Many people thought that Wessex Water wouldn’t need to impose one, but on the 18th August they finally did the deed. And one of the things that private individuals are not apparently allowed to do is water their fruit and vegetables using a hose. It’s fine if you’re growing them commercially, but if it’s just for yourself then it’s a big fat no. Seems crazy.
Amusingly, for the first time in ages we have rain forecast later in the day 😀
Fortunately I have around three thousand litres of water sitting in IBCs that I recently extracted from our well. Hopefully that will last me a while, but what I’ll do when that runs out I have no idea. If I can eke it out a bit perhaps the ground water will have re-filled the well by then. I suspect we could be into 2027 before the ban actually gets lifted given how much water will be needed to bring all the rivers and reservoirs up to their normal levels.
For next year (assuming I live that long :D) I need to think about how to store an awful lot of water to use on the veg plot next year. Fortunately it would be relatively easy to get access to the pipe that carries all the run-off from the gutters so perhaps I can work something out there. We do also have a damaged in-ground swimming pool which we don’t use because it’s far too expensive to run. It’s not even hard to get access to the output of the treatment plant that replaced our “septic tank” (a leaky brick box, basically). Whilst it might not sound that palatable, the water coming out of the system is apparently considered safe to release into a waterway, so it’s definitely worth looking into.