We need sprinklers to make rain in summer

I came to Grants Pass in the fall of 1984. Water and sewer utility bills had $25 for base rates: $20 for water; $5 for sewer. Units were literally pennies on the dollar. Come July and August, our utility bill rose to just over $26. We had thunderstorms nearly every weekend in the summer of 1985. 

I love thunderstorms, but I wondered: “Why only on weekends?” If it looked like rain and I didn’t water, it did not rain enough to make a difference. A Grants Pass gardening superstition was born; “If it looks like rain, and you don’t water, it won’t rain worth a darn.” 

Sixteen years later, in Landscape Management class, I learned that most residents of Grants Pass didn’t have automatic sprinklers and watered only on the weekends. Our teacher also told us, “Sprinklers evaporate half of what they throw before it hits the ground--and evaporation is waste.” 

But evaporation is not waste; it is the first step in the water cycle: evaporation; condensation; precipitation. Without enough sprinkler evaporation and transpiring plants, we get no rain in summer; the last three years excepted because Hunga Tonga threw 150 million tons of seawater into the stratosphere on January 15th, 2022. It’s still coming down. 

11/5/25 

Published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and shared on Facebook, Neighborhood and X

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Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener           541-955-9040         rycke@gardener.com

When Water Was Cheap to Use

I moved here in the fall of 1984 and started gardening, hauling leaves full of earthworms in the outer foot of the piles from the leaf dump near Riverside Park.  Come spring of ‘85, when I started watering, the water bill was just over $25 in base rates: $20 for water; and $5 for sewer.  Water unit rates were pennies on the dollar and no unit rates on sewer.  In July and August, it got just over $26 from irrigation.  Our City was clean, green and beautiful and forest fires were far from any cities.

We had thunderstorms nearly every weekend of that summer.  I was enchanted by thunderstorms, but wondered: “Why only on the weekends?”  Sixteen years later, taking Landscape Management at RCC, I learned that most people couldn’t afford automatic irrigation and had to water on the weekends, hauling a sprinkler around and using mechanical timers.

Back in 1985, I learned that if I didn’t water because it looked like rain, it wouldn’t rain enough to make a difference, as many other people felt the same.  I created what I called a gardening superstition: “If you don’t water because you think it will rain, it won’t rain enough to matter.”

 

10-1-25-2025 2-minute Speech to Grants Pass City Council

Published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and shared on Facebook and Nextdoor

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener     541-955-9040     rycke@gardener.com