How to protect plants during a water crisis?

How can we protect our plants this summer, given the dire water scarcity? Is there a technique to help keep the soil moist? What are a few working ideas?

In this week’s column, we’ll look at how to successfully use RO wastewater, how to arrange plants to maximise water usage, and how to conserve water using basic yet novel methods.

A pressing question many gardeners face is whether RO wastewater can be safely used
for watering plants. And the answers alternate between yes and no, depending on whom you ask. Why does it work for some and not for others? Let me explain why. RO (Reverse Osmosis) wastewater is a byproduct of the RO filtration process, which eliminates salts and dissolved particles from water, before making it safe for consumption. This wastewater has a higher concentration of impurities, which often include salts (calcium, magnesium, and sodium), heavy metals (depending on the source of water), and other dissolved particles. The makeup of these contaminants varies greatly according to the quality of the incoming water in your area: Cauvery, borewell, or tanker water. All these sources include salts of various compositions.

Some salts benefit hardy plants like coconuts and palms, while others harm sensitive ones. When some people get water that is low in salt, their wastewater doesn’t harm
their plants and they say yes, while others with high salt levels complain. How do we determine whether the wastewater will help your plants or not? If you are utilising RO wastewater for the first time, I recommend diluting it with tap water, then feeding it to plants and checking if they can tolerate the salts. If your plants wilt, stop using it on them. If the plants do not protest, continue to use. Monitor the plants for at least two weeks for any signs of stress or salt buildup. Slowly start decreasing the amount of tap water and make sure your plants are safe.

The next step is efficiently organising your garden to make the most of the water available. Organise your plants based on their needs. Some may require water daily, some every two days, and still others once a week. If moving pots is physically impossible, use colour-coded sticks instead. Most stationery stores will have ice cream sticks for crafting. They are useful organisers. A single stick in a pot may represent daily, two sticks could suggest every other day, and three could mean once a week. If you have too many sticks to keep track of, paint them. Green-painted sticks may represent daily watering, yellows on alternate days, and blues once a week. Stick them in the pots and water them as needed. Water used to wash vegetables, daal and rice can also be reused to water plants. If you also add the water from the cooker, you have two buckets of water to use.

Beyond water optimisation, let’s talk about soil moisture retention techniques. Mulching is a commonly suggested strategy for retaining moisture and keeping soil cool in the summer. If you’re going organic, you’ll need dried leaves. They must be scattered throughout the soil or in the pot, but not close to the stem. Here is how. Collect dry leaves from your garden. Gather the earth around the stem like you would when planting a sapling. Loosen the surrounding soil to about an inch of depth. Add water, then spread the leaves on the top away from the stem. For a few days, keep checking the moisture level in the soil with your finger, applying water as needed. Within a few attempts, you’ll know how much water the plant requires and colour-code it accordingly. Avoid watering lawns until the rain begins. And don’t worry about the grass drying out. The rain will restore it.

Avoid rich fertilisation in summer. The heat from the sun and the fertiliser will scorch the leaves and make the plant sick. The leaves will droop, and it will be a long time before the plant regains its mojo. Certain plants can also die. I hope these ideas will help you deal with the water crisis.

Motley Garden is your monthly kaleidoscopic view into a sustainable garden ecosystem.

The author believes that gardening is not just about plants and how to nurture them. It is also about bees, butterflies, insects, flies, and bugs that make it their home. She is on social media as @neelavanam