Although people at our various sites can garden through the winter, the water is turned off just at the first frost date, and gets turned back on 2-4 weeks after the last frost date when the water officials get a chance to do so.
So when the gardens need water, people who drive bring a carload of gallon water containers (which is not enough to water their whole garden). People who don't drive climb into the river with recycled bucket like containers and haul water to their gardens this way. This leads to scary sights like tiny 80+ year olds who weigh about 90 pounds struggling up banks with 16-24 pound buckets of water. Then two people help each other carry buckets from the river bank to the garden stopping to rest as needed. Most of the time the river water is clean enough to swim in, but not to drink untreated, and upon rare occasions it's affected by chemical spills. So putting it on root of salad vegetables can be an iffy proposition. One woman devised the strategy of buying nonfood safe heavy duty trash cans, filling them up with water just before the fall frost date and using that water for spring watering. She says that this kind of heavy duty trash can is the only one that holds up under freezing temperatures. I've read in other places that food and water should never be stored in plastic garbage cans due to the way they contaminate it. So far both of the solutions are somewhat hazardous. So I am looking for other solutions that people have come up with. (We have no buildings to catch roof water off of which I know that many people do where they have a community building or are allowed sheds and greenhouses. Is there a hand/solar/gaspowered pump with filter that we could use to pump river water through a hose to gardens? We could put hoses from different gardens together to reach. Is there a food safe container we could use that would survive a number of frosts in the 20-30F range and the occasional 0-20F range? Sharon [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
