Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Elcie on June 08, 2010, 23:04
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I go to my allotment everyday as I have my lovely chickens there. I water when needed, regularly for the pots, less so for the beds, with the mains water on site. But it seems to me that the plants really perk up when they have some rain. When I went there today I could really notice a difference. I think! Am I going mad or do plants much prefer rain water to being watered through a watering can with mains water?
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Do you have particularly horrid mains water where you are?
It might be that during a shower the humidity is higher which the plants appreciate and which you won't get with a watering can.
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I reckon I must be mad too then because I was just saying this to my hubby earlier this evening :wacko:
We have had a full days rain here today (much needed) and when I went on my evening rounds I swear everything has grown an inch since this morning, our drinking water is actually very nice here (compared to other places I've lived) but my plants definitely seem to perk up after a good downpour and Solway Cropper I think you are on to something there because it has been very humid all day.
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Rain water is softer than mains water and doesn't have all the additives in, so you are probably right, plants prefer rain water! :D
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I find this too. I water my seedlings with tap water and with rainwater from the butt, but when they are out in a rain shower they really pick up and put on amazing growth. I wonder what it is, but i'm glad it is!
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In the growing season, mains water also tends to be colder which plants don't appreciate.
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Could it be that a 5 minute shower waters the plants far more than you could do by hand?
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My veg have certainly shot up. Also, I have carnevorous plants in a raised bed, and you never water them with tap water, always rain water. :tongue2:
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Could it be that a 5 minute shower waters the plants far more than you could do by hand?
I think that's pretty much it. Light showers don't seem to do a lot (other than perhaps cooling the plants down), but half an hour of rainfall drops a good deal of water, and it drops it over the entire plot at once.
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Rainwater must be more natural than tap water with all its various additives. Our tap water up here is pretty good, but we always water the garden with rainwater....seems better somehow, and the veggies love it! :)
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Its the chlorine I guess, rain water never saw a treatment works until it falls in it :D
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could it be that rain is slightly softer (more acidic?) our tap water is very hard and chalky.
I often wonder if that's why some pot grown seedlings fail, cos they don't like the tap water :unsure:
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I must be mad too then :wacko:, after the last few days of rain my raised beds have gone mad leaves everywhere, spud leaves are like triffids too!
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Its the chlorine I guess, rain water never saw a treatment works until it falls in it :D
Even though I hear about the unwholesomeness of tap-water, I have come to wonder about the level of this I have observed that algae seems to form just as quickly in a butt of mains water as it does in rain water. You would think that that algae would be slowed down if the water was less healthy.
Regarding the effect of rain. Usually when it rains, it is over a longer period than when you water, also there is less sun and more water vapour in the air, this would mean the foliage of the plant would also absorb water and not just the roots
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I've noticed this as well and was only saying it yesterday to other half. It gives them a real boost, they look green healthy and really perky. I water everyday as well as mine are in the garden, and I tend to overwater a bit.
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If thunder and lightenng is about the rainfall carry a very small amount of nitric acid from the the electrical activity which is good for the plants or did i dream that in a science lesson years ago :nowink:
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Well remembered Joe!
The high voltage discharges cause atmospheric nitrogen to combine with oxygen to form various oxides of nitrogen which then dissolve in the rain to form very dilute nitrous and nitric acids.
Another way of "fixing" nitrogen, and the way the sky is looking at the moment I think we are about to get a fix here! :wacko:
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Is'nt all rain slightly 'acid' nowadays anyway? :unsure:
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Is'nt all rain slightly 'acid' nowadays anyway? :unsure:
yes they are but sulphuric!!! not nitric anyway I assume :blink:
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Think so; mainly dissolved sulphur oxides from fossil-burning power stations but also others from cars etc.
Not as bad as it used to be though (we are led to believe!) :unsure:
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Many moons ago I toured the Black Forest region Germany and all the conifer trees were dead from acid rain :(
My plants didn't die, they loved it, so it must be ok again now :lol:
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Sorry mumofstig, its not acid rain that killed some of the Black Forest, we were there yonks ago, and my OH had to disappear behind a tree to relieve himself :ohmy:
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:lol: he must have had a lot of local beer cos half the forest was dead :nowink:
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I have read the pros and cons of tap water (with additives) versus rainwater.
It depends greatly on where you live, if you live in a densely populated area (factories,motorway etc) then the rainwater is likely to be contaminated (acid rain) but out in the countryside definately less so.
However i think it is more likely to do with the volume of rain water compared with that of a watering can or hose that our plants like.
I have just read that 1mm of rain fall is equal to 1Litre per square meter .
My quarter plot is only about 72 square meters , thats 72 litres of water from 1mm of rainfall.
25mm (an inch) of rainfall would equal 1800 litres of water!