Watering, how are you managing with no rain?

[growingthings]

We're having a rum old time of it round our way.

All our veggies are grown down the allotment, and while I appreciate that it's not far away, we can only water with watering cans, and its unbelievably dry! They could do with an over night hosepipe rather than a few measly cans.

I'm stopping off there every night (after the smallies bedtime) during my cycle round the village with the dog (the dog doesn't cycle...yet ) but it's badly affected my germination, and I haven't seen a sign of the swedes and parsnips that I put in a few weeks ago. I know they take longer, but I'm pretty convinced they've failed as the seeds have probably been cooked with all this sun and me only being able to water once a day.

So any bright ideas? We've got an IBC, which we're hoping to fill up, by cobbling something together to fit a tap not designed for hosepipes, so that we can lay a gravity fed irrigation hose with lots and lots of holes in to try and get a bit of moisture in the ground.

My other question is, is there any late crops I can be sowing to compensate for those that have been lost?

Cheers

Lorna x

[Flo]

We don't have drought resistant crops in the UK so far as I know at present.

Parsnips do need water and plenty of it to germinate. Swedes prefer water. I've had carrots dropping through heat and drought on the hottest days we have had!

If you are on an allotment without on site water, I can only offer sympathy. We are all using the hosepipes on our site generously to keep crops going. People I never thought to see using hosepipes have been doing so. And this is in the North East where it's supposed to always rain!

[bonniethomas06]

We have only watered our plot about once a week - on a meter I daren't do it any more often than that, or the water will cost more than the vegetables would have.

Things have bolted - the broc and the onions being the worst. I am going to try and get out tonight to water the young seedlings...but I am afraid other than that the veg are going to have to fend for themselves. Does anyone know an effective raindance??

[Shirley]

We're getting a hosepipe ban on Friday (NW England) - although it is raining at the moment it hasn't done much for ages. I was using a hosepipe but it had so many holes in it that I ended up soaked at the end of it so have resorted to watering cans - there have been times when I've not got there in time and the plants have wilted slightly but I hope that won't affect the crop too much. We only have a garden and not an allotment and the veg is planted in amongst the other stuff - the back of the garden is so dry because of the neighbours trees and not much grows there anyway.

[battybird]

We have been watering our allotment daily with watering cans...things we thought were not growing suddenly started...the beetroot we gave up on but we now have several rows growing...a bit patchy but still! Even ate a couple yasterday and I thought they would be much later crop. So...dont give up! Our allotment was only watered weekly in march as my OH was in KIngs College hospital and we had other things on our mind! We have HUGE watering cans that I can barely lift when full so maybe that is why our veg seem not too bad. It must be diffficult running a family and an allotment!! Hope you get your system sorted sounds like a great idea.X

[Millymollymandy]

Like every growing season here I spend hours watering my veg with a watering can - fruit trees with the seep hose, flower beds with the hose pipe and the raspberries with the hosepipe, which I leave switched on blasting the roots for about half an hour. A lot of the raspbs are rather small though.

This year is much drier earlier than usual, as normally I don't have to do this 3-4 hours a day watering in May/June/July, more like August and September. I'm so tired of it. So from now on I am digging out my sprinklers which haven't been used since I lived elsewhere with a more compact 1/3 acre garden 6 years ago. Last year's water bill was big due to hosepipe usage but this year is going to cost even more as we keep having to fill up the IBCs and water butts with mains water.

When your veg and flowers start costing about €200 a year just to water it gets a bit expensive, but then I think this is my hobby, if I was horse riding still it would be costing me a hell of a lot more!

[Durgan]

The last three day shave been well above 30C. In general I rely on mulch, but supplement water from downspout rain water and in a dire emergency use city water. So far this year I have used nothing except rainwater.



