How to water your garden in a drought
Hi all, so in usual ADHD style I have committed myself to doing a blog every week, failed to do so and then avoided doing one as I feel like I’ve failed. However, I have dusted myself off and am starting anew without any promises this time!
This post is about water - a hot topic at the moment as our weather in the UK has been so much hotter than we are used to which leads to the usual hosepipes bans.
So how can we water our gardens when our waterbutts have run dry, there is no prospect of rain, tap water is a luxury (both in terms of potential scarcity and in financial cost) and hosepipes have been banned? These are ways that I have found to keep my plants and veggies healthy and happy, whilst also minimising my water usage.
- Anyone who know me will be aware that I am always on the search for new information. So when I was draining my pasta I had a thought about whether the water could be used for the garden. Guess what? It can. However there are caveats - do not use if you’ve added salt to the water, let it cool, dilute it to reduce the starch and therefore risk of mould on the soil and use on hardy outdoor plants. I won’t go though the science or this will be a book not a blog, but the other amazing thing is that the starch in the water helps to support overall plant health. The good news is that you can also use unsalted potato water.
- One of our key hacks has been to keep the washing up bowl in the sink with no dishes in it! Keep the bowl there to collect water for the garden. So you can collect water when you’re washing/rinsing vegetables, washing your hands (if the soap you use is environmentally friendly), for rinsing out coffee pots etc. I use a cafetière and rinse it out each time into the bowl. The coffee grounds are good for plants too. You may also want to use your cooled dish washing up water too!
- Having a bath or a shower? If you carefully pop a bucket in the shower (if you’re even the tiniest bit wobbly or clumsy like me then do not do this). This will collect some of the shower water that you can use for borders, gardens. Similarly, collecting bath water is just as useful. Personally I do not use this water for my veggies as it feels a bit yuk, but the rest of my plants appreciate it.
- If you are rinsing out your pet’s water bowls then put the remainder on your plants. Every bit really helps.
There are many more ideas that you can use to save such a precious resource. This is just a taste of what we do regularly in our household, Everyone is different and all plants are different so please bear the following in mind:
- if you have a very special plant then check before you try these ideas.
- consider what you are watering. I am careful with what I put on my veggies and only use water without anything that might harm them or us!
- we use environmentally friendly products in our home so soap, washing up liquid etc are all safe for the garden. Not all products are the same so check first, or maybe try a different environmentally friendly brand for a change
- I am not Percy Thrower, Alan Titchmarsh or Monty Don (hopefully I’ve covered all generations there!) so am not too worried if one or two of plants aren’t happy. However, if you are aiming to be Gardener of the Year then do your research first!
For me, the most exciting part of all this is to find new solutions and new ideas! I never would have thought of using the pasta water but just that one ‘wonder’ I had when straining my pasta paid off! So I encourage you to be curious, have a wondering mind and see what you can come up with that helps the environment- remember small actions do add up!
Photo by Benjamin White on Unsplash
