Water Duty
Just as water is essential to the cultivation plants, Water Duty is essential to the garden. At SWQV Community Garden, each garden has access to a water barrel (approximately one barrel for every two plots).
How It Works
The watering system turn-on/turn-off is located to the east of the main gate; the key is hanging in the garden shed. On introduction to the garden, each member is instructed on how to use the system.
Key to our watering system are the barrels themselves. At the beginning of the garden season, numbered spigots must be attached to their respective barrels and mosquito dunks are added to each barrel. At the last clean-up, spigots are removed for storage over the winter; at that time, they are marked to correspond to their native barrel.
Maintenance of the system is conducted by a third-party vendor that starts it up each spring (testing zones, etc.) and winterizes it in late fall (draining pipes, etc.). As a community garden, we receive a stormwater management service discount from the Philadelphia Water Department.
What You Need to Do
Each season, all gardeners are responsible for filling the barrels by participating in two weeks of Water Duty—one week in cool weather (April through late May and late September through November) and the other during the hot months (June through late September).
Water Duty is undertaken by a team of four to five gardeners, depending on the needs of the season, with one taking the lead in organizing to ensure that each day of the week is covered; it is a fair expectation that you will be asked to cover two days. Whoever is tasked with Water Duty on the day before city trash pick-up will be responsible for putting out recycling and trash bags. Any containers also need to be taken in the following day. Wednesdays of each water duty week also include watering the orchard and the rose garden area near the east gate if it hasn’t rained or if rain is not expected.
Overseeing this effort is the Water Duty Coordinator, who prepares the sign-up sheet for distribution and emails each team the week before their commitment.
Who to Contact
If you have questions about Water Duty, contact Kate Maskar at maskar@maskar.com. Contact Thom Hardenbergh at thomthepainter11@gmail.com for questions about maintenance of the watering system itself.