The Aquafir

There's moments when you just have to own your city roots, like when you forget the difference between well and city water.

We've been having a devil of a time keeping the garden alive. The drips are in place, just like usual; the soil is amended, just like usual; heirloom plants are purchased and planted, just like usual; and the season started right on time.

It's been a typical summer, meaning hot days followed by cool evenings, and some cool days interspersed. About the halfway point to being grown, the leaves started to yellow on the tomatoes, and crispy edges formed on the squash and the stalks hollowed and began to droop. Some squash came off, but most of it never got going.

We added nutrients, read up on the possible causes, sprayed with natural herbicides, checked for fungus. We trimmed everything back and sprayed Miracle Gro to give it a boost, sprinkled slug and snail pellets on the perimeter.

No improvement.

We upped the amount of water twice a day, and the plants still looked parched and starved. Somehow those drips just didn't look up to the job. A couple of our best tomato plants gave up the ghost, and were replaced with more sturdy hybrid naturals (that's what I call cross-bred plants in the same genus to naturally resist disease).  Hybrids get a bad rap sometimes. They are often as healthy as Heirlooms.

Anyway, I became obsessed that we might actually lose everything except for the peppers and Japanese eggplants, which were doing great.

Out front it was the same story with the hummingbird and bee bushes. They looked starved and just hanging on. We kept talking about having had a lot of rain over the winter and the Aquafir should be in pretty good shape. Maybe sediment? We swapped out the sprinkler heads, cleaned and lowered the risers, and still not much improvement.

It been all bountiful crops from the garden, the fruit trees, the olives for 4 yrs. Even during the drought, we had ample water for the house and the irrigation systems and good water pressure. The filter on the well had been changed recently, and our inexperience just let the think that was enough.  We kept upping the pressure and lengthening the watering cycles.

Eventually we went back to the well.  It didn't smell like sulfur, showers were fine and water pressure in the house was good. And the Hubs checked it probably because I was freaking out about the garden. He found the brand new filter was caked with rusty, mineral-y, thick calcified gunk. Right away the place burst to life (literally: we had to repair the blow outs in the drip line from too much pressure). We readjusted the times and satisfyingly watched the water pool at the base of the tomatoes and squash.

You know, I'd been all over those garden websites when people write in about their plants turning yellow and dying off for no apparent reason. They're helpful, but this was a good lesson. Sometimes it's the soil amendments or the temperature or fungus or a worm. And sometimes it's forgetful city folks who didn't realize that with any natural water source it's likely to change from year to year.

This morning, the bird feeders need filling for the bright yellow birds that talk incessantly, the little brown wrens, the blackbirds and bluebirds and bluejays and red birds with black wings. That's about my speed. And then I will check the garden.