Water

All life is based on water. Your homestead and garden will depend on it. In selecting your homestead, water is one of the three key criteria to look for. (Remember: Land, water and wood.)

Some areas of the United States have more rainfall than others, so a variety of gardening methods may become necessary. Depending on your situation, I believe it never hurts to conserve, and start with practices that use as little water as possible. With this experience, you will have more options for homestead situations and climates.

Property that has surface water is ideal, since there is no question as to its availability or quantity. A friend of mine calls this type of property water "live water". Just because it is visible, still does not mean it is yours for the taking. Anywhere there is a scarcity of water, there will likely be regulations for its use. You may have a stream running through your property, and only be able to look at it. So research is needed! I have been told that in one state, you can not even capture the water that rains on your house! Perish the thought!!! That is really being tight with water.

Spillway and stream from a pond

A pond is surface water in a quantity for reserve. Ponds are generally man made. Special care must be taken in the construction of the dam. Having a dam fail can cause a lot of problems down stream. This area is beyond my experience. If I get more hands on info, I will make a dedicated article on the topic. For now, I will link to some pond info in the resources section.

Wells are another source of water, and you would want to study the depth and how feasible it would be to pump by hand or with solar. I always think first of the most low tech way to do something. Chose first the most robust, the most simple options. Where ground water meets a cut in the terrain, you may have a spring, or seep. These if cleaned out, and collected into one spring head, may increase in water flow. The absolute ideal is to have the water source higher than your home and farm, and have it gravity fed. The system is really simple, and self sustaining. I have seen systems where no power was needed, and the home and garden had continuous flow and good pressure water.

We collect rain water from our barn roof, and store the water in an above ground, 2300 gal tank. This system is simple to use, and has provided garden water during especially dry times of the summer. Since we often have rain periodically through out the summer I don't need to store up the winter supply, and I drain the tank for winter. You can calculate the potential gallons a roof surface would collect with this formula:

1. Take the foot print length and width of the roof lines that you will be able to collect water from, and figure out the total square feet.
2. Total foot print square feet x 0.62337662352 = gallons for each inch of rain that falls
3. If your structure is 40 x 60, then you have 2,400 square feet to collect water. If an inch of rain falls on the roof, then you could collect 1,406 gallons.

Most drizzle rains do not total to a lot, perhaps 1/4 or less of an inch of rain. A thunderstorm down pour unleashes a lot of rain, but not over a long time period. You may get an inch out of a thunderstorm. Sustained high rate rains can happen, but don't seem to when you need them most. I figure any rain I can collect is that much more that I do not have to pump from my well.

Spring at the lower edge of a hill

If your prospective land does not have water, and you are not able to get water from a well, you likely will not be able to sustain yourself on the land. We have friends that hauled water for close to 10 years. That is hard work. Every glass full, every flush becomes important then! Rather than their water situation improving, the 10 years ended when they moved to a homestead that had water. You can do it if you have to, but I don't think it is sustainable, especially if you can not haul large quantities in a vehicle. (I have seen some properties for sale in the desert that sell with the water tanker as part of the property sale.)

I encourage you to get as much information as possible about water on your land. Consider talking with realtors, area farms and neighbors, well drillers familiar with your area, etc. If water is accessible at the time of your evaluation, I suggest getting the water tested. We know of residential wells in the vicinity of old fruit orchards that now have toxic levels of arsenic.

Water quantity may be limited. Like  many resources, you learn to get by with what you have. One gardener I know has developed extensive experience with mulching due to a very poor performing well on their property. They have developed a garden and orchard without ever using their well water, and now consider it a blessing that the well has poorly produced. Necessity is the mother of invention!

For water conservation in your dwelling, consider recycling grey water. Grey water systems require double plumbing pipes, and some additional planning when setting up the system. In grey water, you never store it, as bacteria growth would quickly turn the reservoir into black water. You need to filter solids, but otherwise, I think grey water collection is an excellent thing to consider. (I will link to a complete post on grey water when it is online.)

Consider your options for improving your water resources, to protect surface water from agriculture contamination, etc. I pray you will always have a lot of cool, clean water.


Resources:

• Handpump wells (web)
• Spring drinking water (web)
• Ponds, cisterns and tanks (web)