The dry season at BIB can be very dry indeed. 2020 was an extremely dry year, and plants were gasping for water. Many landscape plants, not as hardy as the wild forest plants, wilted, turned brown and died. Forest fires swept through our district, charring thousands of acres of forest and grassland. The air was filled with smoke for weeks. There’s no way to know how long the dry season might last, nor how dry it will be.
During dry times, watering garden or landscape plants from your house tank can pose problems. Unless you have a huge storage system, irrigating the landscape can drain the tank dry in short order. That sinking feeling you get when you turn on the faucet and nothing comes out is awful.
But there are things you can do to make your water stretch.
1. When you run the tap or shower to get hot water, collect it in a bottle or bucket to water plants with later on.
2. Save dishwater. Plants thrive on dirty dishwater if you have only used detergent.
3. Only water the plants that needs watering most. Or let your landscaping fend for itself and next time choose drought resistant plants.
4. Create depressions around plants to catch and hold water until it can sink in.
5. Add mulch or biochar to the soil to help it retain water better (see the biochar post elsewhere).
6. For a quick fix on a hot day, make instant shade with a cohune palm frond propped over plants.
7. Use gallon plastic jugs to deliver water to your plants slowly so that it has time to sink in. Punch a small hole in the bottom of the jug with a hot needle, fill it with water and place it beside the plant needing water. The hole will deliver only a dribble, and the water will have time to sink in as the jug empties. Even a gallon of water may be enough to save a precious landscape plant.
8. If you installed a flush toilet in your house instead of a composting toilet, during extreme drought you may have to say “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” Flush toilets use a LOT of water.
To ensure you’ll still have drinking water in case you can’t refill your tank on short notice, keep a couple of five-gallon bottles of purified drinking water on hand for emergency use. They’re available at grocery stores in Benque.
If you use a drinking water purifier, keep that topped off, too, and set aside gallon jars full of the purified water for emergency use. Empty and refill them every 6 months to a year so the water won’t get stale.
Our Belizean neighbors may be able to deliver water for our tanks, but don’t count on it. Local streams may stop running during a dry season, and the farmers along the road need the water in those streams for their own families. There may not be enough left over for us.
If we’ve wasted and used our water carelessly, there will be resentment in the neighborhood, although Belizeans are polite and may not say anything out loud to you. So be a good neighbor – be frugal with your water. It’s important for good community relations.