I thought the original post said 5 acres too, I think that mulch is the recognised way to stop plants from drying out, lots and lots of mulch four or five inches thick.
Don't feel silly @Posy I thought it was 5 acres too.
Water containers vary so much in price, depending on how good looking they are. My daughter bought a hideous one, dirt cheap on EBay, but she's grown climbing plants all over it.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
A bit more on the economics - don't forget that water suppliers also charge you to take the water away again. Mine supplies at a similar price to your's but add in the sewerage charge and it costs £2.23 a cu.m., so about £100 a year for mains watering. A water butt should last at least 10 years so would only cost you £6 a year.That looks like a no-brainer to me.
I actually have a septic tank but yes that's absolutely true for most. It seems a butt is more cost effective IF you can keep it filled then, but the times you need it or will be empty!
That said it's mainly new plants or delicate things I'd water so that's only special cases not week in week out.
Can you easily run irrigation drip systems from a water butt or do they require higher pressure?
You can buy a 1000 litre tank for £60 which is a bit more economical. They are recycled food grade palletised containers so not the prettiest things but they can be hidden behind sheds, trellis or even camouflage netting. You might still need traditional water butts to collect from your roof then pump them into the larger container which adds cost and complexity. No free lunch there I'm afraid but if you have the room they are very useful.
Any tips on finding these? I saw bigger tanks online (even up to 10000L!) But not at that sort of price.
The garden actually has a large metal tank next to a former hot house which might be restorable, must be about 2m^3 but it's down hill from much of the garden. I suppose pumping is viable but starting to get a bit more complex
https://www.directwatertanks.co.uk/ibc-containers-reconditioned is one source. Apologies, I was a little off on price as they are £ 60 ex-VAT plus delivery. There are lots of others out there who are asking much higher prices but these are very common items so no need to pay more. If you have a tame farmer nearby they may be happy to do you a deal for one.
Shame about the delivery cost but interesting you can easy get a standard hose adapter - we're talking about £120 all in which is the cost of 2 big water butts for 2.5X the capacity. So worth consideration.
It’s my new glasses, Dove, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen the point either
For running irrigation from a water butt, if you can position them a metre or so above the area to be watered, gravity will work with soaker hose but won’t have the pressure for the piped systems with the control valves. For watering was a hosepipe, you can get small water pumps that are submerged in the butt (rechargeable on mains electricity) and these worked pretty well on our old allotment.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Now I do have a 5 acre "garden".. no decimal Of course I don't irrigate almost anything but last year in the drought I was watering around 600m2 of vegetables and two greenhouses of tomatoes (48m2 in total there) Outside was watered every two days inside daily I found that I was using about 300L per time.
As to waterbutts if you have a large garden use pallet tanks (ibc) they hold 1000L (1100 right to the top) Just check what was in them before you get them, roundup would not be so good for the plants, they can normally be found cheap direct from farmers or in the free ads.
I've just bought an old farm and the piss tank from the cows is still in place, I'm dreaming of running the gutters into that no idea how big it really is but it's at least 40000L probably more. Unfortunately I sell vegetables and they need drinking quality water sigh.. £5 a cubic meter here!
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Don't feel silly @Posy I thought it was 5 acres too.
Water containers vary so much in price, depending on how good looking they are. My daughter bought a hideous one, dirt cheap on EBay, but she's grown climbing plants all over it.
It seems a butt is more cost effective IF you can keep it filled then, but the times you need it or will be empty!
That said it's mainly new plants or delicate things I'd water so that's only special cases not week in week out.
Can you easily run irrigation drip systems from a water butt or do they require higher pressure?
The garden actually has a large metal tank next to a former hot house which might be restorable, must be about 2m^3 but it's down hill from much of the garden. I suppose pumping is viable but starting to get a bit more complex
Thanks.
For running irrigation from a water butt, if you can position them a metre or so above the area to be watered, gravity will work with soaker hose but won’t have the pressure for the piped systems with the control valves. For watering was a hosepipe, you can get small water pumps that are submerged in the butt (rechargeable on mains electricity) and these worked pretty well on our old allotment.