I've Been KILLING My Garden And You Might Be Too! Here's WHY!

[@victorialg1270]

Please make follow up videos on your decisions and progress.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Will do

[@larrystrayer8336]

As a retired Horticulturist, my recommendation is: Use your rainwater catchment now. Leach your greenhouse soil asap. You just need water flow. Not pressure. If you are growing in the ground it would be advisable to dig up the soil and put into large containers, well drained, and run water through it. The in ground garden, let the winter rains do it’s leaching. Then retest in February.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Good thoughts. Thanks.

[@agapefield]

I saw a similar situation with a customer who had spent quite a fortune on their 3 acre landscape and their plants were struggling and dying. I did both a soil test and a water test and the saline was coming from the well. We had a different well dug to get past the salt dome and installed a reverse osmosis system. We re-routed the saline well water to their pool and the new system for the landscape. We treated the soil by soaking it with an enzyme solution and began adding soil ammendments. It was almost an immediate turn around. Of course the client had the resources to pay for the fix which was very expensive. Praying that your soil can be revived. Have a blessed day!

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Cool. Thank you. I can't dig another well since that would cost me $35k in my area.

[@agapefield]

@@CountryLivingExperience i totally understand. I gave to option of just doing the reverse osmosis on the existing well but being a foreign doctor he had an unlimited budget.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

@@agapefield unlimited budgets are nice.

[@agapefield]

@@CountryLivingExperience yes but I'm confident you can find a solution.

[@BNOBLE.]

OUCH! Sorry about the bad break. The only way out it to fix the water system. After its been addressed you will need to flush your soil or move the garden to a new area. Their may be a few long term half baked semi solutions but you are better off biting the bullet as soon as possible or switching to a goat farm. Good luck and God speed

[@CountryLivingExperience]

No worries. We will get it worked out. I'll just have to bite the bullet.

[@screepster]

So thankful for a 330' well in Michigan especially for the greenhouses. When you first said salt my thought was commercial fertilizer as the cause.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Not sure where the salt is coming from. My well is 400' deep. Maybe is is erosion of the aquifer.

[@matejkotnik9675]

Dont use expensive soil amendments they are synthetic chemicals, source some compost to replace 10" or put on top of bad soil in raised beds. Soil leaches that salt naturally watering with rainwater. Thats why outdor garden has less salt - rain helps. RO is a nice backup, you shuldnt need more than 500$ for RO setup, to fill backup storage. Invest in more rain storage and good compost , as of my experience it is the wise solution 😊.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

I only use natural organic soil amendments. The compost must be of the correct balance though. My soils guy is crafting the recommendation.

[@larrystrayer8336]

Additional thoughts Make organic salt.

[@jimoray3]

Great content. Wish you best best. Praying

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thank you

[@arrisslee]

Blessings on you for sharing this important information and I sincerely pray for you to find the perfect solution for this water problem.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thank you so much. We are still working on trying to fix the water.

[@elusive323]

Get the water sorted out first,have a glass and contemplate the next step.

[@vanessaadams9145]

You could definately do some core gardening to help with how much you need to water. If you have dry spells this wouldn't be a bad idea regardless. That combined with heavy mulch on top as well. Core gardening is basically where you dig a deep trench inbetween the plant rows and fill with straw or grass clippings leaves something that is going to retain moisture then back fill and plant.

[@777SuperTone]

r.o. + amendments for the tunnel…r.o. for the garden and start a cover crop (terminate early spring)…epsom salts will help with calcium uptake…

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Looking in to all options for sure.

[@msthing120]

Have you looked into an ion exchange system? These are used a lot for research labs. Where I worked they had a system for the whole building that had many labs. This may be financially unrealistic. I don't know what it would cost, but look into this as well. Definitely put your money into the well to deal with that first, in my opinion.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

I hadn't until you mentioned it. Thank you. Checking them out now.

