Hosepipe Ban

Armandii are you in the United Utilities water area ? Just got an email from them yesterday urging everyone to cut down on water usage.
The local pub has promised to stop watering the beer down as his part in this

 

I wasn't meaning people like you anyway Shiney as I know you have a country estate . I'm meaning more the people who have small/medium town gardens who are just slap happy throwing water around from a hose pipe just watering leaves and not the plant and generally causing more harm than good.

 

Thunderstorms coming to the South West tomorrow

After an all night debate on the drought situation, the government has issued the following advice to help alleviate the situation

 

I heard on the news yesterday I think it was that there is enough water in the resorvoirs for everyone in this hot weather but it is the fact that the water can’t be processed and cleaned up enough to make it safe when consumption goes up in times of drought

We are under Anglian Water and as far as I know there is no mention of a hosepipe ban in our part of the country(East Midlands)

We use watering cans on our allotment and our garden.It makes my shoulders ache as I carry two watering cans full of water up and down the plots.It isn’t too bad for Mr Kandy as he is stronger than me but we manage

 

First hosepipeban in England announced, coming into force on Aug 5th First hosepipe ban of summer to hit north-west England after weeks of firefighting on Saddleworth Moor

P.S. Beware of using water from butts in sprays as 95% of water butts have been found to contain Legionella bacteria Gardeners using water butts risk spreading legionella germ

 

I have also just read that United Utilities have a hosepipe ban planned for the 5th of August . It seems that all other regions have adequate water supplies at the moment.
I have read , in this post I think , that automatic irrigation systems are exempt from bans , is this correct ? I have just fitted one to a series of planters.

 

Some lateral thinking is called for I feel

Water will be increasngly scarce....because of availability, pricing, demand, rules and regulations......so mulching our soils is the real solution to water restrictions I think. This with more water butts. I try to mulch everything here....even top dressing the lawn is a form of mulching....and it does make a difference. I mulch when I plant something; I hoe to create a dust mulch as much as controlling weeds in veg patch

 

The one good thing about this drought is the fact that it is keeping a lot of the weeds down on the allotment until we get some more of the wet stuff and then the weeds will shoot up everywhere and I bet it will be while we are on our hols then will come back and the allotment won’t look like it has been touched for six months and will be knee deep in weeds although a lot of the weeds I tend to pull up and chuck in my composting bags as long as they haven’t gone to seed.I pull the heads and stems off of the weeds and the root system goes in a bucket until the sun has killed them then they too go in my compost bags

It is the tap rooted weeds that seem to do the best though as that long tap root goes further down until it finds moisture

We still haven’t got a hosepipe ban with Anglian Water as far as I know and the last time we came past our reservoir it was pretty full at the moment.

I am still chucking my washing up water on my plants but because it has been so hot (up into the 80’s) the water I am chucking on the plants just evaporates before it has a chance to get down into the roots.A lot of my cowslips and primroses have already dried to a crisp

 

Well my friends hosepipe ban or not...my flowers have been done regular...the bills just come and been paid..so banning will be ignored this end as I can do without anymore stress

 

The water leakage rate for United Utilities area ( North West England ) is 430 million litres a day . Or 175 Olympic size swimming pools a day . The fat cat CEO's salary is £12 million over the last 5 years - obviously not performance related .

 

Harry I think you've stated the facts mate and they expect the public to hold back