Kitchen Garden Forum

we filled the kids new paddling pool at the weekend, on the box it reckons its 1800 gallons, it took about 6 hours to fill with two hoses from seperate outside taps running into it, so i reckon a hose delivers something like 150 gallons an hour. obviously will vary a bit depending on water pressure , length of hose and the restriction of the jet or sprinkler on the end.

Thats a fair old size for a water butt mine are only 45 gallons each !

Thanks for sharing that with us Richard.

Glory B

Crazy ain't it,you can put 1800 gallons in a paddling pool but have to carry cans to try and keep your food plants alive.
From a very hot and grumpy woman who's just been walking up and down a sloping allotment in an effort to prevent her tomatoes from dying on a very hot and windy site.
P.S. I haven't filled my son's small pool as my conscience wont let me.

Surely we can all put a paddling pool in the middle of our plots and fill it with a hosepipe.......

Then just dip the watering cans in it?

The law is an ass as they say.

We have one stand pipe for 30 plots, the furthest being over 100 yards away from the tap and we're never allowed to use hose pipes. Whether there is a ban or not we still have to haul cans of water up and down. One night last year I put a pedometer on me, just out of curiosity, and I walked 6.8km watering my allotment!

Do you not collect any water in old baths, water butts, or have guttering off shed room Chantal?? Saying that I reckon three normal water butts last a week durint this dry spell. So it is not the complete answer but it sure helps.

compo

We're quite lucky and have a small river at the side of the garden which we use to water the garden. Not that that helps anyone else...........

On Tuesday evening I made 20 trips to my nearest tank which is approx. 50ft away from the nearest part of my plot. Each time I carried two cans, each holding two gallons in old money - I think I'm right at working this out to be 800lbs. I have begun to get an inkling of why I am not getting fat from all my over-dressed salads, why I have muscles like Popeye and why I have carpal-tunnel sydrome which, according to my physiotherapist, has arisen from a problem in my neck and shoulder! Oh, and apparently digging is bad for you too!

Hi Compo, yes I do have water butts, one of which has a corrugated iron sheet angled down to catch water, but that's all. The water in that won't last a day in this weather and we're not allowed sheds so no guttering and downpipes.

I have water butts beside my fence which I fill from the path and then empty from inside the plot, which cuts down the walking distance by 50%, but it's still a lot of water hauling. Hey, it keeps me fit, but you lot who are moaning about having to carry cans during a hosepipe ban don't know how lucky you are for the rest of the time!

Hi Myrkk,
And your Abstraction Licence Number is.......

Does anyone still have one of those water bodges, for the youngsters out there it is like a water butt mounted in a wheeled frame.
The victorians used them quite a lot before the hose pipe became common place.
I can see them catching on again, any one could make their own i suppose, with a little thought.
Now theres an idea for you.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

This sun makes my hair rustle like pea straw.

David wrote:Surely we can all put a paddling pool in the middle of our plots and fill it with a hosepipe.......

No, sorry David, but we can't 'all' fill a paddling pool with a hosepipe.
We have a hosepipe ban in our neck of the woods....with the possibility of a drought order being put into action in the near future.
Which is why Richard's SIX hour....TWO hosed water spree is unlikely to go down well with Thames Water customers like myself.
May have been best for him to have kept his water 'fetish' to himself!

Grumpy old Glory B

We were discussing a pool for lily, we have a water butt round at our garden, we occasionally drape the hosepipe across the graveyard and over the wall to top it up, but i think i'll have to take her to the outdoor pool 6 miles away instead.
We don't have a ban yet! apparently south west water is one of the worst water companies for wastage!

Chantal, I'm not moaning about carrying cans, because we're not allowed hosepipes anyway, so always have to do it. Just wish the council would be a bit more generous with their tanks.
Still, now that our site has been saved from being turned into a super-duper tennis club facility and thanks to a lot of local publicity there has been a huge surge in the numbers of plot holders.
I suspect (and hope) that things will improve.