Archive for May, 2012

Insane hailstorm!

What follows isn’t going to be pretty. It consists of a “before” and “after” picture, the “after” being my sorrel after experiencing the most incredible thunder/hailstorm I’ve ever seen at first hand. (Think three inch deep rainwater and hailstones the size of large peas.) If you’re of a sensitive disposition, look away now.

My sorrel a few days ago

...and after

Scary, huh? But the thing I really threw a wobbly over was my tomatoes – there are snapped stalks and broken off leaves everywhere, although I think some of them will survive.

and

By the time I thought of sheltering the tomatoes under a sheet of plastic (the detached roof off one of my greenhouses), it was too late – the damage had been done.

These are the very tomatoes I spent three hours lovingly potting up during the first weekend in May, before potting them on last week into their final containers, using a 50/50 mix of home-made and shop-bought compost. I will be gutted if I don’t at least have some surviving ones.

My new dustbin, er, rainwater overflow container

On Saturday I went into town and bought a black dustbin (price: £12.99). I cut a hole in the lid. After transferring about a foot of water from the water butt to the dustbin, I was able to cut another hole in the side of the water butt, about six inches below the top. Then I connected the water butt and the dustbin with a length of hose pipe. Hey presto – massive transfer of rainwater from the former to the latter. I realised that there was a bit of leakage at the water butt end of the hose pipe, so I plugged it with an old plastic bag. Being able to fill my watering can by scooping water from the dustbin rather than opening the tap of the water butt will be an enormous time saver. And the lid will stop bits and pieces of detritus from accumulating in there.

Our landlords (who left us our previous, now defunct water butt), had got as far as drilling a hole in the butt and attaching a hose pipe, but they hadn’t thought of using anything bigger than a bucket to catch the overflow of water. Speaking of detritus, the picture above right shows the high tech filtration device that I use for the water butt, aka a 50p tea strainer.