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and so...it begins again

BobsYourUncle said:
The rain was good, but it wasn't enough. Apparantly the dams are still getting some run-off though. Me, well, I was putting in a new garden on saturday for my chillies, moving a couple of cubic metres of garden soil up a hill in a wheel barrow, when it decided to start raining again. And it poured. I kept going, worried that my dirt pile would be washed away, and got it finished, but I was soaked by the end. Moving (running) all that dirt up a gentle slope was a good workout though.
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Wow Bob, how come you get to have all the fun :lol:

Rumor is that we got an extra 4 months of water in the dams from that rain. Thats on current restrictions of course.
Now they're all the way up to 20% full, still too soon to celebrate I think so just a small woohoo.
 
Unfortunately we've only got a small (5000L) tank, and it wasn't far from full when the first of the rain came, which is a shame. We probably could've filled it up 2 or 3 times over with the rain we had :lol:
 
Time to get the pots ready :D woohoo



From left - Scotch Bonnet, Takanotsume, Thai birdseye (for cooking), Black Pearl (look closely) , jalo's.

And for the other Siam growers...Grandpa & Grandson.

 
BobsYourUncle said:
Unfortunately we've only got a small (5000L) tank, and it wasn't far from full when the first of the rain came, which is a shame. We probably could've filled it up 2 or 3 times over with the rain we had :D
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Having a tank must be great, I'm planning for an underground one here...when the price is right.
Now I just water starve everything and mulch a lot...let the weeds & grasses grow a bit then cut their leaves back into the garden bed. I'm doing about 20 litres of water every 10 days for 100 pepper plants, a dozen toms, herbs, beans & citrus.
Saving my empty 2 litre plastic soft-drink bottles for in-ground reservoirs in case level 6 comes in.
I may get smaller plants & less pods...but I'm sure I make up for it with flavor & survivability.
Are you already on recycled water there?

I do mix the water-soaker granules into the potting mix when I plant out a garden bed - I'm sure thats helping a lot.
 
Yeah, having a tank is nice, and I expect it to be very useful come summer when things start wilting daily. I don't use much water at the moment, being pretty cool still, and the fact that I mostly grow just chillies helps. We were lucky enough to get in before the changes to the rebate scheme, so we got pretty much everything we spent back from the state and local governments. Now you have to get it plumbed into your house to get money back, and I'd imagine that'd get expensive.

No, we're not on recycled water yet, but swanbank power station is (as of last week I think) and it's not far down the road. I believe our water supply comes from the same place as the Brisbane supply, so when I'm on recycled water, you will be too. Bring it on I say.
 
I thought you had a referendum there (or was it Toowoomba) about recycled water and got a negative vote...then the State Govt., in true democratic fashion, stepped in & said you'll get it anyway?
5000L, thats a years worth of chillies though isn't it? How many you growing?
 
That was Toowoomba, which is quite a bit further out than we are. One group ran a pretty big scare campaign, and the referendum got beaten something like 39-61. They shouldn't have had a referendum in the first place, I mean if it's drink recycled water or die of thirst, is that really a choice?

5000L should be plenty, especially considering 70mm or so worth of rain would be just about enough to fill it (fingers crossed we get some good rain this summer). I was planning on about 45 plants (don't know what I'll do with all the chillies yet), but a few of those mightn't make it, I have some that I haven't planted out of their plastic cups that have some discoloration on their leaves which I'm a little worried about. I'll have to take some pictures when I get a chance for another opinion.
 
"drink recycled water or die of thirst"

I agree entirely, who needs to vote on that, obviously the scare campaign was brought by the local water trucking company. Once again big biz & govt. bring it down to voting between tweedle-dee & tweedle-dum and we all know who gets the final say if the vote goes wrong...its the one with the most money.

Sorry THP - not going political, but it is relevant to pepper growing in this part of the world.

Having mandatory voting just fudges the outcome. For history - the original greek democracy enabled people to vote against something as well as for. The "black ball" Vote For a party but against a candidate, for a party & candidate but against a single policy, or any variation of those (for a candidate but against the party). It gave the people the ability to have a say. Now our choices are narrowed for us by those who choose what we would want & according to them we're only qualified to make one of two decissions. To round up the history lesson, by the second democratic vote the rich & powerful were paying people to take black stones up to the forum with their opponents initials pre-engraved on them, and a law was passed to do away with black balling by the subsequent winner.
Welcome to modern democracy - how much is it going to cost to truck water in from the overflowing Hinze dam? Better still, who's trucking company is going to win the contract for that?
 
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