water in butts

harrys_nan

I have run out of water again in my water butts, I have 4x200 litres and 2 x 100, looks like I will have to buy some more. How is everyone else doing?

ColinFishwick

I have two and both empty 420 litres in all plus had 3 10 litres buckets full. I ran out yesterday, have lots of baskets, tubs etc

[Deleted User]

I have 8 water butts now plus a swing bin. 1000 litres and I think we are down to half. Most of the dish water and warm run off go into the swing bin, which we use as a dipping bucket for the flowers. I did quite a bit of reorganising in the garden last week and put a lot of the hard to water annuals onto the compost heap, to be replaced by drought resistant plants which I grew from seed. As much as possible went onto the allotment and they are established enough to cope. I have learnt a lot this year about what not to grow next year

I have 26 tomato plants, which are laden with fruits and I have gradually taken off most of the leaves, which is helping with their transpiration. The fruits are expanding and getting red so they don`t need most of their leaves. This has cut down their watering by a huge amount

harrys_nan

Wow Kitty, thats a lot of tomato plants, Iv'e only got 6, not to many going red yet but getting there.
def going to get another couple of butts.

taxsaver

Think yourselves lucky..... lots of celebrities pay ££££'s to get rid of the water from their butts!!

angelavdavis

Having had a dry spring, we are actually OK in the garden as I invested in a huge water butt alongside the original one. The huge one was mistaken by a visitor for being an oil tank because it is so huge! It is almost full still. The smaller butt which we used first is one third full.

I limited the containers this year having lost everything last year - I only had one tomato hanging basket in the back garden + two large containers and in the front of the house I planted one hanging basket + three window troughs. The hanging basket is lined with plastic and the troughs with watering membrane.

At the allotment, I stopped watering once the plants got established. Having read Charles Dowding's Organic Gardening book, I felt my watering regime was encouraging sappy growth which was causing slug and snail attacks.

I am experimenting on the allotment. In year one of the allotment I started two beds off with the lasagne scheme (last year). Since, prior to planting, I have been mulching the beds on the allotment with manure, newspaper and garden compost (in that order), watering well and then planting up to stop them drying out and to suppress weed growth.

That's my two-penneth and its worked so far ....

harrys_nan

taxsaver wrote: »

Think yourselves lucky..... lots of celebrities pay ££££'s to get rid of the water from their butts!!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

emiff6

angelavdavis wrote: »

... I felt my watering regime was encouraging sappy growth which was causing slug and snail attacks...

I agree with that. Also, I think too much watering once the fruits/beans/peas/whatever have set dilutes the flavour. Perhaps the resulting veg are not as big as very well watered ones, but the taste is concentrated more.

On the other hand, it's a very good excuse for an idler like me not to get out the hose...