SE DROUGHT - official

[eskymo]

Not sure I've got a hosepipe that long as the garden is quite a distance from the house. I was thinking of getting another water butt closer to the house, but need to negotiate that with the neighbour as it would be sitting just outside his window - I was thinking of putting a water butt on wheels, but then I couldn't move it up to the garden as there are three steps to get up and a lawn to cross...it'd be a bit of a nightmare - so I thinks it's buckets for me!

[fruit&vegvirgin]

mmm, read with interest. right, got to get the butts sorted, which should be easy enough - I can put one by the garage to tap into any rainfall, and I'll put an open one in the kitchen garden
in terms of the garden itself (flowers/shrubs), I usually just water 'new' things during their first season, after which I reckon they should be established enough to cope, and if they're not then they're probably not for me!!

as for housing on flood plains - tell me about it!!! Ashford (15 miles away) is expected to have something like 100,000 new houses under Prescott's masterplan (read SNAFU!) - where are they going to get their water from? not to mention the fact that the hospital cant cope at the moment, the schools are already over-subscribed - yet they want to put up more rabbit hutches. lunacy.
*gets down from soap box*

[Helen]

We have a problem here where we live but not a water problem, its the power supply, its a small town that been here for years & over the last 10yrs or so they have built a housing estate that totals more houses than what was already here but no one thought about having enough power supply! the result, Lights dim when you put something high powered on (microwave) & during ad breaks of any popular tv programme, we don't watch coronation street but we know when the adverts are on!!!!!!!!!

[andrewo]

Building houses on water/flood plains is indicative of this government's short fall policies. They are doing it in the North as well as the South, creating long term problems for short term gain - the big housing companies care little about the environment, the average house they build cost roughly 10-20K, which they then sell for 250K - working wages. This is a disgusting profit in the name of progress. The answer by a certain company is our area, who is building on a flood plain (250 houses, raising the village population by 20%) was to raise the doors, can you believe that? The water that floods there normally is around 4' deep, but they raised the doors by 18" and it got through!

You can repipe your baths out into the garden, just disconnect them from the soil pipe and/or put a two way tap in the bathroom to funnel either down the greenwater shoot (recycled into your garden) or down the soil. You can now get some great gizmos for you drainpipes too, that divert into the butts.

[Nicos]

any web sites for these??

[sewer rat]

Nicos
Try the following
www.greengardenshop.co.uk
www.ferndale-lodge.co.uk
www.twowests.co.uk
Alternatively google "water butts" and spend hours wading through the results
Rat

[Nicos]

Thanks!! Is that how you spent your day off????

[sewer rat]

Nicos
I know these sites of old. I spent my day off getting scalped by an septugenarian barber, buying seed tatties for me , a sledge for my daughter , and then sledging for the rest of the afternoon.
Rat

[nick the grief]

I take it you've had a light sprinkling of snow then Rat

[sewer rat]

So far we've had about a foot - probably much the same as dni dave, though he's in Aberdeenshire, so he may have had a bit more than me. Boss sent us home early on Wednesday cause of the snow , but had me and my digger driver out draining a field all day Thursday - which had heavier snowfalls and colder winds. Then to cap it all, he sent the guys who were in the workshop home at 1 o'clock on Thursday and told them not to come back til Monday - so they get a day's extra paid holiday and guess where I was today - back in a bloody field again, standing in a 5 ft deep trench, with 1 ft of icy cold water lapping at my wellies - for six hours !!!
Rat