All municipal water supplies contain chlorine, a chemical disinfectant used to kill off deadly bacteria and virus in the water supply. This chemical in turn, can directly attack our plants and gardens. We know that chlorine is present in our drinking water because we can smell and taste it’s presence, many times making it undrinkable. So the question is: If we don’t want to drink the water from the tap, why do we want to give it to our plants?
Now, more than ever, in the summertime, with the high temperatures the local water companies add extra high doses of chlorine to the water supply to combat the bacteria and virus that can be present.
Let’s talk about how chlorine can affect our plants. We know that our soils contain beneficial bacteria whose function is to protect the plants roots, so they will be stronger and healthier and of course have maximum capacity to absorb the nutrients and fertilizers that we give to our plants. However if we give chlorinated tap water to our plants, the chlorine can kill off the beneficial bacteria present in the soil. This same chlorine, a chemical contaminant, will burn your plants delicate uptake roots, again preventing maximum absorption of needed nutrients. If we are also purchasing these beneficial bacterias to add to our soils then of course it makes no sense to give our plants chlorinated water.
The best way to ELIMINATE chlorine is to filter it thru a quality activated carbon or better yet an activated carbon block filter. Carbon filters will also reduce or eliminate other chemical contaminants, such as Gases, Oils, Pesticides and most other Volatile Organic Contaminants (VOC’s).
In answer to the initial question, we definitely do NOT want to water our plants and gardens with chlorinated tap water!
GROW IT TO THE MAX, WITH GROWMAX WATER!
