Michael Rand, North London allotment gardener, despairs of his local water authority and saves water his own way
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| Michael Rand: allotment gardener
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'The local water company's recent scary confession is that nearly a third of all the water pumped into its network fails to reach the taps, lost through cracks in the pipes. In such a scenario who, we're bound to ask, is the greatest waster of them all?'
Flaming June' is here at last. Was there ever
a more blissful or better-named month,
I wonder? As far as the vegetable patch goes, the answer must be an emphatic 'No'.
With daylight hours reaching their peak, and with the onset of true summer heat,
most of our favourite food plants should by now be galloping ahead.
Despite kidding myself that I'm the all-year-round gardening type, secretly the summer is what I live for. The reason is obvious but, I hope, bears brief consideration nevertheless.
Vegetables in full growth
First, cast your mind's eye back to the veg plot, half a year ago, with its few rows of stalwart leeks, or miserable, dripping cabbages – or maybe some tatty chard and puny overwintering onions. All immobilised by the cold.
Fast-forward to June's covering of masses of fresh-growing and luxuriant leaf, whether of pumpkin or potato, pepper or corn and so on – a huge list – all those beautiful plants that can't abide either the dim or the chill. Hard to bring to mind a more powerful binary picture of contrast between the seasons. What's not hard, of course, is to guess which of the two most gardeners prefer.
Having said as much, all gardeners will know that there's always some chance factor to hold us hostages to fortune. Even at this noblest stage in our annual proceedings, there's a cloud on the horizon. Or, should I say, lack thereof. Because if this summer follows the same pattern as quite a few of recent vintage, many of us could find ourselves seriously short of water, with hosepipe bans just about anywhere you look.
Some might argue that we're spoiled; that pouring drinking water into the soil for the sake of a row of peas or spinach is a waste. A fair point, though where I live in north London, it's not one exactly carried by the local water company's recent scary confession – that nearly a third of all the water pumped into its network fails to reach the taps. Lost through cracks in the pipes. In such a scenario who, we're bound to ask, is the greatest waster of them all?
Save water
The outrage of leaky pipes apart, it is still the duty of the conscientious gardener to save as much water as possible. So earlier this year I raided some skips and have thus added two extra blue barrels to collect rain from the shed roof. Also a gigantic satellite dish that I've rigged up on ropes, open straight to the heavens, funnel-fashion, to increase my personal catchment zone. None of these objects is a thing of outstanding beauty but 'needs must', as I keeping reassuring myself. At least up to the day when the 'Removal of Unsightly Objects' letter arrives from our allotments' officer.
A second moisture-retaining tactic is to use a mulch. Depending quite what the weather does, I may broach this topic in a future column.
If things get desperately dry I do have a third recourse, which is to perform the Navajo rain dance. It can't do any harm, so long as none of my allotment neighbours is around to witness the attempt. Quite apart from the question of where to obtain the sacred bear's-paw rattle and eagle-feather head-dress. Unlike blue barrels and satellite dishes, I've never found either of these in a local skip.
About the author
Michael Rand tends an allotment in North London and is the author of
Close to the Veg: a book of allotment tales, price £10.99, published by Marlin Press.
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