Hello JADAM community,
I harvest rainwater from the roof of my greenhouse and use it for feeding my vegetable plants and also to make JMS.
In summer, birds poop on the roof, and when rain comes, this bird poop ends up in rainwater storage tanks, making rainwater foul.
I assume that to purify this contaminated water, I should convert my rainwater storage tanks into "natural mineral water containers".
The JADAM Organic Farming book says:
JMW: JADAM mineral water: Made by immersing leaf mold in water with rocks in it.
Most farms will have huge water container. Let’s use this as natural mineral water container.
Fill about a 1/3 of a gunnysack with leaf mold and hang it in the container so that the contents will sink in the water.
Bring some rocks from the vicinity and cover 20-30 cm (8-12 in) at the bottom.
Just like microbes break down contaminants in water in nature, this method is using indigenous microbes from the leaf mold to purify water.
After 2-3 days, microbes would have acted on polymers (contaminants) and the water will have turned into an excellent water.
I have questions:
1. Exactly how much leaf mold should be used for a 1 ton (1000L) natural mineral water container? Would 250g of leaf mold soil be enough, or do I have to use more? It is not easy to obtain leaf mold in a semidesert climate, so I do not want to spend more leaf mold than is required.
2. Is it possible to purify water with the JMW method by only using leaf mold and not using rocks? I only want to purify my contaminated rainwater. It is not necessary for me to mineralize rainwater because I use seawater and sea salt to add minerals. And if I add a 30cm layer of rocks to the bottom of my rainwater storage tanks, then the rocks take up 30% of the space, which is not acceptable.
3. If using rocks is mandatory in this water purification method, what would be the minimum amount of rocks required to convert a 1000L rainwater storage tank into a "natural mineral water container"? Are there any ways to save space?
4. In my tests, properly made JMS is 1000 ppm, and JMW mineral water made with both leaf mold and rocks is around 100 ppm. Is it possible to substitute a 30cm layer of rocks in a 1000L (100cm tall) natural mineral water container with 100g salt before adding leaf mold and filling the container with gray water and achieve the same level of purification and mineralization?
5. After contaminated rainwater is purified by leaf mold, for how long can I store it in the summer? Here in the summer day temperatures reach +40C and night ones are usually in +20..+30C range. Rains here are very rare, sometimes we have only 3–4 rains per year, and I would like to save purified rainwater for as long as possible and use it to make JMS.
In the nearby lake, fish survives well even through the hottest days of summer, and the water in that lake does not seem to have an expiration date. I wonder if it is possible to keep water in containers from expiring, just like nature does that in lakes.
Thank you! |
