Battling the July Dust: Our Watering War Tactics

I stood at the gate on Monday morning looking at soil that had gone the colour and texture of a digestive biscuit, and I thought to myself: right, Tudor family, this is now officially a military operation. So that's exactly what it's become — a full watering war, with Sam, Iris and me each playing our part, and about as much strategy as we can muster between a  technician, a thirty-two-year-old who thinks lifting is cardio, and a seventeen-year-old who has strong opinions about everything.

The Enemy: Cracked Earth and Wilting Courgettes

Let me set the scene. Six weeks with no rain doesn't sound like much until you actually watch it happen to your own soil. The top few inches go from lovely and crumbly to something you could genuinely use to sharpen a knife on. Walk across the plot and it sounds like you're crunching through a bag of crisps. The courgette leaves flop by mid-afternoon like they've had one too many at the pub, and even the marigolds, who normally couldn't care less what the weather's doing, have started looking a bit sorry for themselves.

 It's watering cans, it's water butts, it's grey water from the kitchen, and it's a great deal more thinking than we're used to doing before nine in the morning.

The Watering Rota: Who Does What

We've had to divide and conquer, because trying to water two allotments by hand as one exhausted unit was getting us nowhere fast, and there was a genuine risk of a family falling-out over whose turn it was to carry the heavy cans.

So here's how it's shaken out.

Sam has, without ever formally agreeing to it, become our designated heavy lifter. He's thirty-two, built like he could pull a plough, and has decided that carrying two full watering cans at once counts as his gym session for the day, which I'm fairly sure his physio would have opinions about. He does the runs from the water butts to the far end of the plot, back and forth, back and forth, while making increasingly dramatic comments about his arms. I did point out that a wheelbarrow exists for exactly this purpose. He looked at me like I'd suggested something scandalous and carried on carrying two cans at a time anyway. Some men simply must suffer.

Iris, meanwhile, has appointed herself Head of Strategy, and honestly, she's better at it than either of us. She's the one who worked out that watering at six in the morning or after seven at night, when the sun's lower and it's cooler, means far less of it evaporates straight back off before it's done any good. She's also the one who insists we water the roots and not the leaves, because  wet leaves in strong sun can scorch, which I did know but i didnt say anything and let Iris have her one up on me.

And me? I do the diplomacy. I decide who's watering what, referee the arguments about whose turn it is with the last full water butt, and do the bits that need a bit of experience — like knowing which plants are actually desperate and which are just putting on a show for sympathy. Runner beans in flower, tomatoes swelling, and anything freshly transplanted get priority. Established, deep-rooted things like our squash can sulk a bit longer before they get their turn; they've got roots that know how to go looking for water, unlike some plants I could mention that faint if you look at them wrong.

Water Butts, Grey Water, and Getting Creative

With the hosepipe banned, we've gone right back to basics at home, and honestly, it's not a bad thing. We've got water butts at both allotments and home, catching whatever comes off the shed roofs, and between the three of us we've become experts at eking out every last drop before we go anywhere near it running dry.

Sara's been brilliant here too, saving pasta water, washing-up water, and anything else that isn't full of bleach or fat, and it goes straight in an old bucket by the back door for me to take to the bedding plants. It feels a bit like the war days, my old dad used to talk about that sort of thing, nothing wasted, everything with a second use. There's something rather satisfying about knowing your runner beans got a drink from last night's spuds water rather than straight out of a tap.

Mulching: Our Secret Weapon

But if I'm honest, the real hero of this whole battle hasn't been any of us. It's been the mulch.

Mulching is simply putting a layer of something on top of the soil to stop the moisture escaping, and it is genuinely the difference between watering every single day and watering every three or four. We've used whatever we could get our hands on — grass clippings from the lawn, well-rotted compost, cardboard flattened out and weighted down with stones, even old straw from a neighbour's rabbit hutch, which raised a few eyebrows at the gate but works an absolute treat.

A few rules we've settled on, if you fancy trying it yourself:

• Water first, then mulch on top. Mulching dry soil just locks the dryness in, which rather defeats the object.
• Keep it a couple of inches thick, but leave a little gap right around the stem of each plant, or you risk rot and slugs setting up camp there.
• Grass clippings are marvellous but only in a thin layer, or they mat down and go slimy, and nobody wants that.
• Cardboard is brilliant round the squash and courgettes especially, since it suppresses weeds at the same time as holding moisture, which means less work for us in two different ways at once.

Since we started properly mulching, the difference in how quickly that soil dries out has been like night and day. Iris reckons we've probably cut our watering can trips by a third, and given the state of Sam's arms, I think he'd vote that a triumph.

A Nod to Sara

While we've been fighting the dust up the allotment, Sara's been doing her own version of water rationing indoors, saving anything she can for the garden and muttering about the state of her hanging baskets, which don't get the luxury of a water butt rota. She reckons the tomatoes on the kitchen windowsill are drinking better than the rest of us put together. I wouldn't put it past her to start bottling rainwater the moment the heavens finally open, given how she goes at preserving everything else that comes off this plot.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Six weeks without rain, a hosepipe ban, and a watering rota that's somehow turned my son into a self-appointed weightlifter and my daughter into a water-saving general. It's hard work, there's no getting away from that, but there's also something rather lovely about how the three of us have just quietly worked out our roles without anyone actually sitting down and deciding it. That's allotmenteering for you, really — you find out who's good at what when the going gets tough, dry soil and all.

So go on then, tell me — how are you all coping with the dry spell this year? Are you mulching like mad, rationing the washing-up water, or have you got a watering trick up your sleeve that's saving your plot? I'd love to know what's working for you.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot