I'm watering my garden with RAIN!

Leah Frances

Set up my (first) rain barrel this week. Today (93F) I'm watering with rain that fell for 20 minutes on thursday. I am unreasonably excited about this. My wilting pepper plants are in agreement: this is AWESOME and FREE!

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If I could only remember to THINK about what I was doing before I did it.

cellophane

how did you set your system up? its another one of those things i'd love to do but only so many hours in the day...

Leah Frances

I bought a pre-built rain barrel off craigslist. I used some gutter pieces to hook it up to the gutter - some scrap hose = 55 gallons of water for free!

I'll post some pics.

__________________
If I could only remember to THINK about what I was doing before I did it.

Scuba_Dave

I wish I had my (2) 300g tanks setup
We just had a downpour...could have filled both

DIYtestdummy

I should be putting up gutters today, but had some issues with the new fascia boards I put up. Now that rain barrels have become popular they are expensive! I remember when pepole were giving away the food-grade containers just to get rid of them. Oh well, Mother Nature needs her share of the wealth. I have cheap garbage barrels that will hold up until I can get a cistern.

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"Aw! Why does everything that only happens to stupid people happens to me?" - Homer J. Simpson

Scuba_Dave

We had over an inch of rain in less then an hour

Red Squirrel

I've thought of setting up rain barrels actually. How do you get the water out of them, do you have a pump, and you hook it up to the hose? Or do you just do it manually? What happens when it's full, is there an overflow spout?

Scuba_Dave

Many people try to position the barrels on a raised deck
Or build something to hold them off the ground
A pump can also be used

Check out this rain barrel setup
Rain Barrel Project

cellophane

As long as the barrel is higher than what it is watering you can rely on good old-fashioned gravity to do all the work. If you needed to move water uphill or long distances a pump would be needed. Most plans I've seen also have an overflow at the top or multiple barrels in series like the project SD linked.

I've also seen some sketches of smaller setups that use milk jugs in the same fashion for spot watering. I might toy with that on my porch since no matter what I try I can't get enough water to the plants...

Bushman

That's cool. I have been fortunate enough so far that I have only had to water 2 or 3 times.
We keep getting rain and thunder stormsevery time I think I need to water. I swear lightning makes plants grow better. My corn is already head high and I am harvesting squash and zucchinni.

I have my woodshop bordering the North side of my garden and I really should gutter it and put up a rain catch barrel. I could blame it on time and money but I don't like excuses even from myself so we'll chalk it up to laziness. Put it on the list for August when the lawn burns out and there are less chores.
LOL

Tom Struble

check out this site

http://www.harvesth2o.com/pedaling.shtml

Scuba_Dave

Nice setup
My problem is winter time freeze

Leah Frances

I'm so green I'm capturing my A/C condensate...

Our county sponsored a systern truck sale and I left with five more 55 gallon rain barrels. I have them set up in pairs around three downspouts. I ganged them together at the top with the manufacturer provided overflow and at the bottom using some hose and fittings so that I can source water from both barrels at the same time

__________________
If I could only remember to THINK about what I was doing before I did it.