Water saving a very old fashioned way

I’m a keen not waterer. This is because I’m time poor, hate to spend money where I don’t need to, and I’m always trying to do more with less. Also it feels counter-intuitive to have founded a business which is designed to feed the environment and then use lots of precious resources to keep the planting lush. So watering plants whether with saved or mains water is something I only do in extremis.

This, today, is extremis for this little flower farm in Somerset. We’ve had the occasional drop of rain since June, but drop, nothing more. And the ground is so baked hard by this summer of heatwave after heatwave that it’ll take a week of gentle rain to melt the crust before any of the water gets into the ground - though I suppose where there are deep cracks the water may get deeper sooner. Never have the signs, ‘BEWARE, UNEVEN GROUND,’ here at Common Farm been more serious.

So I’m watering. A bit. Cans of water for the roses, aimed at their individual roots, and a drop of feed. Cans of water for the dahlias. And a drop of feed. Hosed water for the swathes of cosmos and zinnias and amaranthus because I have made a commitment to clients who’ve already booked and paid for them. And a drop of feed.

Daniel Tyrkiel from Soilsmiths got in touch earlier this season and introduced me to their products. I’ve been using their liquid feed this summer and I think it’s really great stuff. The roses particularly are LUSH. And while I know everybody’s roses have done well despite the heat, I’ve never seen them flower so abundantly on my usual go-to seaweed solution. (Clubbers (paid subscribers) - you get 20% off SoilSmiths products with the code I’ll put at the end of this piece.)

So what’s all this got to do with bathing? Well in this area of my life also I’m lazy. Or not lazy, it’s just that taking a bath is time consuming, and noisy, and I don’t like to go to bed damp. So if I’m to take a bath it would ideally be just after I wake up. But I wake up early and like to take advantage of the quiet hour or so before the rest of the household appears yawning in the kitchen asking if there’s any coffee. It’s the summer holidays - everyone’s allowed a slow start - and I’m allowed extra me time at the kitchen table in the early morning with the ducks pottering about outside the open kitchen door, Teacake having her own lie in in her basket under the table, and my brain meandering around the possibilities of the day, week or general future without disturbance. Besides, if I had a bath at this time of day I’d wake everyone else up - and creeping about having a quiet bath is boring.

So I end up bathing in the middle of the day. This requires planning. The day has to have a window in it during which I can nip upstairs and slosh about for a bit. The bath becomes something which simply can’t happen every day for all the above reasons. It becomes a bit of a special occasion.

Today I’m off to visit a fellow flower farmer, founder of micro flower farm Fosse Farm Flowers nestled in the yard of a traditional mixed farm up on one of the oldest roads in the world, the Fosse Way. I think Sue deserves a clean me to turn up. So after I’ve finished this I’ll treat myself to a bath. But do I really need to? I have a deal with my daughter that she’ll tell me if I ever smell. And I ask her relatively often, especially in this hot weather. And the answer is generally no.

Now I’m only five foot two inches tall, and so the bath we put in the cupboard on the top landing when we moved here is my sized - small. In a big bath I slide down and there’s no relaxing, shoulder deep in warm water, listening to a podcast for me. A big bath has me washing quick and getting out. And a shower? You’re kidding! I’ve never liked a shower. You have to reach in to the shower and turn it on so getting wet, and then wait while it reaches the right temperature (wasting water.) You have to choose whether to reach in still wearing your clothes (warm) or take your clothes off while you reach in and then stand waiting, shivering, while the shower warms up. Then you can’t have a shower without your hair getting wet. I don’t want wet hair unless I wash it. And washing hair under a shower means you have to stand with your head right back to keep soap out of your eyes all the time. Washing your bottom properly with a shower only works if it’s a shower with a removable shower head so you can squirt upwards while the top part of your body cools down. Plus standing on one leg to soap a foot in a shower… no. No no no. Showers are not for me. So give me a small bath.

I’ve been made to feel guilty about my bathing habit for years. Showers are better, apparently.

