How to water your garden with a hose pipe ban in place
How to water your garden with a hose pipe ban in place
With the current Hose pipe ban that is affecting twenty million people in England, using your hose pipe during this time of drought can cost you a massive £1000.00 in fines if caught. Despite the amount of heavy rainfall we have received in the past two weeks, according to Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) and the Met office whether News this ban isnt going to be lifted any time soon.
While it is reassuring that us Brits take pride in our country and take notice of unfortunate events such as this, too many keen gardeners it has been somewhat of an inconvenience and would be happy to hear of a solution of getting around this problem without committing an offence.
Well we are in luck, there is a solution and it is called a ‘Micro Irrigation System’ or a ‘Automatic Watering Kit’ which is fitted between your tap and the hose pipe controlling how much water comes out and a timer allowing you to use the legal amount of water required each day. It is very simple to set and up allows you to water your pots, beds, trees and lawns.
The legislation that has been clearly notified to every house hold in the affected counties clearly states that, “Plants may be watered on domestic or other non-commercial premises using a fixed drip or trickle irrigation watering system, connected to a metered water supply, which is fitted with a pressure reducing valve and a timer and which places water drip by drip directly onto the soil surface or beneath the soil surface, without any surface run off or dispersion of water through the air using a jet or mist.”
And this is exactly what a Micro Irrigation System does, you simply connect your timer and flow monitor to the tap and your hose pipe then goes on to this which then you have another connection for the end of your hose pipe where you connect a number of smaller pipes which you simple pop into the ground alongside desired plant and water will be automatically fed into the soil on a timer. Clever Huh?
But where can you buy them you may ask yourself? There are many online stores where you can purchase the Micro Irrigation kits one of them being the popular Amazon site who sell all the essential parts to get you going but be aware that you do have to buy each part separately, so make sure you have each required part. There are other sites such as easywatering.co.uk and garden4less.co.uk where you can buy the full kit for a reasonable price.