The rain gain

Holidays are here, and we're off to Germany and Sweden for nearly two weeks!The blog will have a holiday too.

Keeping plants watered is always a problem - especially during holidays. Our ample rains have filled our water barrels and I have set up an irrigation system to ensure that all hanging baskets, patio pots and greenhouse plants are watered automatically. I have been using timers and thin plastic tubing to keep plants properly watered for a number of years. The 'little and often' dripping system is less wasteful and more effective for the plants and more efficient than trying to hoist watering cans above head height only to see the water pour off the baked and root packed compost onto the irrigator below.

Container grown plants need regular feeding. I use home made liquid feeds and supplement the automatic watering with these .

Here, we have attached a timer to one of the water butts so that our greenhouse plants can be watered during our absence.

The hens will be looking after our son!