[@teenajtx]

Some areas of Texas uses to mine salt... THATS why Houston has Petroleum holding tanks and Dallas has tunnels under downtown.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Same with Detroit. Massive caves under the city where they mined salt for decades.

[@terridunning5439]

I'm so glad your found the problem (at least the big, main problem). Since your asked for opinions, I would go for the osmosis system. And then I would look at my drainage in the gardens. A good way to leach and/or reduce that sodium out of the soil is to water, water, water and drain it away. Then I would look at the fertilizer I was using. Just because one is using organic or manure based fertilizer does not mean that one is not adding more sodium to the soil. You can have your fertilizer or compost tested as well just to see.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thank you. I am currently connecting the rain water to the irrigation system. This will give me that ability to flush out the soils with a clean water.

[@albowrx]

We are in a city and use the 3 big blue filters to filter out chlorine and fluoride. Fluoride removal isn't 100% but it's up there. We even invested on hoses that aren't made of PVC. I believe they're called Water Right.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

I have heard the Big Blue's work well. Yep, I always buy rubber hoses. They just last longer.

[@lisareaume3857]

GET THE WATER SYSTEM DONE ASAP!

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Working on it

[@tillisross2246]

Thanks for sharing! Very good information!

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Glad it was helpful!

[@shirley7137]

I used a hose for the travel trailer with a filter on it and got better results this summer. That was just a guess to do that...also more lime.....but, I do need to seek out better answers and get to the bottom of the loses I am seeing in my own garden. Used to get 50-60 of each species of squash...only got 5 for less this year of three of them. Seems like when it is the first time, I plant something its first year is good. Butter cup squash this year got approx.. 24. Serious times call for a serious gardening and I need to stop playing around with it and guessing and get to the bottom of the matter. Thank you for posting this video.

[@bbales2305]

Good LUCK!!!👍🍀

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thanks

[@teenajtx]

THANK YOU!!! I was certainly wondering whats wrong!

[@appalachianheartsong5487]

You and you’re family are our kind of people, come to East Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains and you won’t have that particular problem :) We can hook you up, give us a shout. God bless.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Very kind of you. Thank you.

[@bethtucker1810]

If it were me I would Fix the well cause, you and your animals are drinking it, get the rain water catchment going then fix the soil.

[@ReginaKayMcBride]

This is very interesting. I've been container gardening for a couple years and this year I've been struggling with little flea hopper bugs. I also use well water, so I'm wondering if I have a problem with my water, now. 🤔

[@CountryLivingExperience]

A water test is a good idea

[@paulthiessen6444]

When farmers do commercial irrigation, they factor in enough water to have sone actually run through the soil so that the salt is carried through

[@deannamoore6676]

Well, this explains so much! We are in the city limits of Palestine, TX. We can't even drink our water it's so bad. My garden sounds like yours. I got a few pumpkins and a couple of squash, but I had 10+ plants of each! The squash bugs devastated them. I also had mites and leaf cutters. I got tomatoes but not without fighting for them. My peppers are doing great, now but struggled all summer while i was havingto water them. I need to decide if we are staying here or getting out of the city before I spend much more. We need rain catchment and gutters to fix our erosion issues and help with our crazy water bills but again that's more💰.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

It could be the same issue for sure. I would honestly say that getting out of the city would be the best choice. Save the money for a country homestead. Lots of beautiful land near Palestine.

[@albowrx]

Yep, although I live in a huge city currently, we are waiting to find a proper homestead. The doubling of properties isn't helping either so those would have to come down to reasonable level, and I'm not even saying to what they were. Meanwhile, we are homesteading on a 4000 sq ft city plot, which sucks but we are doing the best of what we have. 13 chickens, rabbits, 656 sq ft garden, 7 geobins for compost, etc.

[@michaellindsey5858]

Thanks for the information. Where did you send the water sample? Thanks

[@CountryLivingExperience]

You're welcome. We sent it to Ward Labs in Missouri.

