DIYS Gardening : Water, Water Everywhere!

A good garden filled with your average plants; tomatoes, Swiss Chard, Peppers, and etc requires at least 1 inch of rain every week.  The past few weeks in Iowa have been in the 90's.  The plants grow well but must be water frequently.  For my 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed, that's 20 gallons of water each time they need water.  My water bill jumped by $40 last month.  The High Priestess says my garden is taking up all the extra water.  Perhaps, but I got $40 bucks that says the three teenagers who spend all morning in the bathroom have something to do with it as well.

I've been looking at rain barrels for quite awhile now.  Especially since the state climatologist predict a drought this summer.   I missed the chance last year to pick up some $40 rain barrels the city was selling to family gardeners, so I spent a lot of time looking since then.  Most rain barrels will run from $80 - $150 with an insane upper limit of $300.  That price was from a lawn and garden place trying to sell  art deco styled rain barrels.  Most rain barrel come as just a container with a spout at the bottom and a hole in the top.  You have to provide the method of getting the water to the barrel and keeping the mosquitoes out of the standing water.  I found this at my local hardware store: Fiskars 5998 Salsa II 58 Gallon Rain Barrel with DiverterPro - Spice Granite.   I picked up three at $100 a piece.  IMHO, well worth the price because it come with the hardware to integrate the unit into your downspout.

The instruction that came with the unit were easy to follow, but I found it is best the remove the downspout before cutting the section for the diverter.  So set up your best barrel in nice flat stable surface , then measure and mark the downspout.  Then take down the downspout, make the appropriate cut, install the diverter and remount the downspout.  If you do it that way it should take you 30 - 45 minutes to finish the set up.

Some side notes:

1) Each barrel holds 58 gallons of water.  One gallon of fresh water is about 8 pounds.  When full each one of these beast weight over 465 pounds.  Make sure the area can support the weight.  About 1/10 of rainfall on an average roof of a small house (1000 sq. ft) with fill a rain barrel.

2) The spout is mounted about a foot from the bottom of the barrel, so you really only get access to about  50 gallons of water.  This is a good thing because it mean any sand, or shingle grit settles to the bottom of the tank and you get clean water.

3) The spout is made from hard plastic (nylon).  You need a hose with a plastic (nylon) hook-up, because the metal hook-ups do not fit properly and will tear up the spout.

4) Don't expect the water to flow at the same rate as your house faucet.  The flow rate out of the spout depends on the water level height in the barrel above the spout.  (This is really a nice little physics problem.)   In simple terms, don't expect to hold the hose and walk around your garden spraying water everywhere.

After spending one day in the hot summer sun trying to water my garden, I decided I need a better way.  Using some PVC pipe and some odds and ends for the hardware store I came up with an irrigation system.  The pipe is just held to together by friction so I can change it around or take it apart.   All of this took me an 1 hour to put together and about $20.  Now, I can run a hose to the nearest rain barrel and just turn on the spout.  It about the time it takes me to finish a cup of coffee my watering can be done.  Of course, you can use the time to weed or harvest.   The system works quite well, but you need to make sure your don't have too many holes in your pipe.  Otherwise not everything in your garden will get water.