Garden Watering Dilemma
With the forecast of hot weather again this year we have been considering putting in another water butt in addition to the 200ltr butt that we already have. This would cost us about £60.00. However, a water butt is only any good if there is rain to fill it and last year our existing butt remained empty for many weeks at a time. With this in mind, and because a full water butt only lasts us about a week, I'm now considering not bothering with a second one. Last year we had to use tap water for much of the summer although we did save all our washing up water etc on a daily basis. The cost of our tap water is less than £2.00 per 1,000ltrs so the cost of the second butt is the equivalent to about 30,000ltrs or enough water for at least six years on the basis that we are probably only needing to water for about five months of the year and are careful about what we water.
Environmentally we may not be doing the right thing by not getting a second butt, but (excuse the pun), how much water and energy does it take to make the water butt in the first place? Thankfully our reservoirs in Derbyshire didn't run dry last year but to try to help we have already decided that we will reduce the number of plants in pots and only water when absolutely necessary. The question is, are we making the right decision?
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If you can collect water at home it's probably a better resource than emptying the nearest reservoir? Although it costs money for a water butt it will help conserve public water stocks. We have three collection points at home, intending to install another. I think using diverters on down pipes is another useful idea. We have a veg plot and a greenhouse, we grow tomatoes etc so it's not easy is it?!
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You have to be around to use the rain water you have saved in butts which is supposed to be better for plants than the chemical treated tap water. That said, I have a computer controlled watering system put in runing off an outside tap, less hassel, especially as it keeps things ticking over when we are away.
peedee
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Well John your conundrum would have an easy answer if you lived in Devon. Our water bills with SWW are the highest in the country. That water butt would pay for itself in one summer season here. We never water the garden with tap water, like sprinkling money on it. Our water butts are all connected to diverters on the down pipes and can fill up in a week, sometimes a couple of days, but we do get a lot of rain here.
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I take your point about overall environmental impact of buying a water butt. One answer maybe to buy a bigger water butt if you can afford it. Probably the environmental impact is less on a bigger butt. Also of course many water butts are made of at least some recycled materials.
We have two 800l tanks. One just captures from the garage roof but fills easily when it rains. We emptied one last summer, but not the other. It is surprising how little extra space they take up. They are taller but ours have a rectangular footprint so not hugely larger than traditional one.
We also have a Bosch battery driven pump to which a hose is attached and it saves lugging watering cans around. The pressure is good so I can use the hose at some distance from the butt.
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We are on waters here as normal in France and we had severe water restrictions right until 31/12/2022 but now in the clear although a lower are of the Lot south of us still has some restrictions until end of this month, we have water butts around the property like DEBSC in Devon and behind OH's large shed we have a 1000ltr square cuve and a 500ltr that takes the run off from the cuve and I am a bit mean with watering and do not do it every day and have got rid of some plants and will not be putting much in this year unless they are drought resistant so I would get a bigger as Hja suggested. We have this morning with 1 of our water pumps pumped excess water off the top of the small pool cover as it dips with heavy rain and gone into a spare water butt nearby.
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We live in one of the driest areas of the UK and have a total of 13 x 210 litre barrels*, all receiving the run-off from various outbuildings. For the first time in over 20 years, we ran out of stored rainwater in August last year.
We are usually self-sufficient for gardening but have to admit to using mains water (usually overnight on a timer) when we are away on extended trips, often for a couple of months at a time.
When we first moved to our current house, I installed a dripper system to water the hanging baskets, planters and the greenhouse. Our garden covers about an acre, so there are two different circuits attached to a 4-way manifold plumbed into the outside tap mains supply. Each circuit is controlled by a Hozelock Cloud Controller which can be programmed to deliver exactly the right amount of water and can be adjusted remotely, via an app.
I know it's a dilemma when trying to balance water consumption against the use of plastic rainwater storage, but I feel a water shortage is a more pressing problem, so collecting rainwater is my priority.
