25 September 2012: UK Gardeners can save 25.5 million litres of water – that’s 3.6 million x 7 litre watering cans or 10 olympic swimming pools every day.
The 2012 drought may be well and truly over but the smart money remains on trying to identify water saving solutions. UK gardeners and commercial growers can slash their use of this precious resource, every day, simply by switching the compost they use.
A recent trial carried out by Carbon Gold and Daylesford Farm found that using Carbon Gold’s unique biochar based composts cuts water usage by a third.
The magic water saving ingredient in the Peat Free composts is biochar. Biochar is a special form of charcoal that, when added to the soil, helps it to retain moisture, allowing gardeners to water less frequently whilst achieving the same growth results. Carbon Gold is acknowledged by DEFRA as the only company offering domestic gardeners a range of biochar-based products.
Jez Taylor, Market Gardener at Daylesford Farm in Gloucestershire, has been trialling Carbon Gold’s GroChar composts for two years. He explains: “Simply by switching from our usual compost brand to Carbon Gold has cut our water usage by a third. The compost is less prone to drying out. If plants are left to go dry this can cause plant shock making them susceptible to disease.”
Daylesford Farm is in the Cotswolds and grows a wide range of organic vegetables and herbs for sale in its Gloucestershire farm shop and its popular London stores.
DEFRA figures show that gardeners in the UK use an average of 150 litres of water per person every day. The Royal Horticultural Society estimates that British gardeners use 3% of that average household water consumption figure. So by switching to Carbon Gold GroChar composts Britain’s 17 million gardeners could save a staggering 25.5 million litres of precious water every day. This is equivalent to ten Olympic sized swimming pools.
“These are staggering figures that demonstrate how individual gardeners can make a significant impact on saving water by using our GroChar composts. It’s a simple step we can all take,” says Carbon Gold’s Craig Sams.
As a result of the trials Daylesford has switched 100% to Carbon Gold’s Peat Free Composts which can be purchased from this website
