With no access to water on site at the TransMission Community Garden, we need a reliable water-catchment system. Here’s what we’re planning.
Our big project for the TransMission Community Garden is creating a reliable source of water.
We’ve had quite a lot of rain so far this year, but we’ve also had long periods of hot and dry weather. A few members of the group have been visiting the garden in the mornings during these times to water the plants. But we’ve only got one water cube. It holds 1,000 litres which doesn’t last long with a plot the size we have.
We have no access to water at the garden. The school next door was kind enough to fill the cube twice, but this requires someone to be onsite the whole time and someone to be at the school to provide access. It’s also not a long-term solution.
We have a better solution in mind, but so far it’s still at the planning stage. There’s a section of wall at the back of the garden. It’s about 2m high and five or six metres long. The idea is to build a very simple structure using perspex sheets and some wooden poles to create a ‘roof’ that runs along the length of the wall. It will sit at an angle, starting at the height of the wall and rising upwards.
A length of pipe attached to the back of the roof will catch rainwater as it runs down the perspex. This will drain into our water cube. The cubes can be linked together and we’re going to add more as we get more funding. The money we’re getting from St James Street Big Local will pay for at least another one. We should be able to fit four to six in the space we’ve got.
Seating area
We’re also going to level off the ground under the roof and put in some decking to create a sheltered seating area. We’re hoping to get a table and chairs for this.
The structure itself won’t be very big or very imposing – we don’t want to block the view of the people living in the flats behind the garden. We measured it out at a planning session and decided to go for 3m deep by 4m long. This gives us plenty of space by the left-hand side of the catchment area to install the water cubes.
We’re lucky to be in contact with someone who works at another community garden in the area and he’s built one of these previously and is offering help and advice. This is, however, quite a challenging and time-consuming project for a small group like ours, and we’re on the lookout for more help.
Have you built something like this in the past? Or do you have carpentry experience that could come in handy? Could you donate materials maybe? Or are you simply an enthusiastic amateur who could help out?
Any support at all is much appreciated. Just get in touch with us at transitionwalthamstow@gmail.com or come along to one of our meetings if you’re interested.
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