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The effects of drought …

DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
in Problem solving
This is so worrying 

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/business/norfolk-farmers-call-for-hosepipe-ban-9196782

Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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Posts

  • scrogginscroggin Posts: 437
    Unfortunately we as a society are often too insulated from the reality of situations like this. Only when you're directly affected does it cause alarm.  Recently our village had a water ' outage' due to a problem at a local pumping station. Since then it's been noticeable how many more people are reusing their ' grey water' and local community pages are giving lots of water saving tips.
    The money being spent on HS2 might better have gone to providing a National Grid for water supply.
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    I have spoken to lots of people locally who are concerned. No sign of hosepipe use here. Just the splosh of washing up water. One thing I have noticed is that the plants in my garden are hanging on. It has made me realise that they don't need as much water as I have given them in past years. Water butts are empty but they have also been a huge help. Ears of corn in the fields just turn to dust. A bumper crop of wild blackberries, I know they like the sun but better than last year. 
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Met modelled seems to suggest drought coulld well go on into Oct.


    Rivers "dying"

    Locally we have had two major mains pipes burst in the last few days - both at the bottom of hills, shutting down some of north London. We are on clay and I imagine there is a lot of movement in the earth with everything drying out so much. (Not sure if that is the cause of the bursts). Water a metre deep in the streets. It's a tough gig to ask people to ask locals to stop watering pot plants after their street turned into a lake.
    ----
    I do wish people would think about water use, water infrastructure and river health when we are outside of the drought/emergency times. By January everyone goes back to moaning about the rain.
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    edited August 2022
    Rain has been falling in Sicily like waterbombs from the sky. 
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    There are thunderstorms forecast this week for London - notably absent to date during the hot weather here this summer. Heavy rainfall onto ground like concrete would cause flooding in a flash.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    My brother applied for permission to form a couple of small reservoirs on the farm to supply water for irrigating his crops. Permission was refused … he was told to continue to extract water from the small river on one part of the farm boundary, and sink a couple more boreholes. 
    He asked for the reasons, as it seemed the wrong course of action to him, ‘but answer came there none…’ 😕

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • RoddersUKRoddersUK Posts: 537
    Does he have to pay for the water from the river and bore holes by any chance?
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited August 2022
    Of course … Duh 🙄 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    "Trash the rivers" is no kind of answer.
  • muckyhandsmikemuckyhandsmike Posts: 239
    There is so much extraction from rivers that they are dying, particularly when you add in the problem of phosphates from chicken farms wiping out the natural habitat and causing algae problems .. all for cheap chicken in the supermarkets 🙁
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