Not being on mains water, it's a bit of a moot point, but watering cans are always filled from the rainwater butts. When they are empty, I have to stop watering. Even if I had the water pressure for a hose, the garden is too large for it to be sensible. I water the stuff in the greenhouse and pots in the little courtyard garden next to the house all from the nearest rainwater tank. Everything else has to live or die just as it choses.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I have noticed a pronounced shift in attitude to personal cleanliness in the past 50+ years. In the middle of the last century a bath once or maybe twice a week was the norm. Now if you admit to not having a daily shower people look at you askance. Likewise laundry was done on a Monday; now many folk like to wash many of their clothes and towels after a single use.
Modern regimes are extravagant use of water. Those who operate as such, and wash their cars every week, and have hot tubs and grand children’s paddling pools, need to look inwards before criticising gardeners over the use of hoses.
So you can have an expensive, plumbed in grey water collection system or collect your bathwater in cans/receptacle of your choice and trudge up and down the stairs with them but you can’t syphon it to save money, tap water and your legs? Nuts.
If there was a single prosecution, I would imagine the charge was part of a blood feud between neighbours. even then, I can't imagine the water company would give the slightest toss. I imagine the water companies would be delighted if more people used siphons during a drought.
I have noticed a pronounced shift in attitude to personal cleanliness in the past 50+ years. In the middle of the last century a bath once or maybe twice a week was the norm. Now if you admit to not having a daily shower people look at you askance. Likewise laundry was done on a Monday; now many folk like to wash many of their clothes and towels after a single use.
Washing a towel after a single use? I haven't heard of that. Two weeks or so seems fine to me. Leave it longer and nobody is going to die.
I take your point, Ben, about water use, but the world must certainly been a good deal more whiffy in any century before the present one - where people were "sewn into their long underwear in the wnter"; without the use of toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant or denitsts - I can't even imagine it. Body lice, head lice and fungal diseases were more prevalent.
Having said that - when I get a face full of fag smoke or walk into a smoker's house I want to wretch. I used to smoke (20+ years ago) and lived in a house full of smokers. All my family smoked on both sides and planes, cinemas, buses, pubs, restaurants and work places were full of smoke, incl hospitals. How those places must have reeked - with all the nicotine in the carpets, curtains and walls. Our senses do adapt.
So you can have an expensive, plumbed in grey water collection system or collect your bathwater in cans/receptacle of your choice and trudge up and down the stairs with them but you can’t syphon it to save money, tap water and your legs? Nuts.
If there was a single prosecution, I would imagine the charge was part of a blood feud between neighbours. even then, I can't imagine the water company would give the slightest toss. I imagine the water companies would be delighted if more people used siphons during a drought.
Do you have a link Hosta?
https://www.ratedpeople.com/blog/hosepipe-ban-things-you-need-to-know This link says grey water syphoning is legal during a hosepipe ban. It also says the ban isn't intended to be enforced but rather to make people use their heads a bit. The process seems to be that a water company will send letters and visit your house to tell you off before it ever gets to the criminal prosecution stage.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
There have been a few people that got a wrap on the knuckles down our allotment because they were washing their cars down there, which is against the allotment rules apparently.
There was also a lady that our neighbour said was using the hose continuously for over 4 hours. She just moved it to another part of the allotment and left it running whilst she did other things, then moved it after a while.
Another old boy accidently forgot he was fulling his water butts and went home leaving the tap running and it wasn't spotted until the next morning.
Those who operate as such, and wash their cars every week, and have hot tubs and grand children’s paddling pools, need to look inwards before criticising gardeners over the use of hoses.
Here's a daft question. Can water actually be lost from the planet? I know some is frozen and there is a constant cycle of evaporation into the clouds followed by rain etc. and there is uptake & transpiration in the plant world and all the usage, sewage & recycling in the human world but is the 'net' amount of water on the planet always roughly the same?
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
Water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen can 'leak' into space, I think, because it's light enough not to be held in by gravity. That's not quite the same as water evaporating into space though.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
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“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Modern regimes are extravagant use of water. Those who operate as such, and wash their cars every week, and have hot tubs and grand children’s paddling pools, need to look inwards before criticising gardeners over the use of hoses.
This link says grey water syphoning is legal during a hosepipe ban. It also says the ban isn't intended to be enforced but rather to make people use their heads a bit. The process seems to be that a water company will send letters and visit your house to tell you off before it ever gets to the criminal prosecution stage.
There was also a lady that our neighbour said was using the hose continuously for over 4 hours. She just moved it to another part of the allotment and left it running whilst she did other things, then moved it after a while.
Another old boy accidently forgot he was fulling his water butts and went home leaving the tap running and it wasn't spotted until the next morning.
I've never done that. 🥴
Are such people criticising gardeners?
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”