 This is the end of spring day, but it will soon be summer and we'll want our irrigation systems to work So here's ten things I've learned that could help So my first tip, which is something you're probably already doing is to have multiple tanks It's it tends to be a lot easier to get lots of small tanks rather than one big tank And the cost tends to be cheaper as well because small tanks are more easily available Means you're dividing up your store of water So if you have a problem anywhere contamination or a leak It's confined to that area only and of course it means that you can have be storing water in lots of different places So we've got storage up here in different places coming off different downpipes But also at other places around the gardens. So wherever we need the water we got water close by This one was free off free cycle 700 litres just needed a frame to stop it sagging when it was full of water And my second tip is to do with light so opaque tanks like this one or most water buts Protect the water inside from the Sun, which means you don't get so much algal growth Which ultimately clogs up your tanks and your fittings and so on so even though these cost a little bit more money They're worth it because it just saves you maintenance in the long term The other thing that we've done here, which I would do with any tank is to Protect it from the Sun the tank itself needs protecting because the UV will break down the plastic over time So here we've used flowers. These were already here when we arrived. We just grew them over the tank We've got a great vine that we planted on the side here The thing that's most vulnerable to the Sun we've discovered is the lid and so we've Protected this with a flower pot and just a stone on top to stop it blowing away So the two way benefit the plants protect the tank But at the same time benefit from the thermal mass of the water inside the tank My third tip is to replace any clear connecting pipes like this one with opaque ones Now these kind of connecting pipes are already vulnerable to silk collecting in the bottom Wherever the pipe goes down and back up again There's a bit of that going on here, but this is also clear and because it's clear Light can get in is full of water. It grows heaps of algae. We came out one day and in the summer We'd emptied the tank the previous day. We've had a deluge overnight, which we knew was coming We expected the tank to be full. It was still empty Because this was completely clogged with algae. So replace the clear pipes. We're going to do that in a moment the other thing to bear in mind is These fittings that go on the sides of tanks and allow you to connect two tanks together with a hose And you can buy them for waterbots connecting waterbots together And they're fine for that because you can easily put your hand in and screw a nut on the inside But if you're connecting two large tanks together like IBC's Where you've got a reasonably small hole in the middle and you need to connect from the side of the tank then This really isn't a good system because This one with this one you have to put it through from the outside and put the nut on the inside Which is really difficult to do It'd be much better to have a fitting with the flanges on the inside You just push it through and you screw the nut on the outside So my fourth tip is to store your water as high as possible to maximize the area You can irrigate using gravity alone So what we've done here is we've got this area of gabions and we've put the tanks on top of the gabions Even though the gutter is only a couple of feet above that level and we've used a diverter That we've plugged into the downpipe Quite high up. This does increase the maintenance Because we need a ladder to check that but it does mean we can store water high and we can irrigate this whole garden Without needing any kind of a pump So my fifth tip is to Start small with your storage and add to it only if you need to bigger isn't necessarily always better Having water sat around in a tank that's not being used most of the time is going to go stagnant And apart from anything else you've paid for the extra tank So we bought one tank to begin with here In the first year it was fine But as we added a few more things that needed irrigating in the second year it ran out But instead of buying another tank at that point We just added a second input to the tank so that it refilled more quickly So a second diverter we've got three downpipes here last year we had the drought and It still ran out again. So then we added a second tank But actually it was cheaper to buy a diverter than it was to buy another tank So my sixth tip is to ensure that all of your tanks have an overflow system in place What you don't want is water coming off a roof into a tank and then overflowing all over the land creating mud and Particularly because water tanks tend to be close to buildings. That's really some way that you don't want lots of mud so if you use a diverter like the one on the wall behind us here that Automatically deals with the overflow because when the tanks are full the water goes back there and down the down pipe What we've also added here is once these two tanks are full there's a third pipe here Which at the moment is just bent up so the water doesn't come out this way But if we wanted to utilize the water from here, we could then take it downhill to somewhere else We have the possibility of a pond in mind But then of course we would then have to think about when the pond is full where does the water go? So my seventh tip is in addition to clearing your gutters and filters and so on in the autumn when they're likely to be full of leaves Check them again in the early spring Because what you don't want is to get to summer and then realize that your tanks haven't been filling up because there's been a blockage somewhere These diverters have a filter and we check these regularly Just done them recently hence the reason why that's clear But that can be full of all kinds of things wood lice and lichens and sticks and such So it's good to check it now So there's still going to be plenty of rain hopefully to fill them up for the summer My eighth tip is to water with a watering can and not a hose A hose is a great way to empty a tank very quickly if you're attached to the mains You never notice but if you're using a hose from a tank suddenly it's empty So a watering can takes a little bit longer, but it's a known volume So when I water with this I know that there's 10 litres here if I use 10 cans on the garden That's 100 litres that means I've got 10 days worth of water from a full IBC So it's measurable and what's more as I'm walking around doing my watering. I Also get to see what's going on in the garden I notice things that if I was just using a hose from a distance I would never see My ninth tip is that a pond should you have room for one is probably the cheapest way of creating water storage The problem with ponds for irrigation is that you're filling them up and emptying them on a regular basis And a lot of things that might want to live in a wildlife pond or an agriculture system Really want more consistency in terms of the level So if you're creating water storage, then it's pretty much a dedicated system That said if you already have something like a fish pond So this pond here needs about 30% of the water changing every few weeks in theory you could utilize the water you're taking out as Irrigation and feed for your plants and hours do really well on it My last tip is to reduce your demand for water so you need less storage and we can do that in several ways We can improve protection from the wind which can create evaporation off plants. We can protect the soil from the Sun by using mulches or covering the soil with plants Heavier mulches like which it work well around perennials around annuals You're better off with something like a finished compost because that can protect the soil from drying out But at the same time add organic matter to the soil which will ultimately improve its ability to hold water in the future And by covering soil we keep it cool Which means the water can infiltrate when it rains much more easily than if the soil is exposed to the Sun and it's hot And the warm air in the soil is rising. It pushes the water away So that's my 10 tips and I hope at least one or two of them are going to be useful for you