Orchard Supply Hrdware has potassium chloride you can use as a water softener. It's not prohibitively expensive and the potassium is a fertilizer chuck schwartz zone 10 California-- Kenneth Hixson <khixson@nu-world.com> wrote: > Hi, Marguerite > > I need some advice about hard water from my well. > > I have > > always read that the water softeners commonly used on houses will kill > > plants. > > A websearch turns up lots of information, for instance > > > http://ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/h2oqual/… > > One of the quotes is > > For every grain of hardness removed from water, 8 mg/1 (ppm) of sodium is added. > > This is fairly typical of the old types of water softeners, which > mostly used salt (Sodium chloride). There are a number of > newer types, and it might be worthwhile to talk to someone in > your neighborhood who installs wells and treatment systems for > the particular minerals in the water in your area. > > Saving rainwater: As much as possible, which means a > big storage tank. The amount you normally receive as precipitation > and the amount of roof area available will determine the size of the > tank. If you collect from your roofs, the first rain will probably wash > a lot of dust off the roof, so you might be reluctant to save it, or > perhaps divert it to a small secondary tank that can be filtered. > > Ken > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/