How to Lower Your Water Bill This Summer

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By offgrid
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White Dutch clover

Looking for ways to save some money ? Lower your utility bills ?
Here's something you can do this spring that will help you out this summer, and for years to come.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

White Dutch clover seed.

Step 1

If you are looking for a way to lower your water bill this summer consider replacing your grass with white dutch clover. For about $40 you can buy 1 lb of seed (enough to cover a 100'x 100' area of lawn) If you do it now (March) you will have a good amount of clover growing by June. Why white dutch clover ? It adds nitrogen to your lawn and reduces the amount of watering needed to keep it green.
Step 2

You can add more seed the following spring, but after a few summers of not watering your lawn you will notice that the clover is taking over. You won't need to water it and you will see that it stays quite green even during drought conditions.
Step 3

The white clover also produces a very fragrant white flower than can attract bees. This is good if you have apple or pear trees. We have noticed that our crop has more than quadrupled this past summer. If you don't want the bees, simply mowing them (the flowers not the bees) will take care of that problem. As the grass is slowly overtaken by clover you will also not need to mow as often - which is another savings for you especially if you use an electric or gas powered mower. We have been able to switch to a reel push mower for about $150 and sold our gas mower back to Home Depot.
Step 4

Another way to reduce your lawn and the need for watering is to slowly overturn your sod and plant drought tolerant ground covers like wooly time, oregano and other herbs that you can actually use in your salads or for cooking. Imagine that ! replacing that water hungry, nitrogen gobbling grass with something you can actually eat. There are plenty of perennial herbs that can be planted and harvested. They just come back year after year after year. Saving you money at every turn. Happy planting.