Water saving thread

Need to know the best time to plant?

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Daveswife
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At the time of writing, we still have not had any rain here since 30th May. I mentioned in an earlier post about saving grey water from the kitchen, and in the daylight we wee in the compost. I guess we could use a bucket at night, but last time I had to do this my aim wasn't very successful! It's easy for you chaps, though!

We rarely have a bath (I think it is two years since I had one) and at the moment I have not had a shower for three weeks. What the Victorians call "a stand-up wash" is quite adequate and uses a fraction of the water, even compared with a quick shower. I use the water from that wash to wet my hair and wash it with a bar of shampoo, then rinse it directly in water from the taps which goes into that bowl of now rather scummy water. Then, on the basis that I wasn't dirty when I had the wash/shampoo, I wet a cloth in that water to wipe around the bathroom sinks and the loo.

We don't have a washing machine and at the weekend I washed 6 double-size sheets and a few other bits in the bath, as usual. I gave them a spin in the spin drier to get rid of as much soapy water as possible, and rinsed them in a tin bath in the garden which I filled from the outside tap. Then I spinned them again before pegging out.

All the rinsing water from the tin bath and spin drier went on individual plants in the veg garden. Fired by enthusiasm, I scooped the washing water out of the bath into buckets and was surprised how much water there was. We used that water on the raspberries, as yet not watered since the last rain. If we do get a crop, I hope they don't taste of Daz!

My husband thinks I am barmy, but I think of those people back in history who would do this sort of thing as common practice and it has been an interesting exercise.
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No need to save water here , this morning we had a two hour shower this evening it's coming down very heavy , in Spain we never have hospipe bans , we have agricultural water for the land which we filter four times so we can drink it but it never gets shut off through shortage only when there is a burst, Barcelona up to 3 years ago had no rain for three years the Catalonia government started shipping water in they constructed a pipe line from the docks to the nearest reservoir then pumped it too other reservoirs on the system
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Primrose wrote:Am sure some light pruning of shrubs would be OK. If the ground were really moist, covering it with some of the cuttings temporarily would act as a mulch but right now we need every drop of rain which falls....if it ever does again, to be absorbed into the soil, not deflected away onto an upper layer of mulch.


I'm finding that with the mulched beds they are moist up to the surface (with the mulch bone dry) but the unmulched are dry several inches down. After it has rained the water has only soaked in a couple of millimetres into the unmulched beds which dries off very quickly. The mulched beds are still moist and I have to water them less.

As I've no grass cuttings to mulch with at the moment I've gone and bought a bale of straw so I'll be lugging the watering can round from my barrels (which, thankfully, get the run off from half of next doors 60' polytunnel so that does add up when it rains) and watering/mulching the unmulched beds today.

Once I've put the moisture into the bed the mulch helps keep it there for longer. This a lot more water being saved than the few mm of rain we get at a time (11 and a bit mm total for this month)
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retropants
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I would like to siphon grey water from the bathroom down into the garden, does anyone have a heath robinson solution for this, or should I just spend £25 on a siphon kit (Burgon & Ball)? We've had no rain since the end of May. I am currently taking it downstairs in buckets, but this is not practical and it is making my tennis elbow sore!
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Geoff
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Have you got a Henry? If you can rig up a T-piece you can use it to start a siphon.
Daveswife
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Hello Retropants,
I feel your pain, carrying buckets of water down the stairs. I have only used the bath once lately, for washing sheets (as referred to in an earlier post), but lugging the water downstairs was really hard work. However, having picked 2kg of French beans this evening, the recipients of aforementioned Daz water, makes it worth the effort. And they don't taste of washing powder. I have frozen most of them. Yummy in the winter.
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Daveswife
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Proper rain forecast here for tomorrow, the first for us since 30th May. Fingers crossed, eh! Looking forward to being able to use the water butt again!
Angie
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Primrose
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I!m afraid we,ve cheated and refilled all our water butts with a hose, just in case a hosepipe ban is bought in.
As much of our shower water as possible is saved in a bucket and used for loo flushing. It doesn,t go far and I'm beyond lugging a heavy bucket of water downstairs for garden watering.

We have resorted to the "if it's yellow let it mellow" strategy but I read in the paper recently that too little liquid vs too much toilet tissue in the sewers can block them completely so this is a water saving option to be used with caution. .

The half promised rain last night didn't arrive so no respite yet.
robo
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Retropants use your hosepipe for siphoning just don't suck to hard as with the height the water is falling it won't take much
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retropants
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hmm, doesn't sound like my sort of plan robo!! but thankyou for the suggestion :) :)
MattW
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Sorry to be thick - what’s grey water?
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peter
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MattW wrote:Sorry to be thick - what’s grey water?


Used water, like your bath water.
Do not put off thanking people when they have helped you, as they may not be there to thank later.

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MattW
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peter wrote:
MattW wrote:Sorry to be thick - what’s grey water?


Used water, like your bath water.


Ahhh

Thanks

I quite like the siphon out of the bathroom window idea.
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Primrose
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We tried the bathroom siphon method during the 1976 drought and it was a right performance. Can't remember how we got the suction to work with the hosepipe now but wouldn't bother with that hassle again. In terms of logistics, probably easier in terms of water conservation to save the grey water from bathing or showering bucket for nearby toilet flushing and use the equivalent amount of water from a more convenient downstairs tap to water the garden !

The containers we put out on our patio for rain collecting today collected a gallon and a half in total but the contents accumulated from our house roof were sufficient, with our newly aligned guttering, to top up one water butt which amounted to several gallons.
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Primrose
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I have just come across this item on Ollas - clay pots for water storage buried in the soil where somebody who has used them claims they have reduced water requirements by 80%. I,ve never heard of them and wonder if having a large bulbous pot buried below the soil surface doesn,t make it very difficult to know where to plant, especially for deep rooted vegetables. Certain an unusual water saving device, albeit apparently a very ancient one

This article explains ollas. https://permaculturenews.org/2010/09/16 ... rrigation/
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