[@GunEnjoyer357]

We have same issue here in SE Ok! Do you have any links to RO systems? I see prices from $250-$4500. Only use well water for irrigation. Thx, JP

[@CountryLivingExperience]

This is what I am looking at....www.uswatersystems.com/us-water-systems-maverick-lite-commercial-ro-system-200-to-750-gpd.html

[@GunEnjoyer357]

We just started looking as well and will keep you updated on our progress. Pls do the same. Wish I could find video of installing system @ wellhouse for irrigation.@@CountryLivingExperience

[@JWTX]

Wow, that's tough situation. I know I bever put city water on my plants. I have in line filters to clean ot up as much as possible. Just our humidity here in East Texas helps create pest issues. Poor soil just compounds that. I'm dealing with these issues too.... Jeff

[@CountryLivingExperience]

It's a rough one for sure. I gotta get it worked out or I am in trouble.

[@JWTX]

​@@CountryLivingExperienceyou might consider using an inline rv filter or maybe even 2 of them. And retest your water. Be a lot cheaper.... Jeff

[@TheCompactHomestead]

What is your annual rainfall? Consider finishing and adding to your rainfall collection based on the rainfall in your area.and using the well as a back-up.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Depends on the year. It is feast or famine. Our Summers are extremely dry and the Spring is very wet. I will continue to add to the rainwater system over time for sure, but at this point it cannot supply for more than a month.

[@JosiahK555]

i think if you want to continue gardening there, you have to fix the problem at the source if you have the money first. then soil, and add as much rain water catchment as you can over time so your reverse osmosis machine isn't your Achilles heal if it breaks..

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Yep. It is a challenging problem.

[@joshuakunze8319]

I'd recommend doing both solutions; amend the soil AND fix the water problem. You can't grow food without good soil and you can't grow food without water; you need both.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Yep. Working on it

[@Doc1855]

We have a lot of iron and sulfur in our well water. Everyone who has well water around here has sulfur and some iron. I’m no chemist but I believe all of this is because we live in a very mountainous area of north central Washington state where many moons ago there was a lot of volcanic activity.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Do you have a water softener?

[@Doc1855]

@@CountryLivingExperience Yes, we do, but we can smell the sulfur in our house water. We buy bottled water to drink. Our house does not smell like sulfur (or rotten eggs). Our tap water smells more after a good rain storm.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

You might want to get your system checked. We had high iron and sulfur in our well in Michigan and our water softener took that right out. No smell and no hardness.

[@Doc1855]

@@CountryLivingExperience We’ve had people out twice and it’s still the same way. We then had a reverse osmosis system installed and that was a disaster so we had it removed. Thankfully our house doesn’t smell like our water. One of my brother and sister in law’s house smells like rotten eggs. They go out to the family farm and get their drinking and cooking water from the “sweet” well.

[@frankieromo1216]

Start making jlf and jms .. jasdam liquid fertilizer.. and water youres veggies with that. Good luck

[@Chocamatoes]

Sounds like you need to tackle the source of the problem which is the well. This is my thinking. If the rainwater dilutes the sodium, that’s in the soil, then I can count on that to help me fix the soil. The well will not be fixed without the investment. You will use less on amendments which would save your money to invest in fixing the well. Just my thoughts.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Yea, I am thinking that's the direction I need to go as well.

[@txgal]

Wow that is surprising. Thanks for sharing this information. I enjoy learning from your experiences. We moved from a city yard 😢with black clay to the eastern part of ne TX. Here we have mosty sugar sand and a few patches red clay. I envisioned this place once being the ocean bottoms. I also cant seem to grow much in the ground here. We dont have a big garden and are getting older, so we have resorted to growing in syrup feed buckets and enjoy learning to grow things to supplement what we get from the grocery store. I hope to get a few raised beds and small 10x20 green house someday in a partly sunny spot next to the back yard. Our Water comes from a highly chlorinated deep community well water that you can smell coming out of the faucet. (So we Berkey filter our drinking water). I dont think the plants like it either. They seem to perk up after it rains. Even in containers have a hard time growing squash so i bought a few net bags to protect from bugs i will try that next year. The collards in buckets grew well, but when i was going to harvest, and was eaten by the little worms! I tore the leaves off and put the net bag on and is now a nice leafy plant without the bugs. Our peppers didnt do well all summer, but now in Nov, we are getting a nice harvest which ill have to dehydrate what we dont use. God will provide and Bless you!

