water collection

Now have a water butt set up for the greenhouse.  Up until now, we have been collecting rainwater.. but not in the right place. We have a 400 gallon ex-juice container collecting off the old piggery, but to get water to the greenhouse means filling up two watering cans, walking up the lane, up the steps and into the greenhouse… retrace steps with empty cans and repeat.

A couple of days ago, himself and our son set up the new water butt.  We have already set up one on the lean to greenhouse, just by diverting the guttering into a small butt. Ideal as it is greenhouse temperature, and environmentally friendly to use rainwater. And now we have one on the new greenhouse too, only this one is set outside. 

By using some spare drainage materials, an old conditioner bottle for a funnel, and some light-glaze to replace some broken glass in the greenhouse, some old hose, a post and rope to stop the butt blowing over when it is empty, some wire to hold everything in place and a cup hook aka ‘the no moving parts, can’t break, no need for a tap’ on off device.. we now have collected water available right to the plants.

It’s all a bit Heath Robinson, but we had everything already, apart from the light glaze, but as the glass had broken, yet again, we were going to have to replace it anyway, and this allowed something more flexible and less likely to break again, and a hole could be cut for the hosepipe into the greenhouse.

‘the no moving parts, can’t break, no need for a tap’  device is a cup hook taped to the end of the hose pipe and it is hooked up higher than the top of the water butt. To get water.. lower the pipe. This also allows us to find out where the water level is.  Well it works.. and that’s all that counts.  Despite forecasts to the contrary, it has been sunny the last few days, but we had one day of rain, and that has been enough to do the watering for the rest of the week.  Perfect.