* acquired over the years via local authority "green" initiatives.
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DEBSC,
we've moved to a wet and heavy clay Devon in September last year and at present it is difficult to imagine a water shortage could effect our area. I can easily see how your water butts fill so quickly. At present the rain here is close to Biblical. Our garden is like a bog, but I know things will change and my lovely other half is under strict instructions to keep pots to an absolute minimum. Drought conditions that will inevitably come and pots are a pain in the attention and watering they require. One trailerful is my wife's quota as they can then easily be taken to our sons when we head to the continent for long summer breaks.
We live down a tree lined country lane and the upper part of our garden at about 50m x 10m is blessed with a mature oak and native hedge to one boundary. The other we have planted up with the balance of nearly 300 beech hedge and 4 fruit trees, a Walnut and 3 Willows. The meadow grass will be sown early next year along with wild flowers. The lower garden has 100 beech and 2 multi stem Ghost Birch.
For borders here we are planning more hedging, climbing roses, honeysuckle and wisteria, grown along tensioned wires on the fencing. A 50mm mulch over the planting should help greatly.
Our aim is is no watering of anything in the ground unless freshly planted, a similar target we set ourselves at our last house in a dry and sandy Formby. With starting from scratch we are obviously at an advantage.
Colin
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Ghost Birches are much like your garden em-beautiful👍🏻. I once took a group pic of quite a few of them on the Bolton Abbey estate, the light level & angle was perfect(Mother Nature not me) it is still one of my all time faves👍🏻
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Are you able to divert your household waste water into the butts? By the way when I say "butts" we use all sorts of recycled containers as extra water catchers including old dustbins.
Interesting read on here, I think I will cut back on pot grown plants as time goes on. We've unfortunately lost quite a few in the recent low temps in our area!
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Eriba although obviously in the summer it will be dryer, I don’t think that it will change as much as you think, it’s a very wet County, it seems the North more than the South, not sure where you are. I used to work in Exeter and it would be beautiful weather all day, on arriving home OH would often say it had rained all day. Holidaymakers often complain they are unlucky to get a wet week, no, it’s very often a wet week. Even if you are away for a while most large pots will be fine if you move them to the thick shade under your trees, it will rain. We have been here nearly 40 years (almost locals) and we have never once watered our garden, only newly planted things and pot plants. And I have a vast amount of plants and shrubs. It’s such heavy rain this morning that Noah and his Ark has just floated past.
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DEBSC we are in Hatherleigh, about 10 miles north of Okehampton [aka Soakhampton] just off the A386.
I must admit the last 4 months have been a learning curve on finding the advantages and disadvantages of living in Devon.
Colin
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I don’t think that it will be quite as wet as here. We used to have a farmer living next door born and bred Devonian, he always said at the village where we live, near Barnstaple just on the estuary, that we would always get the clouds emptying just as they come into the bay after crossing the Atlantic. He always seemed to know what he was talking about.
How do you like our roads. 😁
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The roads are very variable. Long stretches of lovely smooth tarmac and sweeping curves, a joy to be on, and then potholes that would throw a cyclist or motorbike into a hedge. Traffic at present is very light, but we are expecting things to be a lot different come the tourists.
Colin
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Weather was no drier in 1901 when this was written . But we pay a lady to water the greenhouse
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You need a better gardening strategy if you are away for long periods of time. Pots and containers, hanging baskets are simply too difficult to maintain without water on a regular basis, so we ditched the vast majority of these years ago. If you are replacing plants, or re planting a section of the garden, then consider drought resistant plants, and dig in plenty of water retaining humous. Then put a deep layer of mulch, ideally something like bark on the top to stop things lower down drying out too quickly. That’s a long term plan. Then as others have said, catch as much rainfall as you can, in a variety of ways. Shower water can be diverted from fall pipes into water butts. If you have any fall pipes that go direct to ground, fit a pierced sock on the end to take some of the water away from the immediate fall area. Auto systems are an option, but will possibly use from mains.
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