Water is a precious commodity - this year we're facing hosepipe ban earlier than ever before and we can no longer take it for granted that there'll always be plenty of water.
Each of us uses about 145 litres each day, but the average household roof could harvest 85,000 litres of rainwater a year - pure, chemical-free, soft water - perfect for crops and plants in the garden and ideal to wash the car of clean the terrace.  Here are lots of good ideas to help so we'll need to water less:

• mulch the plants
• remove any weeds 
• improving the soil so it retains water better
• space plants densely 
• put in plants with low water requirements (see below).
• harvest rainwater and reuse household water 
• limit lawn space
• use drought-tolerant grasses and allow them to grow longer
• leave cut grass on the lawn as a mulch
• use permeable surfacing like gravel for hard landscaping;
• fill containers with peat-free compost (green waste, loam or coir-based composts retain water better) 
• water efficiently by thoroughly soaking the base of each plant in need of water (at a rate of at least 10 litres per square metre) - in the early morning or evening - to avoid transpiration.

The best way for householders to harvest rainwater for garden purposes is to place a container under a downpipe with a diverter which directs any overflow to a ground drain.
House roofs are obvious candidates, but don't forget greenhouses, garages, conservators, even sheds.


If a water butt isn't enough, go for an above-the-ground tank in agricultural corrugated metal; a complete underground system with pumps and filters; or a self-build system to purify household and grey water.


A drip-watering system, delivering moisture direct to the root zones is especially useful in vegetable gardens. when they can be hidden along the raised beds.  

If you're really committed you can establish a garden wetland to purify grey water, mimicking a natural wetland where plants, microbes and animals convert pollutants to biomass, leaving clean water.


Most vegetables need water to establish but these must be kept watered throughout the season:

• salad leaves and lettuces
• spinach
• summer cabbage
• cauliflower
• celery
• celeriac
• fennel
• runner beans
• anything which grows in the greenhouse, especially cucumbers and tomatoes

Plants which need less water include:

• Ones with silver grey leaves: cistus, santolina and artemesia
• Plants with aromatic oils: lavender, rosemary and thyme.
• Plants which store water: succulents and agaves.
• Plants with long tap roots: verbascums, hoilyhocks and umbellifers.
• Plants with hairy leaves: salvias, verbascums and comfreys.
• Sword-like leaved plants: yucca, cordylines and phormiums.
• Native plants suited to local conditions.
• Perennials need less watering than annuals and bedding plants.

DIY GARDENING BOOKS

• A Guide to Waterwise Gardening by Michael Littlewood
• The Resilient Garden by Marilyn Abbot
• Gardening in a Changing Climate by Ambra Edwards
• Waterwise Gardening by Ian Cooke

Three Ways to. ... Detect Nutrient Deficiencies

According to this week's Torbay Herald Express:


1   Insufficient nitrogen can cause foliage to turn pale green and for the plants to become spindly.  Apply a high-nitrogen fertilizer to improve conditions 


I can think of two ideas for this:
Firstly, chicken poo pellets (as can be seen from RHS site http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?PID=297) they contain lots of nitrogen: 

Typical analysis of dried and pelleted poultry manure (can be variable):
N(nitrogen)         4%
P(phosphorus)    2%
K(potassium)     1%

"Happy to Help"

Secondly, leaving roots of peas and beans (legumes) in the soil after harvesting the legumes helps to fix nitrogen in the soil, using the nodules, see pic below (from : http://www.gardenhelp.org/food/nitrogen-fixing-root-nodules/)

2   Plants can develop yellow leaf edges spreading between the veins if they are short of iron.  This is most common on alkaline soils and you need to apply a product containing chelated iron (liquid or granular form) to ease the problems.

Chelated iron is a mixture of sodium, iron and a chelating agent to make the iron soluble in water and accessible to plants.  Perhaps this is why years ago old gardeners used to leave rusty bits of metal buried in their gardens (or were they just being untidy?!).  It can be purchased from garden centres and is also present in many general purpose fertilisers.

3   Lack of calcium - often experienced when plants are too dry to absorb it - causes distorted leaves, spots and cracks on fruit as well as blossom-end rot. Keep your plants moist to enable them to absorb calcium.

