Did you know that only 1% of the water on the Earth is fresh water? This isn’t very much. Water is an important natural resource that affects
Nan’s garden epitomizes thoughtful drought-tolerant and water wise conservation
everyone on the planet. We use about 100 gallons per person per day for all that we do, from drinking to irrigating our lawns and landscapes.
The good news is that we can conserve water in many ways. In this episode, we are going to look at the different ways of conserving water from San Diego, California to Atlanta, Georgia, where we install the latest Waterwise irrigation.
Joe takes us to San Diego, California to visit Nan Sterman, host and co-producer of the public television series, A Growing Passion (which airs in San Diego, CA). Nan approaches gardening from a waterwise perspective and is able to demonstrate conservation tips anyone can achieve with incredible landscape design. She shows us how she manages her garden in order to preserve as much water as possible.
Nan takes us exploring through her home garden and discusses the need to understand your surroundings and the climate you are trying to grow in. The types of plants used in your climate area are very important because not all plants can survive in every area; use theplants that work.
We then travel back to Atlanta to check out the irrigation system installed at Joe’s home. We talk to Jeff Nettles with RainMaker Irrigation about the best ways to install irrigation and how to use the least, but most efficient, amount of water.
With the groundwork in place, it’s time to install the brains of the whole system. Ben Raines, from DIG Corporation, then comes out to make sure Joe’s irrigation system will meet the requirements.
Later, Chef Nathan Lyon uses drought tolerant herbs to season some of our favorite meats.
For more information:
A Growing Passion on Public Television
Plant Soup – Nan Sterman’s website
Water-Wise Plants for the Southwest (Water Gardening)
Chef Nathan’s recipe for homemade spice rubs using drought tolerant herbs
Photo courtesy of Nan Sterman
About GGWTV
Growing A Greener World is a national gardening series on Public Television that features organic gardening, green living and farm to table cooking. Each episode focuses on compelling and inspirational people making a difference through gardening. This gardening series covers everything from edible gardening and sustainable agriculture to seasonal cooking and preserving the harvest.
I need a list of all irrigation products used in this show so I can review their match to our farm. Is there anyway to get that information? Love your show! Thanks, Randy
Randy, unfortunately I don’t have that information. The irrigation system was installed based on the company’s calculations based on my turf area and the distance between landscape beds and I never saw the particulars on what they used. But I can tell you the company we used was Rainmaker Irrigation out of Atlanta. Here’s a link to their site. They might be able to provide you with more information to help but I don’t think they have any records of what was used here as I think it was installed on the fly. Here’s the link: http://www.rainmakeratl.com/
It was mentioned in the show that opening the water tap uses a fairly large amount of electricity. I’m an engineer, and most people aren’t aware of the fact that most power plants take a fairly large amount of water, with the average being about 1 gallon of water per kilowatt hour. So you’re actually using more water than what you’re getting out of the tap!
FWIW, nuclear and steam-based power plants use a bit over one gallon per kWh, while photovoltaic and wind use almost zero. Some termo-solar plants use as much as 1.8 gallons per kWh. Hydroelectric “loss” is near zero — basically we’re just slowing the water down a bit and extracting its energy. There are others, but they contribute minor amounts to the grid.