Rob coiled the hosepipe back onto its reel on a Friday evening with the face of a man returning a library book he'd actually enjoyed. The hosepipe ban had arrived in Yorkshire, and it had arrived in the same week the first green tomatoes appeared on the plants we put in on 24 May. Seven weeks of watering, and now the one tool that made it easy was off limits.
The ban covers hosepipes, not watering cans or buckets, and I'd read the water company's notice twice to be sure. Do read your own, since the list of what's covered is longer than I'd have guessed. For us it meant the garden went back to the old way: carrying water.
A butt on four bricks
We had been meaning to buy a water butt for two years, which is how it always goes. On Saturday 12 July, with the lawn crunching underfoot, I finally went and bought one, a 200-litre butt with a downpipe diverter kit, £42. Rob fitted it on the Sunday. He measured twice, cut the downpipe once, and managed to put the diverter 4cm too high, so the first test ran straight past it down the wall. Dad, who had come round for a cup of tea and stayed to supervise, said "there's nowt to it" and held the ladder. A second cut and a bit of hose later it worked.
The butt stands on four breeze blocks borrowed from Dad's garage, so the watering can fits under the tap. It's an ugly green thing next to the back door, and I love it more than I love most of the furniture.
The trouble with a water butt in a dry spell is that there is nothing to fill it. It sat empty for two days. Then on Tuesday afternoon we got ten minutes of proper thunder-rain, and by my reckoning about 140 litres ran off the back of the roof into it. I stood at the back door in my socks, tapping the side of it like a doctor and listening to the level rise.
The bowl and the bucket
Our water is unmetered, £49 a month flat since April, so saving it doesn't save us a penny. I'm doing it anyway, because six tomato plants drink roughly a litre and a half each a day in this heat, which is nine litres to carry from somewhere.
- A bucket in the shower for the first minute, while it runs warm. About 3 litres a shower, and four showers a day makes 12 litres, which is more than the tomatoes drink.
- A washing-up bowl in the sink, to catch the cold from the tap before it runs hot and the water from rinsing salad and vegetables. The tomatoes get this. The soapy washing-up water goes on the shrubs and the edge of the lawn instead.
- Alfie's paddling pool, when the water has gone cloudy, goes on the lawn and the beds with a bucket and a lot of splashing. The tomatoes don't get it, mostly because of the sun cream.
- The water butt is the backup, for the weekend and any week the bucket runs out.
Jean, who is 81, is watering her hanging baskets with her washing-up bowl and says she survived 1976 and so will the geraniums. I carried her bucket round on Thursday. She gave me a Tupperware of shortbread, which I think is the going rate.
What survived
All six tomato plants. I counted 41 green tomatoes on Thursday evening and one yellow one, which Alfie claimed was ripe, and which wasn't. The first proper red cherry tomato was ready on Friday, and he ate it warm from the plant, standing in the middle of the patio with his eyes shut. "It tastes like it's hot," he said.
The lettuce bolted in June and the radishes went woody, so those are finished. The two courgettes Priya gave me are alive and sulking, and the grass seed from May went to the birds, which makes the hotel a success of a sort. The lawn is the colour of toast. I've decided to leave it, because it will come back in the autumn, and meanwhile I'm not pouring litres of water on grass that is only going to be run over by a trampoline.
What I'd do differently is buy the butt in March. I'd never thought about how much water a garden drinks until I had to carry it. We use far less water than the hosepipe ever did, and the tomatoes are visibly happier for being watered by hand. I'll count the red ones next Saturday.
