welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

rainwater tanks, skeeters, patriot day,

Walk to End Alzheimers
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click here to find your local walk
 

RAINWATER TANKS
i have close to 30,000 gallons of capacity for my 
rainwater collection system 









22,000 gallons are collected off my house and barn 
to be used for water use in my house
its filtered multiple times and eventually sterilized
with a uv light so
what we drink is a sterile pure water

the other 8,000 gallons are used in the landscape
and garden
last year with the worst drought in our area ever
i began to limit and eliminate what i watered
whats left that survived are a lot of tough native plants

im always tinkering with my system
i have 1 1500 gallon tank by my garage and 
3 1500 gallon tanks hooked in a series that 
were down by my garden which is approximately 
600 square feet of space composed of about 
6 raised 4x12 ft beds all connected to these tanks
with a drip system for each bed

the problem was that the tanks were on the same 
level as the garden so the pressure for dripping is 
real slow
as ive tried to keep my irrigation system using only 
gravity for the pressure to move the water
its all part of being green
no electricity is used to move the water to the garden

my irrigation system is all connected underground
to the old waterline to the well that has been since
shut down

to increase this pressure i decided to move my 
3 tanks from the garden and one from the garage
to an area behind my barn which provides a 
drop of 3-4 feet to my garden which greatly 
increases the pressure in my system 

these tanks are hooked up underground to tanks 
at my garage front porch my bbq grill and an over
flow tank from my house water
this gives me about 8000 gallons for irrigation 










to prep the area for the tanks i rake and try to level
the area as much as possible
i cover the ground with black plastic and then 
place down finely crushed granite which is leveled

the tanks are then placed on this and connected to 
each other by a 2 inch pvc underground line
that is connected to my underground water lines
to faucets scattered over my landscape and 
to my 2 small water trough gardens and of 
course to my garden 

hopefully my tank moving is over with 
but as those of you who have rainwater tanks know
you are never satisfied with the amount of tanks you 
have

SKEETERS

there are a lot of west nile cases in central texas
the secret is to control the skeeter numbers on your 
property
have no standing water in pots pans gutters etc
you can add mosquito dunks to any standing water
it will not affect your dogs or cats or wild animals

they have bt bacillus thuringiensis in them 
a bacteria that doesnt affect humans or animals
this bt will kill the skeeter larva

those spray systems that automatically squirt stuff in the
air dont work-remember you and your kids will breathe 
that stuff in 
we add minnows and gold fish in our water trough gardens
as they eat the larva of the skeeter

PATRIOT DAY

today is 9-11 
its called patriot day 
stop
think where you were that day
have a moment of silence
and remember those killed that day and
those who have fought in afghanistan to go 
after those that did this 

the organicgreen doctor

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