So, this hosepipe ban.

[HeyWayne]

Dry weather triggers hosepipe ban | Magazine News | New Civil Engineer

Is it really that big an issue? I can't remember the last time I used my hosepipe.

[bubblewrap]

No ban here..........................yet
I use my hose pipe most days I have 150 potato plants & it would take hours with a can.
I think food production is exempt anyway.

[zazen999]

Dry weather triggers hosepipe ban | Magazine News | New Civil Engineer

Is it really that big an issue? I can't remember the last time I used my hosepipe.

you'd be surprised.....we don't have any water apart from our water butt; but all the lottie holders that have access to water [because they have a well, or their garden is close enough to run a hose] water every day; sometime twice a day.

Notwithstanding us losing crops to Aminopyralid; ours have always been as good as theirs; with less weeds as we mulch whereas theirs run rampant!

We are on thick clay - unless it is the greenhouse or the coldframe; no need to water every day!!!!

[OverWyreGrower]

I'll still be using my hosepipe (and I'm in the ban area)....

However, I don't use it to water my plants, I use it to take water up to all my chickens and ducks. We have a mahoosively long garden, and without the hosepipe, I'd have to carry over 30litres of water in 5litre buckets every morning - it would take me ages and ages.

Saying that, it's currently tipping it down, and has been for the past 24 hours....

[piskieinboots]

Tell me what the difference is between using one's hosepipe or filling several watering cans from the kitchen tap

[OverWyreGrower]

Tell me what the difference is between using one's hosepipe or filling several watering cans from the kitchen tap

Apparantly, hosepipes 'waste' more water, whereas filling buckets or cans is less wasteful...

[Flummery]

Quantity Pisk. I can't physically carry enough to the plot to make a difference. There's an underground water tank there which collects run-off from the church roof but in this weather it doesn't last the season. I'm taking water in milk containers to the plot in my wheelbarrow but you just have to soak the new stuff and hope.
I use the hose a couple of times a week in the garden but only on veg. The perennials and shrubs have been there long enough to cope.

[Alison]

Apparantly, hosepipes 'waste' more water, whereas filling buckets or cans is less wasteful...

To be honest, they have a point. There are a lot of people who put the hose pipe on a sprinkler and leave it on for hours to keep their grass nice and green. That's totally wasteful and not needed, especially when you consider that all the water that most people use is drinking water quality. Nobody in the right mind would spend several hours taking watering cans onto their lawn so it saves from people like that. You're still allowed to fill as many watering cans as you want and I'll continue to take containers up to the lottie for the polytunnel as my water butts are pretty much empty (typical, last year more water than I needed ). We get a hose pipe ban in Friday and I can't really argue against it although I may well wash my car tomorrow night before it kicks in as it's filthy!

[jackie j]

I water my garden with the hosepipe a couple of times a week. The lottie I have to use watering cans, hosepipes are not allowed. We were told that if you water the plot really well every four days it shouldnt need more. It encourages the roots to go down looking for water, if you water too often the roots stay uptop so to speak.

[Florence Fennel]

If this is in my area, I'd better start training the grandchildren to use the watering cans. I am not physically able to water all my veg unless with the hose pipe.

[weekendwellies]

last year I couldn't find a fitting to connect my hoselok type fittings to the ancient subterranean taps on the allotment so they didn't get any water other than what nature provided. this summer I managed to get a connector that fitted the said taps and I also have a barrel and I have done worse crop-wise this year. Most of my courgettes failed (but they were planted out before the fitting was purchased) and every salad crop I have sowed has failed, so I am only managing potatoes, a couple of courgettes and my faithful strawberries so far. Some of the pumpkins/squashes have also taken quite well, too, but nothing so far as carrots, beetroot, radish, lettuce, etc has grown. These all did really well last year without the benefit of extra watering.
So no, it probably does not make any difference. I still fret that I can't use a hose to water everything though.

[lindyloo]

i use mine to fill up containers to take to the ponies and chicken; as i change containers etc. i allow it to water my containers ( waste not want not) i too think that used sparingly, the hose pipe doesnt use anymore water than if i had filled a bucket and tipped it over. my water bill comes to 14� per month; i am on a meter, so i think i am quite frugal with my water anyway. that supplies 2 adults 2 lg ponies/cobs chicken and dog. but i am seriously worried about the lack of rain- hay straw cereals shortage is going to seriously impact on all of our bought food availability and pricing. the local farmers are saying that the hay they have managed to cut has been of very low quality due to the weather earlier in the year. the feilds that they have recently cut has no new growth coming through, so unless we get rain very soon its not looking good.

[lindyloo]

oh, better explain that i have to take the water containers in my car, and that is parked on the road. so i have to turn the hose on at the back of my house, in the back garden, and then walk thorugh the house and to the road, to fill up the containers, so it is not an option to kepp turning the hose on and off. the containers are 5 gallon ones, and when filled are too heavy for me to carry through the house, as it is quite a distance, and i have slipped disc several times in past. have tried a nozzle, and it just comes off at the tap, as the pressure builds up , as the fittings on house are so old. i think i am entitled to water livestock though, and normally i can get it from stream or barrels which i have placed strategically to collect water from sheds and stables, but it has all dried up over the last 2 weeks. ( no water supply there) -- p.s. i never wash my car, so that saves water- well, just once a year for it's mot!)

[Guzzik]

Tell me what the difference is between using one's hosepipe or filling several watering cans from the kitchen tap

Nothing, no difference really othere than the boffins that are in the "government" reckon that we lazy louts out here in real life wont spend an hour wandering about with a watering can but we will spend five hours drinking pina coladas sat on our bums watching the water coming out the end of the hose.......................Another good idea is to approach ones local Wytch and imbibe her with Mead and ask for a rain spell.............Or a spell of rain.........

[Two_Sheds]

lazy louts ...wont spend an hour wandering about with a watering can but we will spend five hours ...watching the water coming out the end of the hose..

That's exactly what does happen.
The old guy on my corner was out watering his roses the other day: midday sun, blazing hot, and he's sprinkling the leaves with the hose (not soaking the roots). The roses weren't even thirsty, they are well mulched with gravel: it's just his Friday habit "must sprinkle the roses"

If he had to do it with watering cans, he wouldn't bother, and the roses wouldn't suffer.

I can be smug: I've never used a hosepipe in my life, it's always been watering cans. I have a bad back and can't even lift my left arm. Jeeps, if I can do it, almost anyone can.

Use mulches, water the roots not the leaves, use sink holes don't water the soil surface, etc etc.
The back garden is watered with bath water using one of these, the lawn not at all. We are in the driest part of the country and have a hosepipe ban every year.