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Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2573
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Tue May 29, 18 10:05 pm Post subject:

How do you apply the water? Pouring a bucket of H2O on the ground around the tree is very inefficient. Water will not penetrate deeply, there's evaporative loss from sun / wind.

Way back when I had a community garden plot (decades ago and in a different state) I would fill one gallon plastic milk jugs with water, cap, load up my car and drive over to water my vegetable plants. I used 2 liter soda bottles with small holes in the bottom, tapped to a stake to stabilize. Fill from transport jugs using a funnel. Water slowly drips out of the bottom, efficiently penetrating deeper into the soil than it would just pouring same volume over the ground. Israeli technique.

Take small diameter PVC pipe, drill holes around the bottom, cap bottom. Drive into the ground around each tree, pour water in to slowly leak out where you want to encourage root growth.

For trees - have you ever seen Treegator watering bags? https://treegator.com/ They are pricey but could you bodge up your own?

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 4:21 am Post subject:
Mulch after some wet weather and you’ll be fine. We’re on solid clay with a few gravelly patches, the year after we planted it was so dry big cracks appeared in the turf but near enough everything survived.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15998

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 6:21 am Post subject:
If you are thinking of starting other sites, a water bowser that can be pulled behind a vehicle would be useful, especially if you can rig up some sort of water collector on it. I didn't realise the paths were tarmac, as you can usually burrow through a grass or mud path, but as you say, not tarmac.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 2:23 pm Post subject:
It doesn't help with getting water, but a friend filled ‘oil’ drums with water from a tractor set up and drilled a small hole in the bottom. I remember it took some experimenting to get the right size hole so the water drizzled out over a long period and then he used to leave them for a while after that to encourage root growth. Might make it mess of a chore long term?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 2:48 pm Post subject:

panic delayed we had a decent shower this morning

they will be ok for another week or two hopefully by then they will have grown some more roots .

apart from the tarmac path nick's ram pump/cistern idea would be best for a long term supply to this site, other sites might be better suited to the alternatives.

a portable pump would be nice but if we need to watering by hand seems an option with a few tweaks towards raising splosh from the stream with a rope to avoid the scrambling on steep mud that gets slippier with every tilt of a bucket

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 7:03 pm Post subject:

dpack wrote:

pumping sounds good but getting under the tarmac paths might be a bit tricky to get permission and rather difficult to do "privately"...

You couldn't hire a mole and send that under?

Didn't you suggest I drill a well when I asked about water some years ago?

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 8:48 pm Post subject:
I think you should hire out, or take up the practice of, rain dancing. And film it. Add this to the dpack youtube channel that I wish existed with his instructional videos of withying about with faggots

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Wed May 30, 18 10:12 pm Post subject:

oddly enough a rain dance was involved

a well would work if i understand the local geology/hydrology. it would hit a water table in gravel and if at the highest point might need to be about 10m deep.
a couple of weeks with some endless oildrums, a trenching tool, a hoistman and a sump pump should do it.
i cant see the various "authorities" being to comfortable with that .

as mentioned this time if i can keep em alive for a couple of months with minimal kerfuffle i will be happy.

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9887
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 7:47 am Post subject:
I believe you need a licence to take water from streams etc - so anything really obvious - even a load of humans with buckets - might draw undue attention. When we planted our orchard, the trees got no more than their intial watering in, and they survived

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 8:02 am Post subject:

Nicky Colour it green wrote:

I believe you need a licence to take water from streams etc...

You can take 20 cubic meters per day without a license. You'd do that surprisingly quickly with a constant stream, but it's a heck of a lot to pup yourself.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/water-management-abstract-or-impound-water

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 1:29 pm Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

dpack wrote:

pumping sounds good but getting under the tarmac paths might be a bit tricky to get permission and rather difficult to do "privately"...

You couldn't hire a mole and send that under?

Didn't you suggest I drill a well when I asked about water some years ago?

I had cause to dig up around 200m of public footpath a while back. It was green lane, rather than tarmac, but I just emailed the pathways officer, explained what I wanted to do, and she was grand with it. I got it in writing. As long as I put it back how it was, and made the works safe over night, there was no problem, and no cost involved. I figured the letter she sent me giving permission was all the defence I'd ever need. So, don't rule it out on that score. It might be much easier than you think.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 1:40 pm Post subject:
as 2 cu m would do an entire dry summer abstraction limits are not going to be a problem if i don’t over engineer a solution to raising and transporting 250 litres if it is a dry fortnight

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 1:42 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

Hairyloon wrote:

dpack wrote:

pumping sounds good but getting under the tarmac paths might be a bit tricky to get permission and rather difficult to do "privately"...

You couldn't hire a mole and send that under?

Didn't you suggest I drill a well when I asked about water some years ago?

umm interesting

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 1:48 pm Post subject:

I was laying water pipe. Couple of feet or so down. Mini digger and back filling. I think I just made sure there were no open trenches left at any point and noone complained. Local busy body Parish Councillors walked their dogs their daily, so they knew what was happening, and no-one got irate.

If you've to chop a six inch wide trench through tarmac, you could be done and finished in a couple of hours. Hi Vis, and some cones, and everyone will assume you're official. Bag of self lay tarmac can be bought easily enough. If you've grass either side, should be easy enough to make sure you're not blocking the path unduly. Have a board for pushchairs, or something, to keep people happy.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Thu May 31, 18 3:44 pm Post subject:

umm , we have "tamed" the parish council and have the support of the city council to the extent of it it does not cost them or create a liability for them it is ok.

i wonder who actually administrates the relevant paths?

the easiest way i can think of under would be an adjustable angle auger from our patch direct to water level if i could blag some drillers into doing a charity job .

other means are plausible but even if a shaped one can drill a duct through 10m of clay and gravel in a fairly tidy way it would be best not to mention it

if it is only this year and only in a very dry spell buckets is probably going to be the best option for cost and effort

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