Water good idea...!

[Zenithtb]

I doubt this'll be too useful to most readers, but being in Spain this is what we do: https://picasaweb.google.com/zenitht...40834736177842
This method (flood the channel, not the plants) makes the water enter the under-soil faster (no evaporation) and makes the plants 'dig' for water (so they grow deep roots quicker - surface watering encourages short roots and need more watering)... But you really need high volumes of water in a short space of time for this to work - we use swimming pool water :-)

[chris]

cute baby Interesting to know how you cope in a hot cliamte..

[Kittypickle]

First year with allotments last year. One was a small temporary plot with water but a long trek to get it, very fertile as had pigs rotating it. Other has no water and was couch grass for some years. I only watered in seedlings at both and things did surprisingly well. There was a marked difference between yields of both though which makes me think as said above, it's what you add to the soil.

One of the old boys who was a farmer said an Aussie who was helping him on the farm one year said hoeing is really important when you have no water and it was what they did in Australia round their veg. He did tell me the reasoning behind it but have forgotten. But I did try to do as he said.

[Two_Sheds]

an Aussie ... said hoeing is really important when you have no water

possibly because weeds are using up valuable water and should be removed? What you don't want to do in hot weather is turn the soil over (dig it) because you will cause greater evaporation. Cutting the weeds and leaving them to wilt on the surface is better

On the other hand, weeds can be a living mulch, shading the ground and reducing evaporation. I had my best ever onion crop when I didn't weed them - they were buried under a few inches of chickweed, but they had lovely big bulbs when I got round to digging them up

[EddieJ]

We currently have a six IBC's which have a total capacity of 6000litres.

The first/header tank is only linked to the others at the top, and can be drained down separately. I can isolate each tank, and each tank other than the first, gravity feeds the the galvanised animal water trough. The aim this year is to pressurise the system, as gravity alone is just to slow to replenish the animal trough. I may also add a micro irrigation system from the last tank just to make things less labour intensive. Time is something that I don't have much of, and watering is chore that I don't want.


Photos taken during construction last April.

[Two_Sheds]

Eddie, very impressive set up

[roitelet]

Great idea roitelet (wow that's a difficult name to spell ) Do you sink them near hungry crops (squash/courgettes etc) or just leafy crops?

Sorry to have taken so long to reply to your question. I have used the soaker pots for leafy plants like lettuce and cabbage. I haven't used them for the courgettes but I do sink a plastic pot next to them so the water goes to the roots and not all over the soil. I find that the huge leaves of them shade the soil and help to keep it moist.

This year I am using them for the tomatoes as I never get round to keeping them evenly wet.

[chris]

np, I'll give it a whirl to see now I have the space to try these things out

[TallGirl]

In dry weather, we keep a bucket in the kitchen sink to catch all the bits that are used for rinsing, hand-washing, etc. Then I use it in the back yard, which gets watered much better as a result.

French beans and chard - seeds have gone in individual craters, so I can soak the craters and not have all the water run away. After the rain this weekend (cross fingers!!!) I'll be putting mulch on the spaces in between the craters, to try and keep things a bit moister. We put the last lot of grass cuttings in a plastic bag with rocks on the top, to try and get them to sog down and hold together a bit, and that's what I'll be using. It'll probably look disgusting, but hopefully it'll work ok.

Parsnips, peas, radishes - first I made the drill, then I really soaked the drill, then sowed the seed, then put the dry earth back on top. It seemed to hold water pretty well, and you know it's wet where it needs to be.

Runner beans - sowed them direct, with a cut-off 2l drinks bottle pushed into the ground around them (cut off top and bottom so it's a tall collar). Mini-cloche, keeps off the rabbits and the high winds, and watering into the bottle keeps it all soaking down into the right bit of ground. I guess that's a lot like the sinkhole system? Gonna try that on the courgettes and pumpkins this year, thanks Roitelet!

The biggest thing I'm going to try to do this year is not to water too eagerly, and make the plants all grow roots deeper.

We've already become an 'if it's yellow, let it mellow'-type household

[TallGirl]

Eddie, wow!

[Blueberries]

It's not a huge problem in our area as there is no shortage of water fed from the mountain ranges not too far away. I used to have to carry water to my allotment for the onions in my polytunnel.