I guiltily continue to bathe. But I bathe less often. With my daughter to hand to tell me if I stink (believe me, she would!) I bathe less and less frequently. And now I’m down to once a week.

According to the internet a small bath uses 60-80 litres of water. A shower, five minutes short (hard to wash all those important places properly in as few as five minutes, especially as three of the minutes are wasted while the water gets to the right temperature,) uses 50-60 litres of water. If you take a virtuous shower every day so that you smell ding-dong fresh for your friends and family 1. you use 350 litres water a week doing so, but 2. I’ll bet you use a fair amount of soap too. 3. then your skin will be dried out by the process so you’ll need to slosh a lot of cream or oil on it to stop yourself turning into a crocodile impersonator.

My once a week bathing habit uses only, let’s say, 80 litres of water - less than a quarter of the water used in a short, sharp daily shower. And there’s no wastage while the bath heats up. I only use soap once a week and wash my hair once a week. So much less soap etc down the drain. My skin is not so dry I have to slosh oil or cream on it very often - more in the winter oddly when the cold dries it out more. And a side bonus is that I change my clothes less often. There’s something about having a bath or shower that makes a person think they must have clean clothes afterwards. Why would you put grubby clothes on a clean person? Quite agree. But if I only bathe once a week, and I don’t smell (according to my daughter,) in between, then I don’t need to change my clothes so often. Ok, if you live in a city and wear a lot of white shirts then the inside of the collar and cuffs might grub up quite fast. Don’t wear a white shirt is my answer to that question.

So I’m watering the garden where the plants still to flower and lined up for selling are showing signs of stress. Those that won’t flower again this year I’m leaving to their fate. And I’m making up for the watering by using only 60-80 litres of water a week for my small bath, and only changing my clothes when I have that bath.

I cannot recommend more washing less. I’m sure the skin is going to be the new fashionable biome to take the headlines next now our guts are all full of protein and good fibre and the bacteria that eat them. To wash all that good bacteria off our skins all the time, with chemical soap, and then slosh cream all over it to soak in to our bodes… Cream often made with not recently plant based oil to soak in through our skin. I have theories about synthetic skin creams and skin cancer that would make conspiracy theorists cheer - I won’t go into them here - I’m no scientist. But it makes sense to me to bathe less. Use less water in a world where water is scarce in the summer. It makes sense to use fewer chemicals on the skin and let that skin biome flourish with all the good bacteria that keep it clean and from drying out. Is it possible that we get very smelly armpits if we wash a lot because we’re washing away the good skin biome that stops our armpits smelling too much? Plus is it possible that our smell is as much part of our person as our natural hair or eye colour? It is what draws people to us, possibly warns of illness, our smell is fundamental to how our companionable species interacts with one another. Yes, a bath once a week to take the top layer of grime off. But bathe or shower every day? It can’t be good for the skin, let a lone the environment. Clean clothes every day? You’ll wear them out!

Bon, rant over. But I hope this little post makes a difference. The influence we have on one another, all of us, is greater than we think. If I can influence one person to bathe less often then every bath or shower that person doesn’t take is at least 50 litres of water left in the tank for another day. If you’re a person who bathes or showers every day I challenge you to try leaving it for a day. You won’t smell, I promise. If you’re afraid you will stink, try just using some soap and a flannel on your under arms - a top and tail wash as my mother would call it. See how you go. Try another day. See how you go. Your water bill will shrink. Your cosmetics bill will shrink. Your laundry bill will shrink. You’ll smell better. Your skin will be silkier. And you can tell your friends - spread your own influence. Then we’ll all take fewer baths. And when we do take a bath, we can enjoy it! Take our time. Slosh the unguents. Be generous with the water and yourselves. And if you feel a strong need to water your garden in days of extremis like these, then one small bath a week will have used a quarter of what your friends and neighbours might in their daily shower. So slosh a bucket of water on the roots of that tree you planted last winter, water the pots outside the back door, keep those perennials from crisping up entirely, and feel no guilt about it.

You’re welcome.

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