rain is forecast... yay!

[red]

we have now officially run out of water.. of the collected kind.. the butts are all empty... but to be fair to us - we have not long moved here and only just set some of them up - more ordered and on their way.

Last week we set up a small butt in the greenhouse - which should be great - collecting water off the gh and bringing it in, should help keep the gh warm and frost free with that extra thermal mass - and its a dark green butt, and the water should be nice and warm for my plants, and I dont have to walk so far with a watering can.. all good.. but we have not had rain for weeks and weeks.

local forecast give rains and I am so pleased!

definitely becoming self sufficient ish

[Millymollymandy]

Silly isn't it, three weeks of lovely weather and the sunshine is getting a bit boring! I really want some rain too as my lawn is starting to go brown in places, which is absolutely amazing for April.

Still, it's better than 2 years ago when we had non-stop April showers and couldn't cut the grass and it got completely out of control. I just hope May won't be really wet as my Mum is coming to stay for 3 weeks.

[wulf]

We had a few spits of rain yesterday but it turned out to be nothing more than a few drops. Further precipitation is eagerly awaited!

Meanwhile, we are getting into full swing with our grey-water recycling - all except the grubbiest bath water and dish water gets used on the ornamental plants, to keep them happy and prevent them sucking up too much water from elsewhere.

Wulf

[Andy Hamilton]

Starting to feel like John de florette, rain was forecast for yesterday but we did not get any either. It is supposed to be raining now still have not seen any. All water butts are empty and the pond is getting shallower. I feel like doing a rain dance.

[red]

yay its come - silly mizzling living in a cloud type of weather but the garden needs the wet - lost some of my beet spinach to dryness in April!

can hear the water going into my gh water butt! just need it to keep going

tonights slug hunt should produce lots tho.. they come out with the rain...

[Millymollymandy]

I love this forum! When I moan about lack of rain on a Brittany forum everyone jumps down my throat. Trouble is I live in one of the drier areas of Brittany, and I think the other parts really do get wet muddy winters, and even a fair amount in summer. Though I still find it hard to believe these people come to Brittany/France from the UK and moan about how wet it is!

I know the climate has changed a bit but when I lived in England it always bloody rained!

[Stonehead]

We had some welcome rain on Friday and again yesterday, but it only amounted to 1,000 litres in the tanks and butts (off a vast expanse of roof).

But, it was the sort of slow, steady rain that soaks in and does the vegetable patch a world of good.

We're a bit concerned about the summer though as we'd not had any rain for almost six weeks before that (and we're in NE Scotland), plus we had very little snowfall this winter.

The borehole is low, the neighbouring farmer's well and borehole are low, and the ground is bone dry once you get through the two inches of moisture left by the rain.

We already have 16,500 litres of water storage capacity (12,500 supplied by the borehole, 4,000 off the roof) but I want to take this up to 22,500 litres by upping the rainwater collection to 10,000 litres.

It sounds a lot, but that's only 12 weeks supply to meet our needs, those of the pigs and poultry, and the vegetable crops.

And if people think we're profligate, think again. Average UK water consumption per person is 150 litres a day. If the four of us used that much water, we'd need 50,400 litres to last us 12 weeks without including the pigs and vegetables.

We use 250-300 litres of water a day, with 60-100 litres going to the pigs, about 20 litres on vegetables (mainly on seeds and seedlings) and the rest to us. That means we're using around 45 litres of water a day per person - and that still sounds profligate to me!

But until we can source more IBCs, another two or three good spells of rain would be very, very useful!

[Millymollymandy]

Do you have the white IBCs Stoney? I saw some black ones on sale recently, which I wish I had. My white ones are quite see through and the water turns green quite quickly in the sun. I just cleaned an empty one out yesterday with a hose and the amount of green scummy stuff that came out wasn't very nice.

I had been using this water for the chooks and ducks but when it gets a bit green I worry if I should be using it for animals?

[Shirley]

We need to source some too Stoney - I've contacted a local company but haven't heard anything back as yet.

I have a feeling that we are going to be in trouble waterwise if we don't get some more rain.

[Jack]

Gidday

Hey Milly, you really don't know what dry means. Poor old Red and Nev, over there on West Island will tell you. I was over there a few weeks ago and it nearly made me cry for our poor Aussie friends, even though we normally sposed to hate their gutzes. And I come from a place that only get about 15 inches a year.

Red, do you think you will get enough to stop the threat your P.M. made about no water to irrigate next year? or is this just a little shower?

[the.fee.fairy]

Rain here at last too!

My waterbutt was empty, and the ground's been cracking, so its a welcome shower here!

[Wombat]

Well the good news is it's urinating down here as I type this. It should be topping up our tanks and giving the veggies a nice drink.

Nev

[the.fee.fairy]

its oly been very light short showers here, but the air is humid, so there should be a good heavy thunderstorm on its way!! (that, and i've had a headache for the past 2 days - a sure sign thunder is on its way!).

[madasafish]

Green scum in waterbutts?

Add some vinegar...

[red]

well - it rained all day and is still coming down now. water butts are all full. just need to sort some more now...