supposed to just be for me and hte people right "behind" me, and just to my west, not those across the street but those people either don't know or don't care that they have a bin right behind their own fence in their own alley, and you can't talk to them).


But I do use my own trimmings/etc for it. Just isn't a lot of that just yet. (will be later this year, I guess).

I wish I had been able to keep and mulch all the stuff they cut down that day you arrived here, but they'd already put it in the big box bin for the most part, and I was so upset I couldn't have thought of asking them to mulch it or at least bag it and keep it here for the purpose...and I couldn't have done anything with it for weeks anyway, in my state of mind at the time.

And don't forget to work the mulch into the soil to keep it from blowing away. :wink:

That's a given, though I don't have much time/energy for doin gmuch of it at a time, so unfortunately I do often enough leave my own mulch from my mowing/trimming/etc just laying where it falls.

 

[dogman dan]

I forget not every city has the grappler service we have. Every two weeks a different truck comes with a claw to get couches, construction trash, or yard waste. So here in the fall, go to the neighborhood with the rich people, and bags of leaves are there for the picking. A nice resource for the compost pile.

Chances are your mulberries are ok, they are prone to root rot primarily when planted in bluegrass or fescue lawns, which get overwatered to keep them alive this far south.

The wet areas likely have returned to better soil health, but the the dry areas, once wetted for the first time in a year, would cause a huge bloom of phytopthera in the whole area. Also, just trying to keep plants alive in the furnace months of may and june can mean the soil is kept too damp. Its looking like three of my damianita plants got that this year. Overwatered because I was trying to revive a nearby lantana.

It's also quite possible that the pumpkin simply fried in the sun, but took another two weeks to actually die.