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Amen, God will provide. i am glad our experiences are helpful.

[@DavidGetchel]

If it's only 3k, that's a great deal if it solves your problem. Ours was more like 30k, but my dad got the Cadillac version and it supplies the whole property.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Wow 30k?!? That is a Bentley! I better make sure my 3k one is the right one.

[@DavidGetchel]

@@CountryLivingExperience Yeah, we're in Nevada on an old lake bed so we've got salt, sulfur and some other stuff. After it runs through the system, it's about 20-30 ppm going into the holding tank.

[@meljordan220]

I think over time the reverse osmosis would be the best option. Eventually it would pay for itself if you compare the cost of any other method. Sounds like that's why it's important to have everything tested every year.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

I have actually had to rethink that idea because I did not realize that for every gallon of good water the RO system produces, I would have 3+ gallons of saltier discharge water. I have no place to put that amount of bad water. I will put the money toward more rainwater probably.

[@mickichikwinya5519]

Good topic.

[@shellywerner4509]

My garden in California has been struggling for years as well. I think I will do some soil analysis too. I need to find a place here in Cali to do this. Thanks!

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Kinsey soils lab in Missouri and Ward Ag water testing in Missouri are the ones we used. Very easy process with both.

[@iabuchan]

ward laboratory is great. their soil analysis is cheap and on point. I send my soil in every year or so. I live in long beach, CA.

[@jasperthomas8048]

Great information - thanks.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

You’re welcome

[@venidamcdaniel1913]

Very helpful information 😊

[@mikeharris2985]

Gm if you haven’t seen this go Deep South Homestead and look on his videos playlist When, not If -Porch Time 2023. Danny talks about the ocean and salt water coming up though the ground. He has some interesting ideas about what going on if they do or don’t it’s still interesting

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Love Danny's channel. I missed that discussion though. I will go search for it. Thank you.

[@teenajtx]

Salty soil is what is happening in Utah as well. The wheat and other crops are not nearly a good as they once were.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Seems to be an issue in a lot of places.

[@clarencewiles963]

First I would move the garden to a new location. Washing out the sodium isn’t going to be easy. Have you considered a new well going deeper. Moving to new location. H2O prospect of air water system this would be costly. Doing a water purification system for farming would cost a little bit of money 💰. You’re in a hard spot for good quality water Good luck and pray for your family.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thank you. Unfortunately I can't do another well. That would cost me $35k in my area without any guarantee of hitting the same water type.

[@HOODIEHUSTLE]

Great video, brother. 👍

[@billypabst3272]

What about a shallow well. You might have water in a shallower sand that smells or tastes bad but be fine for plants. Might check with your neighbors to see how shallow their wells are.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Yes, I have thought about that and may investigate it further. Neighbors mother has a shallow well and it is very high in iron and hydrogen sulfide.

[@billypabst3272]

@@CountryLivingExperience don't know how those two minerals will affect your plants, have to do a little research. I'm west of you in DeWitt County and my problem is high PH water and like you my garden production has fallen way off. I have a 30 x 40 in ground garden and I'm thinking about making another garden and using the old garden as a chicken run for a couple of years and maybe by adding Sulfur and having chicken poop it will bring the PH down. Should help with my weed pressure too. Anyway I didn't mean to ramble. Lots of luck with your problem. God bless.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

@@billypabst3272 No problem. Good luck to you too.

[@GunEnjoyer357]

If you are looking @ commercial grade RO, what GPD rate would you consider for 5000 sq ft garden? Boy we do not like Squash bugs!!

