Water...a force of change

Water...what a cool subject! (Pun intended.) I have been doing more studying for my gardening course and learned some new cool stuff I wanted to share. One of things I'm really loving about this course is that its practical; and its practical in a way that can be earth changing--there ARE answers to some of the global problems facing us. To quote Geoff Lawton (a permaculturist from Australia), A garden can fix all the worlds problems. Now while I'm not sure I'd be THAT certain it would fix EVERYTHING he has a point for many of our problems. What is a garden? Its life, pure and simple. It is a carbon sink...which in this day and age when we're burning carbon with our fossil fuels and changing our climate drastically, what is one way to fix that? Cut down our emissions for sure. But also--nature uses plants and trees to sequester that carbon in the ground. So the more trees and plants we have, the more carbon we can stuff back in the ground. Bonus! Water shortages. Well lets think of that for a moment. Earth is a closed system, for the most part. The water that is here continously cycles through. ( So yes, ancient people probably used the water you are using now. Dont think too deep on that...)So why are we in drought and what can plants do about it? What can soil do about it? Soil, good soil, and especially the mulch layers can hold an incredible amount of water; research gives us these numbers: Soil with 1% humus can hold about 10,000 gallons of water/acre. Thats a lot! Soil with 6% humus can hold 56,000 gallons/acre!! One inch of rain over that acre delivers about 28,000 gallons which with a higher organic matter content will be held in the soil that can be used later as opposed to washing downstream, causing floods and havoc as we've seen on the news. Whats one of the best mulches to increase the organic material in your yard or garden? Those leaves we rake up every fall and throw away. Yep. Theres your excuse not to rake. So planting trees and plants and instead of hauling away all the dead leaves and things, leave them, or at least chop them up and leave them or add them back after composting them. Feed your worms and leave the food where it falls:) Wouldnt it be cool if by planting rain gardens, we could fix Edmontons flooding problems without ever having to rehaul the sewer system? It can be done! Food crisis; well if your planting already, plant trees with fruit and nuts, plants that feed you and the community. We have lots of apple and cherry trees planted around stony plain that are not utilized, but a great example of providing shade, beauty AND food. And the best part is it doesnt take alot of space to grow some food. Even us suburbanites can do it! The best part I think that nature/gardens do, is they give us life; when I'm meditating(walking) , stressed or just need to rest, nature is where I go. It replenishs a deep need in me--we'd probably all be alot better off if we just took a walk in the woods instead of prozac; and I know theres studies out there to prove that. So how do we change the world? Lets all plant a garden and see where we get. Lets catch rain, lets help the greenhouse effect, lets feed ourselves,our communities and our hearts and minds. Lets be the change! Some cool videos on how to 'plant our water' can be watched on youtube Rain Water Harvesting Demonstration with Brad Lancaster www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iQ-FBAmvBw‎ its short, check it out!