Water goes downhill. Such a simple, powerful fact, yet it is ignored because we have high-embodied energy water too easily available. Permaculture and its cheerful water harvesting advocate, Brad Lancaster, teach us to plan where the three kinds of water will go in our yards- rain water, roof harvesting water, and greywater. Many water harvesting techniques nearly remove any need for using drinking water for outdoor plants, even in Brad’s hot desert home of Tucson. Learn about your watershed. Also learn some of these terms and apply them in your yard- swale, French drain, gabion, boomerang berms, mulched basins, three-way diverter valves for greywater, native plants, and more. Buy copies of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands, Volumes 1 and 2 by Brad Lancaster. If he can create lush vegetation that produces native foods in enticing and magical oases without using drinking water in Tucson, then all of us need to figure out how to stop using hoses so insidiously connected to precious drinking water.                   

For the website to get these great books: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/