Hi junktruck,
It looks like the only city with the ban still being enforced today is Lee's Summit. They can still water by hand with a hose.

Taken from an article published in this mornings Lee's Summit Journal:
To preserve trees, flowers or other landscaping property owners will still be allowed to use watering cans, or hand-held hoses with nozzles. But no unattended open hoses are allowed, nor soaker hoses, irrigation systems or sprinklers.

Honestly I'd stick with the weekly plan. Increasing the frequency is only going to make the plants more water dependent, not less. The weekly program will help them tolerate a 10 day or more regimen if it becomes necessary. Just something to consider.

Meanwhile I'd start stockpiling. Pick up a 55 gallon barrel somewhere for storage and start saving cooking water and any other grey water you may have available.

I assume your plants are already heavily mulched?

Dave

We are on a well and occasionaly have put a self imposed restriction on. We empty the dehumidifiers into the 55 gallon drum, the cold water before the shower gets warm, all sorts of ways.
I would stick with the weekly plan too.

Can anyone with a background in law explain to me the legal authority of a water company to write tickets? I could see if it was a city water company; they'd just use the city police. But rural water companies do not have any government affiliation. I am thus wondering if they have any authority to write citations.

Cole Robbie I don't know about legalities,but civuc responsibility would dictate obeying the ban.
Most bans usually allow for food crop watering unless water levels are severly depleted .
In many states water is a precious commodity everyday.

I do not disagree with you at all. I just wonder about the actual law. My water company is corrupt enough as it is. I want to know if they can give the meter reader a badge, a citation book, and a gun. That's my concern.

It's funny during a water ban the golf courses stay nice and green. What a farce. Water at 2 or 3 in the AM.

Not so funny, golf courses are granted water rights so they can stay in buisness.
When buisnesses go out of buisness ,home owners make up the tax difference in more property taxes .

We have had total outdoor watering bans on occasion over the past years, but exception is always made for home vegetable gardens. It could be worth your time to check to see if the ban includes watering your vegetables.

Some have suggested you have a civic duty to honor the ban. I would say your civic duty is to feed your family. Any food you buy is going to take water anyways + fuel to get it to your market. If water was really scare then showing bans should take effect before gardening (for food) watering bans.

I would ignore the ban and keep watering your garden discretely. Just make sure your lawn is a nice crunchy brown (like mine) and I doubt you will be cited.

I water my garden/perennial beds after dark since we have had so many 100 degree days.

I also started watering a portion of the front yard and the trees, so they keep their foliage.

The smaller hard maple was more affected and lost too many of it's leaves early on.

I hope my watering during this hot spell will keep it from dying back and losing limbs.

I agree barnhardt. And like others have already said, personal vegetable gardens (and community vegetable gardens) are exempt from water restrictions. So you should be fine, and especially with hand-held watering.

Read Cadillac Desert and you will get some insight as to why we're having water problems. Much of the land west of the Mississippi depends on irrigation, not rainfall for agriculture. Water is being pumped from the aquifer faster than it is being replenished and virtually every river is dammed and/or diverted.

Even here in VA some of the lakes are not being replenished.
It is my belief you have the right to support yourself and family with your garden. I do NOT feel it is your God-given right to have green grass.
Sorry got into this with my co-worker. His argument was he would pay the fine if he got a ticket and what was the harm. I could not make him understand there might not BE enough water.
sigh. Just a rant. Going to empty the dehumidifier water into our rain barrel now.

Dehumidifier? HA HA HA.

I have recently had 2+ weeks of 100F-115F temps., and 30mph wind, 4.5" of precipitation YTD, most of which was snow I had to scoop from my sidewalks and driveways.

I don't need no stinkin' dehumidifier.

I started using rain barrels right after starting my first garden. Each year I try to fill-up early, before the dry spell hits.

The plants seem to like it and so does my water bill. It definitely reduces the COG (Cost of Gardening).

I have a limited well also. I use rain barrels. I also have a ground source heat pump that puts out a lot of condensate that I capture to fill up the rain barrels.

