Been reading alot about people having issues using city water and the chlorine.... That's all I use on my plants and they seem healthy to me.... Here in Okinawa, they don't add fluoride to the water, maybe that is the bigger issue? I have used bottled water at times and it has fluoride due to the lack of it being added to the water from the tap and they didn't seem to like it too much.... Maybe?
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- Thread starter rhm3769
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I just don't see how city water with chlorine can be particularly bad for plants, especially since my neighbor always had a vegetable garden and always used city water and always had so many tomatoes and cucumbers and bell peppers that we would give most of them away.... And other than miracle gro once in awhile, he didn't do anything special with them.... I could understand not using it if you could smell the chlorine, but then there's enough stuff in rain water to make it harmful in areas but plants grow just fine with it, too....
Id be more concerned about radioisotopes & caesium-137 than chlorine in your area after last years disaster.
"Significant amounts of radioactive material have also been released into ground and ocean waters, officials temporarily recommended that tap water should not be used to prepare food for infants"
Mezo.
"Significant amounts of radioactive material have also been released into ground and ocean waters, officials temporarily recommended that tap water should not be used to prepare food for infants"
Mezo.
I think that is in the areal of the reactor.
I use my fish tank water on my plants.
Well water for me
During this year's drought and record temps I was watering once a day or more with tap water that had fluoride. The plants didn't seem to mind. No way to know if they would have been larger with different water but I expect not as they were pot and space (sunlight) bound long before now.
I'm in the same boat. Loads of mineral in our water. I doubt my plants will ever see a calcium deficiency! However, while the chlorine (or whatever is used these days) probably doesn't directly harm the plants, per se, I wonder if it does have an effect on the soil microbes.
Some of the problems with the water issue could just be the build up of the minerals in the soil if growing in pots like 5 gallon pails from the problem of lack of proper drainage. And that goes for plants in ground as well.
Over a period of time one just normally waters plants till they think that's enough and the soil is wet enough, in a sense. Here sometimes that water's minerals will just build up after awhile in the soil.
With proper drainage one can water the soil in the pot till you can actually see the water flow out the drain holes and thus making the soil evenly wet.. Also, a good flushing of the pail with water atleast once a month will rid the soil of most of these bulit up minerals
This year when I started to use 5 gallon pails I notice in a few of my pots that the soil on top was dry but as soon as I started watering the water built up on the top. That pail was full of water. Here I figured out even with the drain holes I had, though not enough, that just setting the pail on the ground eventuallu blocked the drain holes. So needed to prop the pails up on blocks to get better drainage. That and a few more holes. Worked fine after.
Like some said if you can drink it should be ok for plants. I'd say improper drainage would be a proplem even with some waters that are high in some minerals..
ok I'm done.
make any sense
Here in Okinawa, they don't add fluoride to the water, maybe that is the bigger issue?
Not for the Dentists !
Over a period of time one just normally waters plants till they think that's enough and the soil is wet enough, in a sense. Here sometimes that water's minerals will just build up after awhile in the soil.
With proper drainage one can water the soil in the pot till you can actually see the water flow out the drain holes and thus making the soil evenly wet.. Also, a good flushing of the pail with water atleast once a month will rid the soil of most of these bulit up minerals
This year when I started to use 5 gallon pails I notice in a few of my pots that the soil on top was dry but as soon as I started watering the water built up on the top. That pail was full of water. Here I figured out even with the drain holes I had, though not enough, that just setting the pail on the ground eventuallu blocked the drain holes. So needed to prop the pails up on blocks to get better drainage. That and a few more holes. Worked fine after.
Like some said if you can drink it should be ok for plants. I'd say improper drainage would be a proplem even with some waters that are high in some minerals..
ok I'm done.
make any sense
Here in Okinawa, they don't add fluoride to the water, maybe that is the bigger issue?
Not for the Dentists !
if u can get your hands on some sodium bisulfite (liquid) or sodium metabisulfite (solid powder) a very minute amount will be able to bring that free chlorine residual down........ WHO potable water standard gives a guideline of 0.5 to 1.50 ppm of free chlorine...... that will never do your plants anything...... the higher concentrations doh may have a high oxidizing potential and could be bad....... but don't worry about it too much.... that concentration needs to be extremely high for it to affect your plants..... chlorine also flashes very easily and is volatile.... if you use a hose to spray your plants.... that action by itself will flash some chlorine out of the water (that is probably why u wud smell it and think there is a large concentration)
I never try to water enough that any comes out the bottom of the pots, though it did 3, maybe 4 times that we had rain over the summer. No problem from our (average hardness) water or synthetic fertilizers I used in moderation. We do have a fair amount of calcium buildup on faucet fixtures but the plants still seem to like the eggshells I amend the soil with. YMMV, all water is a little different when it comes to mineral content.
Yes it does. I've wondered if that might help but not practical in the house. The carpet would get soggy, but than the low humidity issue in the winter would disappear.
But my city gets it water from deep wells and has a heavy mineral load and while your methiod would greatly reduce the mineral build up I'm sure I'd get some.