Remember - what my father told me years ago: 
Nitrogen (N): For green leafy growth
Phosphorus (P): For healthy root and shoot growth
Potassium (K): For flowering, fruiting and general hardiness


Ideas for problems and remedies from the excellent RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) site: http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?PID=456

Other essential minerals include:

Magnesium: to give green colour to leaves, with leaves turning colours such as yellow, purple, brown or red. Older leaves suffer first, and will die if they're not given any treatment. The nutrient can be leached out of light, sandy, acidic soil by high rainfall. or if there is too much potassium in the soil the plants absorb that instead of the magnesium.  As with our bodies, it's important to have a calcium/magnesium balance (eat plenty of bananas for potassium, that's why roses love banana skins).

For a long term solution, apply a yearly mulch of home-made compost.  This will conserve moisture, prevent the leaching of nutrients during heavy rainfall, and provide the soil with sufficient quantities of magnesium to keep the plants health.

An alternative is to apply Epsom Salts as a leaf spray for a quick, temporary solution in summer. Or Epsom Salts or calcium-magnesium carbonate can be applied to the soil in autumn or winter to remedy the deficiency for the next year.

(From: http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/magnesium-deficiency/)

For other minerals necessary in your soil there's an excellent site giving more information: http://www.gardensalive.com/article.asp?ai=57. For instance this pic shows strawberries deficient in boron: 

Leave Your Garden Alone - It's Summer!

There was an interesting article in the Daily Telegraph recently, by Germaine Greer, someone not normally noted for her green fingers, in which she suggests that in this lovely summer weather, instead of gardening, we go off walking or doing something else and leave the garden to itself.

She suggested that if plants are left to their own devices it soon becomes apparent which plants actually suit living in your garden which will save lots of cosseting and hard work.  


I had never thought about this concept until we moved to this garden and found the soil so difficult, so it was good to find my idea backed up by Ms Greer - and if you think about it, it makes absolute sense.


For instance: our house is built on a quarry.  So under the soil in many places it's just bedrock, also we are pretty near the sea, have lots of sunshine and less rain than many other places and on top of that it's quite windy.  


Therefore, we have a particular soil and habitat which some plants absolutely love and many which I've grown successfully in the past in other locations don't like living here.  


Because of this, anything which thrives I either divide and spread all round the garden or if that's impossible, go and buy more.


Several summers recently have been extraordinarily dry and we've just had a (comparatively) cold winter.  This has killed off several plants and so I don't see much point in replacing them.  


Another factor here is the inordinate number of slugs and snails.  In the past year, on average, I've killed at least 1,000 a year - and still they come.  They love living in the ivy, which encroaches on all sides and because the ivy comes from other gardens it's impossible to keep it out.  (See my new article on how to deal with snails, else I shall ramble on for ever on what to do about them!)


It would be interesting to hear what others think of Ms Greer's ideas and what people have discovered ...


27 August 2011
Well, have given in and started pruning/weeding, taking stock of what's died over the dry summer, what's been crowded out by either 'thugs' or plants that just love their situation.  These poor souls who've been crowded out have now been moved to new situations, there to have more of a chance to survive.  The garden's taking on a whole new look and once this tranche of pruning/weeding/relocating has taken place the garden will be left to itself again - giving me time to tackle the allotment.  But that's a different story as leaving things to 'take their chances' isn't such a sound idea.

Drought

5 July 2011
I've been up to the allotment again today - watering in the vain hope that it'll encourage some rain to fall.

No camera so can't take a photo but it was lovely picking: peas, beetroot, lettuce, courgettes, radishes and raspberries.  Also picked some broccoli and greens at home, have left some of the broccoli to go to seed to encourage the bees.

The beetroot looked so yummy that I immediately pressure-cooked them and ate one and it was wonderful and sooo sweet!

Looking forward to some more stuff very soon, it's very rewarding after all the weeks of hard work.

6.7.11: It worked, it's been raining on and off all day, much to David's disgust as he wanted to bowl and so has got rather wet!

8.7.11: Picked first runner beans.

For more information about our allotments - see Link:  http://www.phgas.org/

22.7.11

Picked beetroot, spinach, radishes, peas, broad beans (some) runner beans, a carrot, lettuces, courgettes - and lots of weeds:

Various lettuces, marigolds, a courgette, some broad beans, tomatoes, potatoes

Potatoes, courgettes with sweet corn growing amongst them, then runner beans

Beetroot

28.7.11
It's too dry again, hasn't rained for a long time and the water butts are getting empty.  But - 'mustn't grumble' it's so lovely for all the people who are down here on their holidays.

3.8.11
Still hardly any rain, the ground and the plants are seriously suffering.  How can it say in the paper that we had a very wet July?