Taming the deluge

Did I tell you we have a polytunnel with a bigger foot-print than our house? I did! Did I ever boast about seeing the Petitcodiac Tidal Bore progressing relentlessly up stream? I did! And I've been on and on and on about collecting rainwater for the said polytunnel; or rather the plants which grow inside it. After a month of drought in May and June this year, we finally had a dump of rain on Father's Day w/e 18th June. We had drained all our water-collection devices - buckets, herring-barrels and 1 tonne IBCs before May was out and were watering >!shock!< the veggies from the tap. Apart from anything else, the tap-water, from the bore-hole in the yard, which serves the house, is a deal more acidic than rainwater and not everything delights in dilute HCl.

After the hottest June since records began, July has been much more unsettled = rainy and 'cold'. After the parched Summer of 2018 and the Great Drought of May 2023, I am inclined to catch as catch can whenever the opportunity presents . . . I am not afraid to run out in my undies through a night-time deluge to capture the water.  

It is all very well to water the veggies but they only occupy a faction of the inside area. After years without rain, the soil is as dry as the Atacama Desert and it can be dusty enough to darken the laundry. But I've covered that part of the floor with a layer of wood chips which lays the dust. The last two (of 8) bays of the tunnel [i.e. between the supporting hoops] has been allocated as sheep-quarter quartier des brebis and was fenced off neatly and securely by Young Bolivar in 2016. Wood chips wouldn't do there because the chips get hoovered up by fleece on the occasions when we have to shear in the tunnel.

That happens only if Paddy the Clip has to come when the weather has been all rainy. Under those circs, we run the sheep up to their part of the tunnel the night before the shear, so they can dry out their own fleece as 37°C convection heaters. That is advantageous because it also starves t'buggers which makes for easier shearing.

I thought we'd get caught thus by the wet June 2023 weather, so I spent a couple of days slopping water on the dirt at the sheep-end of the tunnel. There is a little grass growing by the door - where the rain blows in; and some tired wisps under a couple of small holes in the plastic above. Then [outdoor] shearing came and went without incident and the priority returned to saving water for veg. But I have since decided that greening the sheep-quarter is desirable for the long-term and did two things towards this outcome: 1) I cut several sheaves of gone-to-seed grass: mostly Agrostis spp.and Poa spp. and lurried them up to thresh in the tunnel. 2) I continued to water the soil. In order to enhance absorption, I also dug over the grassless, compacted regions  and raked them flattish. Well, to my surprise and delight, yesterday it was clear that a thin fuzz of green was springing up in several parts of my incipient indoor 'lawn' [R].

The least effort, max return watering device has been to extend the gutter which fills the [currently brimful] tunnel-interior 1 tonne IBC out into the top part of the tunnel with the help of a cross-trees [see this jimmy-up arrangement above L].  The water then runs down-hill - the whole footprint being on a 4% slope because of an inattention error when we 'levelled' it 15+ years ago. You can see L the trickle of water wringing out (at the rate of 15 lt/hr - I measured) the last bit of a rain-storm on 15th July. Later the same day, rain was fair drumming on the tunnel roof giving a rate of >500 lt/hr! Tricking about in the dirt, making water channels is absolutely my jam. I definitely won't mind mowing an extra 35 sq.m of lawn. If everything works out fine, we'll be able to have tea there.