A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 watering systems

I currently water my garden with my lawn sprinkers early every morning. I know it is not good for some of my plants and I want to change it for next year. I have water access next to my two gardens and would like some suggestions.

Thanks

Hello Baeilo,
I've instituted rain barrells that attach to my down spouts. Between rain and the rain in my barrells, I haven't had to use my city water yet. My intent is to go through the entire year using only rain water. So far so good. The first rain barrell I made was a 98 gallon industrial garbage cannister with a lid. I had to seal a couple pin holes, cut a hole in the side for a pcv elbow to receive the water from the downspout, add an overflow pipe. I bought a water pump and waited for rain. It came (a lot)and have used it ever since. I added another 56 gallon drum and have one more to add. So by this time tomorrow, I'll have about 200 gallons of rain water available after a 1/4 inch of rain. Many different idea's with rain barrells. Some use soaker hose's to stretch out the absorption of the rain into the ground. I don't know if this helps but good luck!

--Bunny

Doesn't sound to

That rain water is hard to beat. Wish I would have thought of something like that. I personally built a 1/2" pvc header that runs down one end of my garden with a "T" at each row. I have a small 1/2" ball valves on each "T" so I can turn a row on or off or sometimes partially close the valve to regulate water flow even though you shouldn't

Thanks Phil and Laura,
My rain barrells don't look "top notch" but the way I see it, Mother Nature is far less picky than my wife! Hey clodhopper, what if your timer goes off and you have no water to go through the pump? I'm going on vacation this weekend and think a timer is a great idea, but my pump will surely burn out if it goes off and has no water to pump through it. I have three barrells with the largest being 98 gallons. In July and northern Illinois, we can go a month without rain. Yikes! It scares me just thinking about it. Clodhopper your setup was much cheaper than mine. My whole set up for the first barrell was about $180 which includes the pump I use at the other two. The other two were much cheaper, I got the barrells for free (56 gallons each), bought some pipe for about $20 and already had the pump. I have a dream of converting my lower level bathroom into nothing but rain water. My wife thinks I'm a lunatic but apreciates the environmentally friendly attitude. My kids don't know any differnce but I've finally gotten them to really slow down the water pressure when they take showers. I think I'm raising little water conservationists!

Rock On!
--Bunny

Sorry, guess I wasn't too clear. I was stating I WISH I had a rain water setup. I actually live out in the country and use well water. The cost I refered to are just for the pvc header, valves,timer and soaker hoses. Sorry for the confusion.

Hello,

We have a cistern in our yard that holds about 300 gallons of water. Its just about full right now. Anyways, we have a half whiskey barrel sitting next to our garden. We have a 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the bottom of it that we can hang on the pump that is above the cistern. We pump the water into the bucket and the water goes through the hole into a hose that is attached to the hole....its basically just shoved into the hole. The other end of the hose goes into teh barrel next to the garden. We drilled 3 holes in the bottom of the barrel, each about 1/2 inch. We bought valves at walmart for pretty cheap and pounded them into the holes, then put a soaker hose on the other end of each valve. The soaker hose then goes into the garden. The hoses are wound throughout the garden. So, when I want to water the garden, I just turn which ever valve that I want...depending on what needs watered. We haven't really had to use it that much because we've been getting rain at least once a week....usually everyother day or so in the evening. I only have to pump the water when the barrel needs to be filled again.