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Loading...Save Water With a Homemade Rain Barrel
- Becky Striepe
- May 25, 2010
- 9:04 am
- 57 comments
Gardening season is here! Whether you’re growing edibles, flowers, or anything in between, those plants are bound to be thirsty as temperatures heat up. A rain barrel is a great way to keep your plants hydrated in between downpours without tapping into the municipal water system.
Survival Weekly shared an awesome video showing a simple, cheap way to construct your own rain barrel out of a 55 gallon food-grade drum:
Rain Barrel Tips
If you can’t get ahold of a drum like his with the fancy two-part lid, don’t fret! You just need to cut your screen a little bit wider on all sides, and you can secure it with a gigantic, heavy duty rubber band.
Once it’s built, the best place to install is underneath your gutter’s downspout. Not only does this help you catch the maximum amount of water, but by diverting it from falling on your property, you can prevent that heavy flow of water from eroding the land around the downspout.
It also helps to have your rain barrel seated up off of the ground. The higher you have it, the more water pressure you’ll get from the spigot at the bottom.
He mentions attaching garden hose to the downspout. Another way to take advantage of your rain barrel is to attach that hose to irrigation tubing that you run through your garden beds. The local hardware store or garden center should carry irrigation tube to fit your needs.
Next: Caring for Your Rain Barrel
Read more: Lawns & Gardens, Nature, conservation, DIY, gardening, rain barrel, rainwater harvesting, water
Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by eastpole
Becky Striepe
Becky Striepe is a freelance writer and vegan crafter living in Atlanta, Georgia. Her life’s mission is to make green crafting and vegan food accessible to everyone! Like this article? You can follow Becky on Twitter or find her on Facebook!
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
people are talking
Thanks!
Great reminders! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks
Inventive!
sounds like a good idea, but in South Africa, you cannot walk or drive 1 meter without finding litte…
57 comments
+ add your ownOnly one problem with rain barrels are the chemicals that are in some roofing materials. Our roof is treated for moss control, which is a real problem in our area. I am reluctant to use the water for food plants but would really like to keep gold fish in a water barrel.
useful article, thank you)))
It's so fashionable now days to have a butt, I mean water butt that is.
Love it! I have a couple suitable barrels and screening, now I just need to pick up the hardware - and my garden (and my well) will thank me ;-)
Have had one for 26years in my garden. We call them rain butts in England.
rain barrels and sisturns, anything that collects rain water is acceptabe, your garden will thrive better using collected water verses tapwater, the chemicals that are put into the public water has advers effects on your yard and garden, clorine is a toxin although it keeps us healthy in moderation but it damages your plants
Water barrels are a fantastic eco product. I wouldn't be without mine.
Anyone with a roof over his head, should be able to make some kind of rain barrel.
Very good for the environment.
People that have no access to clean drinking water, could boil this rainwater and drink it with very little danger!
The screen on the barrel is very, very important. The spread of West Nile Fever here in the north has been mainly due to folks' practices of leaving out standing water where the infected insects can breed -- this includes water barrels, ponds, bird baths, etc. It is very important that water features either be completely screened in or else free-flowing so that the eggs can't hatch and/or larva can't survive. That's why almost all new water features put in nowadays include a fountain or a pump to circulate the water....
Thanks for a good article. Useful information for future use when I have a gutter and a butt...a waterbutt that is...I heard all of you out there shouting..."you already have a big butt! " :o))))
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