I had the best idea. I want to make it easy for my lovely friend who will be looking after the place over Christmas. She isn’t a gardener, but is looking forward to spending some relaxing time in the country. The thing is, it will be the height of summer and so the garden will need a lot of water. To make sure her holiday stays relaxing I came up with a plan to run 5 hoses along the length of the garden with sprinklers or soaker hoses connected at each garden bed. It was going to be magnificent. All she would need to do was move the hose connected to the tap along to the next hose connected to the beds. How cool would that be?
So I got one 30 metre hose and ran it along the length of the first row to try it out. I connected a sprinkler between the strawberries and raspberries, one in the corn and one in the rhubarb and artichokes. I put soaker hoses on the potatoes (retrospective irrigation is not the most ideal way to go), and plugged in the existing soaker hose on the cucumbers. Then I ran out of connectors before I hooked up the leafy greens and herbs.
Being the impatient person I am, I decide to give it a whirl and with high expectation of how marvellous it would be, I turned on the tap. I raced back down to the garden to see loads of cascading water and found my system to be lacking. Severely lacking. There was barely a trickle. The pressure just wasn’t up to the job. I was so disappointed.
I disconnected one at a time to see just how many I could use at a time and found the best effort came from two! Only two beds at a time. I have thirty beds! Now I know there is ways and means of irrigating with all the right gear, but I don’t have the time, money, or will to set it up and also my math skills are pretty dodgy at the best of times and I know figuring that out will just cause headaches.
So it is back to the drawing board to come up with something to make life easy for my lovely friend so she has a relaxing holiday in the country.
How I had my zucchini today.
Can you believe it, on my second harvest of Zucchini for the season, I had a marrow! Every year I tell myself I will only harvest little ones. The thing is I did get little ones as well – nine of them! So I am going to attempt to come up a different use for a zucchini every day…
Today I to took the marrow and sliced it thickly – about 5cm and hollowed out the centre with the melon baller tool. Then I took pork mince and mixed it up with garlic, oregano, sage, cider vinegar, olive oil, bread crumbs, an egg and salt and pepper. I stuffed it into the marrows and over the top over them. Then I sprinkled chopped onion around, and poured pureed tomatoes, basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil around the marrows and sprinkled cheese on the top and baked it in the oven. Yummo!
Come again soon – it is supposed to be sunny again, I’ll get loads of stuff done.
Sarah the Gardener : o )
Just a thought, but if you decrease the diameter of the hose pipe, you increase the pressure. So if you step your hoses down to 13mm irrigation pipes, and then step those down to smaller extensions again, you’ll get better pressure towards the end of the system. The sprinklers will be smaller and the spray finer, so they’ll need to be on longer, but it might work…
Hi Kate. You inspired me to go and have another look at the possibilities. I am still scratching my head as this took me down a very expensive path.
I briefly thought of praying for rain while we were away – but that would put a dampener on the holidays for everyone! So I shall keep thinking – there has to be a logical solution out there somewhere.
Cheers Sarah : o )
OK, one more thought: turn all that hosepipe into trickle irrigation pipe. Run it through the beds, and the parts in the bed should have small holes punched into them, the rest of it staying intact. If you fill the hose, and then leave the tap on just a trickle, you’ll get a small ooze of water trickling out into the beds constantly. That might do the trick, and would be cheaper than an irrigation system.
Thanks Kate. Worth a shot – I’ll have to have a play tomorrow!
Cheers Sarah : o )
Try Radish leaf soup. Our kids love it 🙂
Hi Anthony. Thank you for the idea- I shall have to try it next time!
Cheers Sarah : o )
If there were a few bottles of wine for evening watering. She could pour a glass and putter through the garden to water as the sun sets. If I think of something more practical I’ll let you know.
Hi Virginia. I think she will need more than a glass to get it all watered – maybe a bottle or two. I’d hate to come back from holiday to find I’d turned my dear friend in a alcoholic!
Cheers Sarah : o )
Oh dear! 🙂 It’s always hard to go on holiday when the garden is going gangbusters. I’ll be facing that next year.
Your stuffed zucchini look great – I’m already missing my garden. I think I can find a use for zucchini in everything. Even just sliced lenthwise and grilled with olive oil, salt and pepper.
Hi Heidi. I don’t think I will run short of ideas for using the zucchini as the internet is full of possibilities. I think the hardest bit will be to stay on top of the harvest!
I shall try your idea, I like it – it seem so simple.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Looks so delicious.
Hi Lucinda, It was really nice – a meal in one as it had loads of veggies in it. Cheers Sarah : o )
Zucchini heaven…you will soon be onto the zucchini chocolate cakes and jam 😉
Hi Fran. Today I was given a recipe for zucchini honey, which has been added to the must try list. Watch this space!
Cheers Sarah : o )
I have that recipe as well :). It is bland and lends itself to all kinds of use. I am a Pinterest nut and found a recipe for making zucchini chips that are baked in the oven. I bet the Joeysaurus would love them 🙂
I feed my large courgettes to the chickens – they go mad for them – I’ve thought of growing a plant just for them and leaving them on it to get huge before picking – as far as the chooks are concerned the bigger the better.
Hello Janet. I am really sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. I hope you had a lovely Christmas break. The Chickens tend to get a bit spoiled at this time of year and I have some extremely large gherkins heading there way today! I was so bad at keeping on top of my zucchini last year that even the chickens were sick of marrows!
Cheers Sarah : o )