The Rain Barrel Project

We've been toying around with ideas about how to install rain barrels for watering our gardens, to save on our water bill (the first one arrived last month, and it was rather shocking).

I saw a few suggestions in magazines and suchlike, and came up with a plan. I have since seen 'store-bought' versions of this for $200. Of course, they're more decorative (made to look like a Grecian urn or an oak barrel), but ... mine cost $20. So, there.

Here's the concept ... a plastic tote ($6 at Big Lots) ... a spigot, couple gaskets, and a nut fixture type thingie ($5, local hardware store) ... and a soaker hose ($8 at Big Lots).

I cut a hole in the tote with an Exacto knife, and got the spigot in, with a gasket on the outside and one on the inside, and the whole thing held in place by a plastic nut fixture that screws onto the inside of the spigot, to hold it in snug.

Then I ran the soaker hose off of that. I chose a soaker hose for two reasons. I believed that gravity would force the water out of the spigot without any type of pump, but I figured the water pressure would be too low to use an actual hose with a trigger handle. Besides, soaker hoses are much less wasteful - you wind it through your flower bed right at the roots of the plants, and the water oozes out, concentrated right where you need it, seeping deep into the soil to provide deep watering for the roots.

When I first got the spigot in, but before I'd hooked up the soaker hose, I tried turning it 'on' - and there was barely a trickle of water coming out. I expected a bit more than that, just from the force of the gravity. So I was afraid it just wasn't going to work, even with the soaker hose.

Wrong! It worked great! We stretched the soaker hose out along the front walk, and in a few minutes water was beading out of it along it's whole length. And creating quite good puddles on the walkway. Of course, it was a very slow process - which it is, anyway, soaker hoses being what they are, although I think they emit water at a quicker rate when powered by a hose hooked to the outside faucet.

But it doesn't matter how slow it is as long as it's working. It just means I have to leave the barrel spigot on longer, but it doesn't matter how long it's on, because it's not using purchased water, or any power.

The next question is whether or not the tote is large enough. I initially didn't want anything too big and unwieldy. But I've since wondered if this one is big enough on two levels. First, I'm not sure that it holds enough water to do repeated waterings to the bed during the dry summer months when it doesn't rain often (exactly when things will need water).

The second thought is, it might not be big enough and will overflow after a good rainy day or two. I may have underestimated how much rainwater is going to be coming out of those downspouts. This one was created for just one downspout, the one right at the corner of the 'dining room garden.' There are several more along the front of the house, so it's not handling the entire front half of the roof, maybe a quarter of it.

But I read in my Better Homes & Gardens magazine this month (where I saw the $200 rain barrels you could buy) that a 1,000 square foot roof can generate 623 gallons of water from one inch of rain. That sounds almost impossible to believe.

But, if true, it's actually good news - because the more water I can collect from the roof, the better for the gardens and my budget. When I eventually get all my landscaping done, it's going to be extensive. While I hope to incorporate a lot of native plants that are 'drought tolerant,' the thing's probably going to need some significant watering during July and August, when it's routinely in the 80s and 90s with no rain for weeks on end.

So ... the project is starting off well, anyway. One of these days - honest - I'm actually going to get something planted in that bed, and then I can start seeing how the soaker hose actually works out.