Conserving and utilizing water in a garden.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?Rainwater 8 April 2009 Downspout Rainwater
Pictures indicating a simple, practical method of utilizing downspout rainwater. Barrels cost 15 dollars and all parts and tools are readily available. Any urban downspout system must address the overflow problem during rainfall. The large bung hole is a reasonable compromise for overflow. The height is such that a hose may be utilized for watering plants. The system is readily expandable. I have four barrels, two on each side of the house.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?Downspout 16 April 2009 Downspout Water Connection
The downspout water system was switched over to Summer mode by connecting the downspout to the storage barrels.


http://www.durgan.org/URL/?WandW 28 May 2009 Watering Plant Roots.
This method gets water to the root area of the plants. The hydraulic effect of the water makes pushing the wand into the ground effortless. The device is made by cutting off the end of a typical water garden wand as sold in most hardware stores.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?CFIAT 23 May 2010 Transporting Downspout Rainwater
Moving small quantities of rainwater can get tiresome carrying in five gallon pails. The two wheeled car in conjunction with a five gallon pail eases the burden. The lid on the five gallon pail eliminates spillage.

Mulching
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?WMRTE 20 May 2010 Planting Tomatoes outdoors. Depicting the use of mulch.
Twenty one tomato plants were removed from their pots an placed in the outdoor garden. The area was heavily mulched using chip bedding. The plants will be staked using rebar and the new type tomato support. The temperature today was sunny 26C and no frost is expected until the Fall. I haven’t watered the tomato plants since planting in the garden to date 20 June 2010. It is now the 7 of July and my tomato plants have not been watered, and they are thriving.

[growingthings]

It's a tricky one, not wanting to complain about the hot weather, but well, the gardener in me just wishes the ground could get a good soaking. It'll all come good, some of the more water reliant plants are really suffering, trying desparately to keep the girls pumpkin plant going...

At least when I'm hoeing I don't have to removed the weeds as the sun is enough to kill them on the surface

Lorna x

[KathyLauren]

Wow, that's got to be tough, if you are limited to a watering can! Can you put in a rain barrel? Even if you have to fill it from a tap when there's no rain, you could use soaker hoses with it to reduce your workload.

I am a great believer in rainwater storage. I have a heavy duty rainwater system with 4500 gallons of storage. We get essentially no rain in the summer, so we have to collect and store winter rain. We can't use well water, since we don't have enough for the garden.

[Millymollymandy]

Dunno who that is aimed at Keith but our rainwater storage was used up ages ago (over 3000 litres) so I have no problems now using the sprinkler in the veg patch - it's wonderful and really working as all the IBCs and water butts are filled with tap water anyway as we need water in strategic places around the garden for plants and ducks/chooks.

[Green Aura]

Maybe I should consider exporting it - we've had little else but rain and high winds for weeks!!!!

[Millymollymandy]

You can keep the winds as this is the first year in years that I haven't had to stake up my French beans and sweetcorn and just about everything else!

[irishwillow]

you can have some of ours! we did get 3 weeks of dry weather but now we are getting that 3 weeks this past week!

[Peggy Sue]

Just when work has eased a bit so I could actually have a look as 'ish' the weather has done THIS! so I'm watering for 2 hours a night!
Having run out of water but months ago I was just getting sick of the watering can runs to the, what seems like evr more distant, allotment tap, when my brother came up with what seemed like a little gem. He managed to aquire for me a wheelbarrow liner type thing, it fits your barrow, you can fill it with water using a short piece of hose for the allotment tap. They wheel a barrow load back to the plot.

I hadn't bargined for it being a bit hard to handle over the rough ground, but I did make it back. You can pour the water out by tiping the barrow, the fixing is a bit large but could be fixed. As you tip the barrow and get towards the end of the 'bag full' you get a surprise- Flop! half a bag full of water, bag and all lands on your veg- squashed but refreshed they were

OK I'm currently back to the watering cans.

My worst crops to suffer have been peas, lettuce, leeks and beetroot- I am surprised at the beetroot.

The weather forecast keeps teasing with the hope of, then none. There was a big storm 2 miles away last week, we got none. It really is dry here. No trouble drying the onions though

[oldfella]

Its 18 30h here and outside its 94 degrees, and at the moment I am watering twice a day once at six in the morning and at 10 in the evening, but even so its like concrete 2ins down. Oh well theres only one thing for it,