Mulching helps a lot though.

In our area, water bans don't apply to vegetable gardens. My lawn is a crispy brown right now, and there's no real rain in the forecasts so I assume some sort of ban will be coming soon. I'll be giving the perennial bed a good watering this morning after the veggie patch is done.

How often does everyone water their gardens? I water my tomatoes that are growing in containers every day, I have to in this extreme heat. I water them early in the a.m. and then again in the evening, right around dusk. They are dry when I go to water them, we've had heat in the mid to high 90s for the past couple of weeks.

I also water my perennial beds almost daily, especially my Hydranges, they look extremely sick if I do not water them every day.

The heat is suppose to break in my area starting tomorrow (Thursday), when it will go down into the 80s which is normal for the month of July. Hopefully I will be able to cut back on the watering.

Containers ALWAYS dry out fast. To me that subjects tomatoes to BER.

Robeb's July 5 post quotes the Lee's Summit Journal saying that using a hand-held hose is ok, but a soaker hose is not. That doesn't seem to make sense.

I've never had BER in containers or ground. That being said, I water tomatoes in hot weather daily in containers, usually every two days for peppers. Tomatoes that have large fruit often require twice a day in containers. In ground, I water tomatoes much less often, especially when I've mulched them well, even in sandy soil. I've noticed that tomato roots go VERY deep in sandy soil.

Soaker hoses may lead to unattended watering. I use a 55 gal barrel so I IF forget to turn the soaker off it just runs out.

Why of course you can also get BER in the ground. Uneven watering aids BER. Containers drying out faster don't help to prevent BER. AND don't go on vacation.

I have a well and have been siphoning bathtub water out the window for weeks. It is a mess. I use a fountain pump to get it started. The water doesn't go far and neither did the water I saved in stock tanks. I wash things in my kitchen sink in a tub and pour that water in a bucket to water pots on my porch. Saving water is time consuming. I have stopped watering some tomatoes that don't have many green ones on them. In a way it is an experiment to see if they can live and maybe recover if it does rain.

I have found that tomatoes that germinate right in the garden (from last years culls) seem to need less watering. Probably because the roots are more established when they are NOT replanted.

Keep that in mind next year. They germinate later but seem to hold up better for me.

I find from my experience with last years EXTREME drought in Texas and 70 days above 100 and living 100% on rainwater collection, that when there is no ground moisture anywhere, that growing in containers is the only way to go. My soil is a very porous limestone soil and one could pore a steady stream on it and it did not stay anywhere close to my plants roots. I find that containers hold water by the plants roots and in a huge long drought, the ground does not do this. It tales less water to water the pot. One can add amendments that hold on to water also.

I ended up walking away from my vegetable garden and letting everything in my perennials dry up and shrivel away.. Most of the natives reseeded in the wet winter. I ran out of rain water in July. We had had 5" of rain in 12 months in an area that usually has a 34" average (deceptive average). WE had been doing major conservation practices and still doing some watering of containers and trees. I had to truck in water at a very pricey amount. Hard awful water. I am so spoiled with rainwater. We got our first rains in September .

I added clay and expanded shale and coconut coire to my beds in my garden to help with water retention. Irregation is a way of life here even on a good year. Just less.

I hope your drought does not last as long as ours. In my area of Texas, We have rain but the rains have not fallen enough in the areas that we need it to to refill our reservoirs. So that is why we are still on that disaster relief map. they have denied the rice farmers water for their second crop because we are still at 49% full in the Colorado River (in Texas) reservoirs. We are still on Stage 2 water restrictions.

I

They do everything different in Tx. Ever been to Hippy Hollow State Park? Lake Travis?

Yes I have been to Hippy Hollow , but not since they made it into a park and started to charge money for it. ( Not since the Hippies are gone). TOO CROWDED, too many gawkers in boats.. Lake travis is 50 feet down and awful for swimming these last couple of years because of the drought. I live about 10 miles from Lake Travis.

I am chopping my indeterminate tomatoes down and I will get another crop in the fall. The nights are now to hot for toms to set.