Infuriating annual debate!

[Isittimeformynapyet]

My mum (78) has always been an avid organic gardener. She's amazing. She set up a grey-watering system decades ago to take bathwater from upstairs down to the bottom of her tiered vegetable garden and has umpteen butts collecting rain from her own house and the nieghbour's.

She spends hundreds of hours every season working hard, seed saving, propagation, planting and the whole thing. I'm really proud of her.

But every year there comes a point where the water butts are empty and she cannot water her garden. She gets really depressed and moody. I tell her to just water the garden with the hose. I've offered to pay for water, but she gets really defensive - aggressive even, and shuts down the conversation.

Every year she'll say: "the potatoes didn't do well", or "terrible bean crop" or "only one small cucumber this year" all because of dry weather.

I went round one summer when she was out and filled the water butts with the tap and she was furious.

I love that she's always been an eco-warrior, well before it was a "thing" but also can't bear to see all her hard work go to waste.

Can any of you identify with her infuriating ways? Or should I continue to badger her into using mains water?

PS. I don't think I stressed enough how moody she gets in dry weather and when the crops fail - she's horrible!

Our water butt is empty today and DH has filled it with the hose!

Can't you persuade her that she's being more wasteful by letting things die than by temporarily using mains water 'just until it rains again'?

Can you catch the waste water from anywhere else - kitchen sink? Washing machine?

Thanks @toohot2022. Sadly this has been going on for years. She always saves any run-off in the kitchen when waiting for hot/cold water and that goes into a big bucket and water-saving is engrained into her very existence! The washing machine is an interesting idea and I'll raise that with her.

I have argued year on year that letting crops fail in a crucial 2-4 week time frame wastes the produce and her time and her effort (no small resource at 78!) but I can't seem to get through. These conversations get pretty heated, just like the weather!

She is an adult. Just let her make her own decisions and face the consequences. How about helping her plan more water storage for next yr. Or come up with a better watering strategy (nothing in the ground gets watered here and everything does perfectly well).

it is up to her to decide how to use her water. you can't fix this issue for her.

she might want to put shade-nets over the plants in the hottest part of the day and to mulch well and to only water in the evenings to retain the water longest.

Also, if there is a limited supply of water, it might be better to focus on watering one plant (e.g. beans) and not bother with the others.

and help her identify drought-tolerant plants to grow next year.

Do you live close? Can you get a big multi-gallon container, fill it with tap water & a bit of mud and take it round telling her your neighbour drained their own water butt for you as they don’t have any veg this year? 😉

For her birthday, get her a much larger water reclamation tank, to allow her to increase her rainwater reclamation. You can get buried tanks which will take several thousand litres, and don't really take up any space in the garden (although they do require some earth moving to get in place).

That way she can save all the water from the winter as well and never run out.

I understand her btw, for me using tap water feels like cheating.

Yes, that's exactly how she describes it!

Yes, I think I can understand. Managing something for most of the year then failing

I feel her pain. My garden has the soakaway that takes all the rainwater from the three houses in our terrace; i have a pump to use it in the garden. It’s just run dry and I am wrestling with using Paid For Water. It feels like giving an EBF baby a Big Mac.

But at least you know you can keep giving her a new waterbutt every birthday and Christmas.

Tell her that 'water offsetting' is a thing and that is she skips a shower every other day in favour of a flannel wash then she can legitimately use the water saved on her plants...

Are there any other tactics she could deploy, I'm not a big gardener but I've seen things like water retaining granules that can be used when plastering to stop the water draining out of the soil. My husband also uses old drinks bottles with the bottom cut off and plants them in next to his pumpkins so when he pours water into the bottle itgoes right to the roots rather than evaporating off the top of the soil.

Thanks for all your ideas. I do appreciate that others feel her pain!

She's got lots of things in place: a clever grey water system that takes all bath/shower water from upstairs and a network of underground hoses with holes punched so can direct the saved water onto the plants that need it most. She waters late evening.

She uses those pointy things with cut plastic bottles to direct any rainwater deeper in the soil etc. etc.

Like I said, I'm really proud of her. I'd love to get her an underground tank as pp mentioned and I've been wracking my brain as to where it would go.