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Grass cuttings and water

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  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Really worrying @JennyJ:|
    My sister lives in the east side of Scotland, and it's always drier down that side, but there were lots of reports of possible hosepipe bans etc there last year. I don't think  it happened, although possibly further north than she is.

    We had several nights where the rainfall wasn't much lower than your January total. Several night in December well more than that, but it was our wettest December on record apparently, and when you discount the many nights of heavy frosts/freezes, it shows how much there was. 
    I've found it quite interesting having the little rain gauges over the last 10 or 11 months. I wonder what the rest of the year will bring....
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Interesting - we had a dry December, 16mm in total and most of that was on the 23rd. Maybe we should have a thread to post our monthly rain gauge totals.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • Slow-worm said:
    There's a man on YT who shows you how to put in your own borehole - could you do that at all? Just a simple procedure which may be possible for you, basically a pipe and a pump, and a lot less than £26k! 

    Unfortunately I can't make any big changes because I am a tenant - also I'm both too old and too poor to take on such a project!
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Please don't even consider that @nonenone, as I said earlier.  :)

    That's frighteningly low for December @JennyJ. I know we had 35mm one night, but we do get regular spells of rough, wild wet weather through autumn and winter, so high teens in any night wouldn't be that unusual for us. We've not had it cold enough for the snow we'd usually have though, so it's been sleet/rain instead. A mild winter again here -  Jan/Feb are our coldest months, but they certainly haven't been as cold as usual. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,279
    @Fairygirl I can't find any data for the last few months but this is from last year, which didn't seem especially dry until April. I live in Thorpe St Andrew, so it appears you have had more rain so far this year than we had by the end of august last year and it continues into September as well.

    https://hps-norfolkandsuffolk.org.uk/index.php/weather-reports/409-2022-summer-rainfall-comparison-for-norfolk-suffolk-east-anglia

    The winter of 2019-20 was the wettest here for over 100 years.

    We also have really sandy, free draining soil, which is why I'm mulching like crazy at the moment. The plants mostly did ok last year but I don't think they will survive another summer like that.     
  • Skandi said:
     If your spring is starting to run dry from a lowered water table you need to tell the landlord because it won't get any better.

    I use grass clippings on my garlic, it works to keep the weeds down and it does help a bit with watering.

    I have a question, if you are using a spring how does using less water help? A spring flows it doesn't matter if you take that water or not it will still flow the same.

    It's quite a complicated situation so there's no quick answer to your question, my landlord knows that the water supply either dries up or is a trickle but there is nothing he can actually do to change it - the climate is what it is. He provides a bowser of water for the bathroom and I stock up on bottled water well in advance.
    There are several springs around the fields and many do indeed dry up if there is not enough rainfall to keep them full - at the opposite end of the scale they will flood if there is persistent heavy rain so the flow and depth depend entirely on rainfall and it does matter how much I take.
    If I use it faster than the holding tank (fed from underground) can refill then I will run out more quickly, I therefore reduce my usage to make it last longer.
  • I mulch using grass cuttings to retain water - I find it works quite well.
    Sometimes I even wait for rain or dew before mulching...

    Thank you Stephen that's encouraging! I think I'll give it a go this year.
  • JennyJ said:
    Is the landlord/property owner responsible for making sure that there's a reliable water supply, including getting a borehole put in if the spring is starting to run dry in summers?

    The short answer is yes but the cost would be prohibitive and may even be impossible given that the surrounding ground is very rocky. He does supply me with bowsers of water as and when I need them and in the worst year the local council also brought me some.
  • Fairygirl said:

    You certainly couldn't just go around putting in boreholes yourself. That's a massive court case right there!
    Yes indeed! 

  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    @thevictorian - I think that's why so many people are reviewing what, and how, they plant. We get regular rainfall all year round, but I know the summers here are changing. Normally, if we went more than about 3 days with no rain we'd be getting very concerned. A spell of five or six days in a row would be a rare event ,and you'd only get that a couple of times [at most] in any summer. That's become more frequent - last year there were at least four or five of those spells. We also had temps in the 30s. That's not normal either. I spent most of last summer in the house - had to walk early in the morning [5.3o/6am]  as I just can't bear the heat at all. 
    I know that's a very different scenario from all of you in the south, or east, but it also means we have to think a little bit about what we do in our gardens.
    Your wettest winter also shows how it can be difficult to judge what we plant, and how we maintain the plants, and the soil type is always in that mix too, as it affects it adversely or positively, depending on type.
    I'll need to have a look at my records for the summer to see how they compare with the chart in your link.
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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