Making your own Water Butt

The summer is approaching and already the warnings about drought have started. Hose pipe bans are inevitable and any avid gardeners are going to have expensive water bills. Although its difficult to believe that we're going to run low on water when it's been raining non-stop all day (and a lot of the weekend!) now is the perfect time to be thinking about this. Making your own water butt will collect all the rain that's falling now and save it for the dry months approaching when you'll really need it.

There are commercial water butts available, but these tend to be quite expensive. It's much cheaper and also better for the environment to make your own as you can recycle materials. The best material to use is plastic - it's waterproof, you can get large containers and since plastic isn't biodegradable you'll be saving it from landfill and repurposing it instead. A temporary solution is to use a wooden container with a pond liner or polythene bag inside, however the bag could split or the wood could break under the water pressure so it's not good as a long-term water butt.

The best containers are old plastic food bins that can be picked up on internet auction sites pretty easily. They're perfect because they come with a lid that makes them child friendly and pet safe, as well as less likely for mosquitos to breed in them. There are also a variety of sizes available, from 70 to 200 litres. When you aquire one of these containers you need to get it steam cleaned to prevent any residual bacteria from growing fungi.

There are two ways to access the water; through the top of the butt or by fitting a special tap lower in the wall that is sealed by aquatic sealant. If you go for the latter option, be sure to choose a sealant that doesn't contain fungicides which will contaminate the water. Tap kits are available in most garden centres. Getting water from the top is quicker and easier than a tap, but when water levels get lower this becomes more difficult. It also leaves a higher chance of mosquitos breeding.

Some of the other options that work well are old oil drums, although they can be expensive to get, and old oak barrels which are aesthetically pleasing and can be sourced from dedicated suppliers. With the oak barrel you will need to install a wooden water spigot instead of a tap, making sure to use the fungicide free aquatic sealant.

Whatever option you go for, you'll be ensuring you have water for your plants throughout the summer months and smug in the knowledge that you're helping the environment. The more water butts you have the better off you will be and if you place them around the garden you'll maximise your chances of catching the rain water while simultaneously reducing the distance you need to carry a heavy watering can!


So what do you think? Will you be making a water butt while the rain is here?

Bee Busy This Summer

Don't worry, it's not real!

I'm probably the last person anyone would expect to want to help bees, but even I have to admit they do us good. About 1/3 of the food we eat has made it to our plates thanks to pollination from bees, across the EU they're responsible for pollinating almost 84% of our crops. So as long as they do their thing far away from me I'm happy for them to do it!

Sadly, the worlds' population of bees are dying out and Britain is losing them the fastest. We could be a bee-free country by 2018 and as much as I'd enjoy my summers more without them, we do really need them. It's estimated that the British Agriculture Industry could lose as much as £440 million a year without them, not to mention the devastation to our eco-systems.

Neonicotinoids (Neonics for short) are largely to blame for the disappearing bees - they're 7,000 times stronger than DDT (banned in Britain in 1984) and studies have shown that they damage human health as well as killing off all insects that ingest them. For more information on bees and why they're disappearing, check the links at the bottom of this blog.

But this post would be useless if I just told you the sad story that bees are facing. Now it's time to tell you what you can do to help them out! And if you're anything like me, you'll be relieved to know you can help the little pests out without getting up close and personal. I can even feel your sigh of relief from here! So here's the run down of things you can do:

Buy local honey.
By creating a demand for it, you're ensuring that the investment goes in to keeping local bees. You're also getting honey that isn't full of preservatives and hasn't been flown hundreds of miles to get to you. So you can give anyone buying foreign honey a smug look as you pat yourself on the back for being kind to your body AND the environment!

Wash out empty jars of foreign honey.
If you've gone for the cheaper option of buying foreign honey (which in the economic climate is understandable) do your local bees a favour and wash out every last remenant before putting the jars out for recycling. Local bees will be attracted to the remaining honey in the pot, which contains foreign bacteria that is harmful to our native bees.

