Hard/Soft water

[HeyWayne]

On one of our frequent visits up to Sheffield today a thought struck me whilst washing my hands.

How much difference does water hardness make to growing?

Da'an here the wawtah's quite hard and limescale's quite an issue. Up in Sheffield the water's so soft that you need far less soap, and it takes ages to wash off.

Does the water hardness make a difference to plant feed, watering amounts, plant absorbtion and so on?

[Jeanied]

It certainly makes a difference to the houseplants HW - quite a few need to be watered with soft water as they are lime haters.

[piskieinboots]

Yes it does make a difference, certain plants should not be watered with tap water, blueberries being one such example

[Alison]

Dunno about different types of tap water being better or worse for plants as I tend to use rain water for most of mine anyway. However do know that it never seems possible to make a decent up of tea with London water, really eurgh

[Jeanied]

Just as well I only drink coffee, eh, Alison!

[Alison]

LOL - I think there is also an element of what you're used to but I'm not sure I could ever get used to that scummy layer you always seem to get

[Bigmallly]

I am grateful for having soft water but do not understand why it is so different throughout the country.

[Jeanied]

Aquifers, old chap, aquifers!

[Bigmallly]

Just gonna google aquifiers....be right back........

[Bigmallly]

I've got a headache now and still no wiser.....................I think I will just accept that water is either hard or soft & leave it at that.

[gojiberry]

We have nice soft water down here. In twenty odd years the kettle still doesn't have a speck of limescale in it.

Ian

[Jeanied]

sorry BM didn't mean to do your head in - all it means is that the water drains through different rock formations in different parts of the country - as it drains it collects different kinds of minerals which makes the water unique!

[zazen999]

And chalk is limestone so.....when the underlying soil is chalk, you get more lime in the water.

[Nicos]

fact for the day....

When we went on a tour of Robinsons brewery in Stockport ( well worth a visit!)
it was interesting to hear that when 'local beers' are made in alternative places, they have to alter the local water used to match that in the original location- to get the same flavour/quality.
Now I'd have never thought about that- would you???

...and Bigmallly.... the more minerals the water collects, the harder it gets.
That's how those water filters work - by removing the minerals etc, the water ends up softer and sweeter tasting- and no scum on your London tea!!

[zazen999]

On a slightly different note, I worked on site just around the corner from Dover for a year where the water was ridiculously hard. I brought from home a water filter for our site kettle; and it was filled up pretty much hourly and used for all our drinks/crap-a-soups etc.....it was used from 6:30ish for the first round of coffees and 6-7ish for the last.......and it was still removing most of the lime by the end of the job. We never had to empty any lime out of that kettle; even with the constant use. We also used the kettle to warm water for soaking soil and as that's why we were there [a soils lab], it definitely got alot of use!

So when they say filters only work for a month or two [or 200 filterings], they lie!