Getting water to a site with no access to water in a heatwave

One of the biggest problems we’re facing at the TransMission Community Garden is a lack of water. Here’s how we temporarily found a solution and what we’re planning on doing next

Filling one of the 1,000-litre water tanks

Gardens need water. This is a pretty basic fact. However, the TransMission Community Garden doesn’t have any access to water. This is true of many urban community gardens. And during this summer, with its heat waves and long dry spells, this is a problem.

In fact, with climate change and increasingly unpredictable weather, ready access to water is going to become an ever bigger problem – for all of us, everywhere, not just those of us hoping to create a community garden.

Transition Walthamstow isn’t in a position to fix climate change or the global issues that come along with it – at least not alone. But we do need to find some way to have water onsite at the TransMission garden. We’re not the first community garden to face this problem and we’ve toured various gardens in the area that have come up with solutions.

Tanking it

We initially invested in a 1,000-litre water tank and eventually we want to build a water-catchment structure over it. There are several options, ranging from simple funnel-type structures to much more complicated ones with roofs and seating areas. However, this will take time, materials and the knowledge of how to actually construct the thing. We need water now.

Previously the school next to the garden has allowed us to fill the tank from their mains supply. This was very generous of them, but we can’t rely on it. For one thing it requires someone from the school to be on site the whole time, and it takes ages to fill the tank. But we also need a more permanent solution.

We recently bought two more water thanks, which entailed filling them, as well as the two-thirds-empty one already onsite. With no water catchment, and no rain forecast anyway, we needed an alternative. This came in the form of a hired standpipe, a water hydrant and a licence to access it from Thames Water, as well as several metres of borrowed hosepipe.

After a lot of research, lots of questions, emails flying back and forth and hiring a car, we applied for permission from Thames Water to use a water hydrant close to the garden and then, two of us having done the online training, hired a standpipe to access the water.

Under pressure

While the hydrant was close, it was still tens of metres away so we needed to join two hoses together. This meant water pressure was quite low at the beginning and it looked like it was going to take days to fill the tanks. But things improved and the water level was visibly rising.

It still took several hours and people had to be on site the whole time to keep an eye on things. Several volunteers gave up hours of their Saturday. Lots of people worked on this to pull it off, some more than others – you know who you are so thank you!

The three tanks are now full. Rain has also thoroughly watered the garden for us. However, this isn’t a long-term solution. The standpipe and water hydrant option is costly in terms of money, time and effort.

We still need to build a water catchment structure. That’s our next big task at the garden. If anyone can help with this, please do get in touch.