Plant Bee Friendly Flowers.
Even if you only have a small plot of land, you can use it to encourage bees to visit and pollinate. There are plenty of bee friendly plants to choose from, for a list of them click here.

Adopt a bee hive.
You can help out bee hives without going anywhere near them by adopting a beehive. The British Beekeepers Association will use the money to fund research into best ways to keep bees and for training new bee keepers.

Buy Bee-Friendly products.
Neal's Yard do a fabulous Bee Lovely Hand Cream and donate £1 from each sale to help save the bees. It's a win-win situation - the bees get saved and you get soft hands! If you want to buy this product and live in the Bristol area get in touch and I can order it for you. :)


If you want to help the bees and you don't mind getting a little more hands on, The British Beekeepers Association run all kinds of courses in bee keeping. You can even lend your garden out to a bee keeper if you have the space. I for one, will be sticking to the distance methods of helping them out!

That's all I have to say on the subject, but you can find plenty more information about bees by clicking these links:

The British Beekeepers Association
Neal's Yard Bee Lovely Hand Cream - Scroll to the bottom of the page and they have lots of handy information links for you to follow.

So what are you going to do to save the bees?

Post Twenty-One: Icing Flowers and Egg Shells

Good Afternoon lovely readers!

I apologise for my absence over the weekend, but as my wonderful partner Tom pointed out I have to have some down time, and I spent that time pretty well! The strawberry & vanilla muffins turned out brilliantly - getting compliments from everyone who has tried one (or two, or three..) so I'm pretty pleased with that result. Plus I learned a new skill, courtesy of my friend Rachel who is pretty amazing at cake making! I give you...

...an icing flower! The method is pretty simple and one day I'll get around to doing a How-To Guide but for now you'll just have to admire our efforts and be jealous. ;)

As for the egg shells, I've found a lovely picture of an old egg carton and egg shells turned into a mini garden, with an article on how to make your own. The article can be found here.

I'm loving the idea of a mini garden right now and I'm wishing I hadn't thrown the eggs in the bin after making muffins at the weekend! Luckily I still have the carton left, so I'm sure I'll find another use for that somewhere along the line.

How was your weekend? Did you get out in the garden with the lovely weather, or cook up some delicious treats?

Post Twenty: Green Gardening

I know what you're thinking, gardening is about as green as it gets already! And you're right for the most part, but there are still a few ways to get extra green when you're growing things - whether it's just some pretty flowers or some veg. Recycled household items are brilliant to use as pots - some can even be broken down into compost once the plant outgrows them! You can use your imagination for things to recycle, anything from the plastic trays you get meat in to egg shells! For some obvious ideas and even a couple of weird ones check out this article.

Now I warn you, I'm not a keen gardener. Even my best efforts end up dead eventually (sorry Aji!) and that's when I try really hard. But I'm told that growing herbs is ridiculously easy and that even I could do it... so in the spirit of being green in every aspect I'm trying to grow Basil. I use it a lot when making bolognese and I'm told it's the easiest of the lot. Here's my simple guide on how I've done it:

Take two meat trays (clean of course!) and make small holes in the bottom of one.

Pop the one with holes in into the one without and press them together so there's only a small gap at the bottom. Then fill the top one with compost - leaving about 1cm at the top. Next get a coke bottle (or fanta, tango sprite..) and chop the end off to create your own mini greenhouse. You might need more than one depending on the size of your pot, I used two for mine. Use the end to indent the soil so you can see how much space you have for the seeds.

Put the seeds in the little circles making sure you don't overcrowd them. I probably put too many in mine, but whatever! Add a thin layer of compost over the top of the seeds, approximately 0.5cm, then sprinkle them with water. Finally you just need to put the greenhouses in place and wait for them to grow! Don't forget to water them now and then though or nothing will happen. ;)

Have you ever tried growing something edible? How did it turn out? Or are you now going to try basil seeds with me? Let me know in the comments below. :)