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Not sure. Just started looking into them.

[@patblack2291]

Reverse osmosis is not practical because it generates anywhere from 3 to 25 gallons of saltier water for every gallon of RO water that you would use to water your garden. Some water wells are just not suitable for irrigation. Your RO waste water would need to be used for something. And, the RO water production on the scale you need, you'd need to have a buffer collection tank to have enough on hand to irrigate. The funds you would spend on RO production and RO water storage may be better spent as part of a dramatically larger rainwater catch system. I have 17,000 gallons of rainwater storage and it overflows each winter, but it's enough water to grow what I want. I average 14" of rain in a year captured off 6,000 square feet of roof, so I could catch 50,000 gallons annually. You don't have to size a years worth of catchment, just as much as you need to store for use through the dry season. If you gutter your high tunnel, your well house, every side of your house, any shops or garages, etc, how many square feet is that, and how much rain do you get on average each month of the year? You can build it over time as you can afford, and scale down the garden in the interim. Any water you catch now might best be used to flush the soil in the high tunnel.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Good points. The summer is a challenge here. No rain for 2.5 months on the norm. Increased irrigation on garden and fruit trees pushed me to almost 8000gal per month. If I add the house to that I would need have 25k of storage.

[@grannysweet]

Get some ducks !! An army of bug munchers. Blessings on your efforts. Thank you for your videos. 😎🌈🐕✌️👍👏

[@lemonyskunkketts7781]

Yes but specific ducks. Most ducks will decimate seedlings and small plants.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

I have thought about ducks.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

@@lemonyskunkketts7781 what kind of ducks are appropriate?

[@lemonyskunkketts7781]

@@CountryLivingExperience Khaki Campbell breed.

[@budsak7771]

At the minute and a half mark I'm thinking chickens eat insects. By the end of the video Trying to get salt out of the water is like trying to pry a kid off your leg 🤣

[@stephanied143]

Three thousand not to bad I was expecting ten .

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Yea I guess in perspective, it is not horrible.

[@stephanied143]

I'm pretty lucky got great tasting water probably need to get it tested@@CountryLivingExperience

[@TraumaChaplain]

Any cover crops that absorb sodium?

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Not that I know of.

[@albowrx]

Is rain collecting an option for you?

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Yes. We have some tanks but it is not enough to irrigate everything long term.

[@amsohn1]

Thanks for sharing , 5hats absolutely wild! We use both well and MUD water, and yes we have filters on both... Salt!?😮never would have suspected. While we've not had much pest pressure this year, this is great info to keep in mind. Blessings ❤

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thank you. Salt water is devastating for a garden. Glad you have not had the bugs.

[@gailsegal6843]

Try the amendments first dear, no guarantees that reverse osmosis will work. Collect as much rain water as possible, and mulch deeply. We are having the stunted squash problem in SC, we've had no rain until now...I try not to water too often and try to mulch (it's ALOT OF WORK for me) as I have spinal stenosis and my husband is medically not able to help. We did get numerous cantelope, however the yellow squash was a wash!!!! What's strange is I didn't see squash bugs but rather, the yellow squash would grow half way then it would rot at the end and turn wet...I tried lifting it off the ground, changing the soil, all to no avail. Our grapes never cultivated well, lots of vines and no grapes, it was a disease (disaster!) They say we NEED to make mistakes in order to learn....it's not easy because although we can learn from eachother, we all have different climates, soil, and water. Wish you the best and look forward to see what you decide.

[@esmysyield2023]

You need calcium. You have blossom end rot. You can add gypsum and it wont change your ph level cut it will add calcium.

[@gailsegal6843]

@@esmysyield2023 thank you.

[@CountryLivingExperience]

Thank you. I am working on that rainwater for sure.

[@TraumaChaplain]

Probably a good idea for people to reduce sodium in their bodies and take more potassium and magnesium....