We aim to use our well water (so carefully stored over the first part of the year) to the maximum, but it should be seen as a fall-back because the stated goal for individual members is unchanged: over the winter months collect all the water you are personally likely to need in one season in your own cubes and containers.
To help decide how best to deal with drought, which is turning into a periodic problem, the following list represents a summary of ‘best practice’, which should be of use, it is hoped, to keep things going.
Do:
- plan when to irrigate (avoid the hottest part of the day because you don’t want the majority of your efforts to evaporate immediately!)
- give one soaking a week (say) which is significantly more beneficial than several sprinklings
- direct your efforts by using a funnel (or cut off plastic bottle, inverted and half buried) to take water directly to the roots
- plan ahead and install some form of drip irrigation; apply mulches (grass cuttings, spent hops, manure are freely available); increase the amount of shade available (planting a fruiting hedge of, say, blackberries will offer a large amount of shaded space by the end of a season or two)
- consider your water source: have enough water collected so that you do not depend on any central supply, factoring in the type of crops you grow and whether you have a greenhouse or politunnel.
- think carefully about when to plant: climate change is affecting all of us and, for example, it is clear that planting onion sets earlier than is traditional maximises their contact with damp soil early in their growth cycle; they develop earlier and are, as a result, harvested earlier (up to a month, in some cases)
Don’t:
- feel the need to irrigate perennials or established plants: onions which are watered during a dry spell have a tendency to go to seed; parsnips need no extra water on the surface – their long tap roots look for moisture some way underground
- continue to water transplanted plants unnecessarily: they need to be encouraged to develop strong root systems to search for water
- throw water on the surface using the watering can rose: direct water to the plant only
- attempt to water potatoes, sweetcorn, raspberries, carrots, leeks (in the case of these last two, consider watering a drill for carrot seeds and water in leeks plants in their first week after transplanting). The yield from potatoes which are irrigated by hand is never significantly better than those left to their own devices (however, soil preparation is the key to success here and failure to apply the right amount of manure ahead of planting is a recipe for disappointment)
All of us have seen that weather conditions have fluctuated recently: we have not needed to turn on the mains water this season and all of our storage cubes and tanks are full. We are fortunate in that the site is very well drained but there are ways of minimising damage to the soil in very wet conditions: avoiding standing on the soil (use a plank if you need to access an area), not leaving the soil bare (consider sowing green manure), having sufficient perennial plants which will absorb water.