Every Thanksgiving, we sit down to enjoy time with our family and share a wonderful bounty of food. All that entertaining and preparing not to mention the clean up, requires a tremendous amount of water. This year, let’s take a minute to think about how grateful we are for the water we have. Thanksgiving Dinner From Farm To Table It’s estimated that producing a typical Thanksgiving meal for six – from farm to table to clean-up – requires more than 30,000... MORE >
According to the Environmental Protection Agency a municipal water main breaks every 2 minutes in the United States. If you live in a major city and watch the local evening news chances are likely you heard about a water main break in the past week. A quick search of Google News returned 13,400 stories about water main breaks in the past 7 days! Statistics are not kept for private irrigation main line breaks, but they certainly occur much more frequently... MORE >
Last month, I was reminded in the EPA’s Greenversations post, All I Want for Christmas is…Some Water Saving Tips; there are many indirect ways to reduce water consumption. Since water is intertwined with energy and agriculture, saving water comes in many shapes and sizes. The water saving tip that inspired this post was about composting food scraps. In the summer of 2012 I was amazed and disturbed when for the second time in a single day I was emptying the... MORE >
For years the Dallas/Fort Worth market has been on the forefront of seeding ryegrass into dormant turf for the winter. Why seed ryegrass you ask? (Ok, so you didn’t ask…but I’ll tell you anyway) Well, in this market the warm season turf, predominately Bermuda and St. Augustine, goes dormant in the winter, leaving the turf naturally brown. Years ago someone came up the idea of sowing ryegrass (a cool season turf) into dormant, warm-season lawns. Magically, the brown grass became... MORE >
Did you know you can find articles by and about our bloggers all over the Web? If you enjoy reading ValleyCrest Takes On, check out these other resources to learn more! And don’t forget, you can follow ValleyCrestTakesOn.com on Twitter at @ValleyCrest. July IA Member Update spring newsletter: Richard offers a contractors’ perspective on the grassroots advocacy program Associa Living: On Associa’s website for Community Associations, Alan explains the value of adaptive plants and Richard shares summer turf watering tips. SHADE... MORE >
Common Problems with Irrigation Systems and Simple Solutions 1. Run off – once irrigation water starts to run off from the landscape onto drives and sidewalks the soil has reached the saturation point and can not absorb any more water. The amount of time this takes to occur varies based on head type, soil type, compaction and slope. SOLUTION: Use a “cycle and soak” feature where the zone runs for a shorter amount of time, but may run more than... MORE >
