After some years of struggling with alternate dry soil and mud, I planted mine under the roof overhang. I can control the watering they get a LOT better that way. And I have mine in a framed raised bed and that helps a lot, too. Maybe a bit of work, but you might consider sheltering yours from the rain a bit. If your tomatoes are right at ground level, a trench around them can divert excess water away (like around a camp tent). A small frame supported on posts and topped with clear plastic can divert water away. You could build a frame around them and add soil (tomatoes will develop roots along a buried stem and the raised soil will drain faster). Maybe a bit of heresy, but interplanting a bunch of flowers around the tomatoes will provide more vegetative material to transpire moisture from the soil. Just some thoughts...

Hey bud, I'm not going to get into a "who's greener" pissing contest. However, I will tell you that my monthly gas bill for a home in central Indiana - with all gas appliances - is $33 a month - without any exceptional sacrifices. This is a plumbing forum. Too many people are thinking it's cool to install a multi-head shower or a 80 gal tub and they have no clue what that really requires in terms of energy, water, water heaters and drains to make that happen. Evidently your builder is one of those people; he planned on running this setup on one tankless. Just having the capacity to do it, even if you don't use it often, requires commercial sized water and gas supply, water heaters, etc. We are going through a period where a lot of people have lost their homes, in part because nobody was willing to make value judgments. Nobody was willing to say that what was going on was completely unreasonable. It became "normal" for people to buy more house than they could afford and carry stupid amounts of consumer debt. I am not one of those people. I'm not going to pretend that what you are doing is okay. What you are doing is completely unreasonable. It's wasteful, it's ugly, it's distasteful, it's gluttonous. The fact that you can afford it doesn't make any of the previous statements untrue. The fact that you drive a car that can go 180 mph doesn't impress me one bit - it just confirms a pattern of ugliness. To be clear, you have your values, I have mine. But I contribute to this forum for free - and I reserve the right to make value judgments when needed. If you don't like that, you can take some of that money that you are throwing around and hire a competent builder to design your plumbing system - the one that you have doesn't have a clue.

Lurker-- Thanks for the help.....i think you helped me when I got my softener a few years back...hopefully you can help me fix my mom's water.... Retested the water..... results are still the same. Low Ph, High Iron. No bacteria. Let me ask a quick question upfront: Are there any health hazards to continue using this water as is? I understand the high iron can cause staining on surfaces (it already has) and the acid can ruin copper pipes (although most of her pipes are PVC or some sort of plastic), but can it cause health problems? Also, this condition of high iron is recent. Over the summer, the water from all taps started sputtering, seemingly cause of air in the lines. The plumber/well guy came out and tried the simple, cost effective solutiuons first. 1. Compressed air in the well to clean the well screen. She has a shallow well. He did this quite a bit. The screen was dirty and we thought that solved the problem....Nope. 2. Changed the pump, retention tank. Nope. 3. Then changed all the piping from the well to the retention tank. The problem in the end was a collapsed pipe that ran from the well to the tank. Could the repeated use of the compressed air down the well (in order to clean the well screen) caused some sort of change in the water, like an influx of iron? The iron (at least to the naked eye) has decreased somewhat since the summer, although it is still there as evidenced by the water test. A couple of months ago the iron would settle out of a cup of tap water within a week....now you put a cup of tap water on the counter and the orange iron sediment settles out in a few weeks. But the water still smells like a cup of loose change....the metal smell. She's had some estimates so far. One local guy came to the house, tested the water and said a "neutralizer and Conditioning system" would be about $1900. CAI online suggested a "chemical injection system with a downstream carbon filter." About $1000 for the equipment, plus the cost of labor for a plumber to install. Like I said in my original post, unfortunately, she doesn't have much disposable income right now. The quotes of $1000 plus caused her some sticker shock....and some serious agita. Pllus, on an aesthetic/practical side, the local guy said he would have to install it in her kitchen pantry (where the water heater and current sediment filter is) and it would cause her to have to remove almost all the storage/food shelving in there.... Ugh. I've gone on long enough. So does she have any options here??? Thanks again. If you need any other info, let me know. mike

Agree with the benefit of getting an adjuster (your own, not the one the insurance company sent). We just completed a big Irma-related claim. In the process, we met an adjuster working for a large, high-end resort. His knowledge is something a homeowner could not replicate. We were fortunate that he offered to review our claim and assist us. Insurance companies do not make profits being generous with claims. You have a right to get the same quality kitchen you had before. Of course there can be issues if under-insurance. Get a professional on your side.