Water and Soil at Crystal Waters

Water and Soil were my topics I was asked to research in Crystal Waters, and this is what I've discovered.

Water

Water is a very sacred natural resource that is vital for human, animal, and plant survival. The amount of fresh water on this Earth is limited and of that an extremely small amount is okay for drinking. At Crystal Waters water is treated as a sacred natural resource. The community members try really hard to limit their water, each household is only allowed 1000 liters a day and if they go over their name is marked on a board for everyone to see and they are fined. This can be humiliating but is a major incentive for people to cut down on their water supply. Every house on Crystal Waters has to have a rain barrel which helps with collecting water for more use around people’s houses. The main source of water leading to these households is from dams. I really love the idea of a rain barrel and am motivated to look into getting one when I get back to my house because they really help with using less water from the tap. The 1000 liters a day allowed per household is an interesting concept. I think that it would really work, especially with the right incentives, but I think that many Americans would be against this idea because we can be very greedy and scared when there is someone who talks about limiting our use. So I think it would be a hard task to get American households on board with this idea, but yet at the same time the more water we use, the higher amount we have to pay to the water companies.

When deciding where to make a dam, one should consider how clay-like the dirt is to better hold water in the dam. It should be in an area that is deeper than wide because there is more evaporation in a wider body of water. A person should plan for letting access to animals at an early age, preferably in a trough area. Dams that animals have direct access to should not have any swimming because people can easily pick up a disease. Dams can be multifunctional and should be given lots of consideration before being built. Not only can they be helpful to humans for water storage, they can also be helpful when it comes to food sources, recreation in some rivers and streams, the aesthetics can be admiring, flower production, habitat and for nectar and pollen production.

Soil

Crystal Waters is one of the longest standing examples of permaculture which soil plays a very important part in this way of gardening. Plants provide many different types of nutrients to soil depending on each plant. So when they die they make the soil richer in the variety of different nutrients. And in the same sense different plants need different amounts of certain nutrients in order to thrive. Planting using permaculture examples seems very obvious to me because it would keep the soil rich in nutrients. At Crystal Waters, their crop depends on rich soil to feed themselves sustainably. Some of the many elements needed for healthy soil are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfur, and other trace elements. And we have been talking in class how urine can be healthy to fertilize plants with, which it has a high amount of nitrogen content. And nitrogen, phosphorous and calcium are all needed for rich soil which a source for this is found in blood.

Some ways in which to also improve one’s soil is to compost. Then the nutrients from plants degrading will provide a large amount of rich soil. Composting can be done anywhere; from large piles in your backyard to in bins in a skyscraper building there is always an opportunity present for composting. Composting is easy to manage, and something that I wish I could have tried setting up in my own yard years ago. I like to learn when I can complete a full cycle with the environment like recycling, compostable toilets, and composting plant life goes from growing a plant to a full cycle planting a new one in the rich soil from the decomposed dead plant. I love the idea of this natural cycle.

Another important protector of soil and plants is mulch which provides ground cover for soil, control weed growth, retain soil moisture, alter the temperature of the soil and air just above it, improve soil structure, add more nutrients to the soil, and help keep crops clean and disease free. This helps in heavy rain storms to slowly reintroduce water into the ground. Growing your own mulch greatly decreases the amount of weeds because it is made of plants native to the area.

Using organic fertilizers also helps for soil and plant health. The Crystal Waters brochure talks about using lime stones to help acidic soil become more neutral. In times when it is raining too hard seaweed can be used to help hold in the nutrients that can be washed away. Another healthy solution is to make a “manure tea”. This is done by mixing together comfrey, deep rooting plants, and nettles with water and letting sit for a few weeks.