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water California Growers n Water ?

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

A while ago, I was hung on what do Florida growers do to combat the heat.  Now I am hung on what California growers do to beat the drought.  Here in KY, if I have to I will use county water in the spring.  This was the first year I had to cause the ponds / catchments ran dry.  But if I had to do that all season, i would go broke.  With the drought in California, I find myself wondering where you guys and gals get the water to grow.

I guess it wouldnt much matter for a small crop, but I understand CA is one of the largest produce producing states.  Do you guys just keep digging your wells deeper and deeper?
 
The typical hobby grower needs maybe 5~10 gallons (?) a day for their plants.  That's about as much as it takes to wash the dishes, and a typical household can blow through 200+ a day.  A few pepper plants are not an issue.
 
Geonerd, we are about 2 acres planted this year.  I am working on another area for next year, slowly but surely.  I sometimes forget that the addiction hasn't taken over every ones lives.  But was also kind of wondering about produce and the economic impact in general out there.  I understand there are huge farms which pay next to nothing for their water at the expense of tax payers but mom and pop farms are getting pounded.  Something about the depth of the well.  If you have a factory farm next to you, they drain the water table below your well and you are screwed?  Not sure I am getting it all right.  So much misinformation.
 
My garden is really small so, that is one aspect.  I have issues with the well during droughts, so I now have a 3000 gallon holding tank to act as a buffer between me and the well.  The other thing I have been doing is experimenting with the self watering buckets.  I've had really good results so far.  I was considering incorporating the drip system into the self watering buckets to squirt some down into reservoir in the morning, but I haven't done so yet. 
 
I really do feel sorry for those suffering through drought.
 
I also feel very fortunate that I have not had to water my small (~130 ft.²) garden for at least a month. Of course, this is after I bought and installed drip irrigation.
 
I still mix up five gallons of water with fish emulsion and seaweed extract to feed the plants once a week, but that is nothing.
 
Most of my peppers are containered but I do have in-grounds.
I water as needed although my city currently has a twice week water limit for lawns of 6 minutes. Our farmers in the central valley are with no doubt in trouble. Our State needs months of non-stop rain just to break even.
It is getting worse than serious.
 
Geonerd said:
The typical hobby grower needs maybe 5~10 gallons (?) a day for their plants.  That's about as much as it takes to wash the dishes, and a typical household can blow through 200+ a day.  A few pepper plants are not an issue.
Click to expand...
true I agree
 
How are produce prices?  Ohio is mostly flooded.  Kentucky isn't all that much better.  Figure this fall we are doing to see it at the grocery store.
 
No doubt we have water issues but I don't think it's quite yet gotten to the point where it's an emergency. It's kinda like, we know we're running out but we haven't run out yet so it's all business as usual. It comes from so many sources too, snow melt, wells, delta, Colorado river. We're getting better about conservation but we are still digging a hole.

Not sure about produce prices, I've not grocery shopped elsewhere. We do have extremely cheap labor and abundant land so I doubt it's higher than anywhere else.....
 
I just got the biggest artichokes I've ever seen at a 99 Cent Store here..
$4.00 at other major grocers.
I don't know. Still here in California so...
 
i no longer water the back yard as i have taken it over with plants... parts of the yard would never grow anyways.... i use some self watering buckets and i find i am putting less water in those than i do with my other pots.
 
we are also on a twice a week watering cycle but i dont water both days to save some water.
 
I figure if I only shower once a week, nobody can bitch at me for how much I water my peppers.  El Niño will have our back this winter.  ;)
 
I hope you are right about El Nino.
This picture shows how dry the San Gabriel River is. I live at the base of the mountains just left of this pic.
One little spark and it's fire.

 
In my part of S.California (which looks very much like the photo above), El Nino was a bust. We again got only about 60% of our average rains. And with more and more growth, it takes more and more water to satisfy everyone. No new restrictions yet, but I expect them to be coming as we swing into summer.
 
This year I'm using soaker hoses beneath really deep mulch to water the peppers and other garden plants.
 
My step dad is an organic farmer down in So Cal. He grows chiles, but also every other type of produce imaginable. Ojai gets pretty much all of its water from Lake Casitas. At this point the lake is already seriously low, and as mentioned above, we did not get nearly enough rain this winter. He said he's choosing his crops carefully to avoid heavy water guzzlers. There aren't any water restrictions right now, but there probably will be at least on a local level down there. 
 
As far as produce prices, up here in the Bay Area I haven't noticed any spike, but that may come later.
 
ajdrew said:
A while ago, I was hung on what do Florida growers do to combat the heat.
Click to expand...
 
Do we have a problem with the heat?  Seems to me you've got higher summer temps than us.
 
It's humidity and UV that kick our ass - not heat.

 
 
Heat is definitely an issue for where I am in CA. Many of the peppers I grow have native temps much lower than my summer's 100-115 fahrenheit.
 
I just leave the hose on 24/7 and hope nobody finds out :)
 
LOL, yeah right. I already got warned/cited that I was watering my lawn too much... because my gardener hit a sprinkler and it spewed onto the street, grr.
 
If your address ends in an odd number in my area, our allocated lawn watering days are Sunday and Wednesday.
 
 
Rue Bella said:
In my part of S.California (which looks very much like the photo above), El Nino was a bust. We again got only about 60% of our average rains.
Click to expand...
 
Yep - Same here in my part of SoCal. I was wondering wtf happened - I was promised rain! I think we got like 4-8 total days of rain this Spring. I wonder if our local meteorologists still have jobs...
 
Strange how I haven't seen many, or any, follow up stories on how we didn't get an El Nino here.
 
 
 
ajdrew said:
Geonerd, we are about 2 acres planted this year.  I am working on another area for next year, slowly but surely.  I sometimes forget that the addiction hasn't taken over every ones lives.  But was also kind of wondering about produce and the economic impact in general out there.  I understand there are huge farms which pay next to nothing for their water at the expense of tax payers but mom and pop farms are getting pounded.  Something about the depth of the well.  If you have a factory farm next to you, they drain the water table below your well and you are screwed?  Not sure I am getting it all right.  So much misinformation.
Click to expand...
 
 
All I know about the commercial farmers in CA is that most of them if not all have been offered generous $$$ per square foot of land that they do NOT grow on.
 
Some of our farmers are actually making more money not growing right now.
 
 
 
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