Up until very recently, I’ve never lived anywhere where I had the space to set up an outdoor garden. I’ve been fortunate to finally own a property where I can, and I’m really enjoying it. So far I’ve set up an 8 x 25 garden plot, planted 4 fruit trees, and have a thriving wildflower garden in front of the house. I have a lot to learn, but I’m certainly enjoying the process.
One of my recent projects has been to install gutters on my workshop; it’s a 25x50ft building. That got me thinking; why not collect the water from the gutters? I live an area that gets near-constant rain in the fall, winter, and spring, but it turns into a desert here during the summer. We haven’t had more than a light mist in about a month or more. I have a roughly 60x20ft section of property hidden behind the shop, and it would be a perfect place to set up some IBC totes to collect the water.
For those of you who collect rain water for your garden, how much do you find you need/use? Based on my water bill, it looks like my usage went up by about 75 gallons per month since I’ve started gardening. I figure round that to 100G just to be safe; for 4 months with little rainfall, that would mean I need about 400G stored. I tend to over-engineer everything I build, so lets double that to 800G.
I’d enjoy hearing from anyone who harvests rainwater for their garden. How much water storage do you have? Do you find it’s too much, not enough, or exactly what you need?
Depends on what your cost of water is. Setting up rain water reservoirs, plumbing it to your garden, and cleaning/maintenance adds up quick. If you’re only watering a small garden, might just want to stick with the hose.
I’ve got about 800gal capacity, and I use it all. My garden is large, and all the excess gets dumped into the pond.
Your garden will get bigger. If it’s legal (where I’m at in the PNW, it’s not exactly legal to do) I’d harvest as much as you can. You’ll find uses for it.
I also live in the PNW; what kind of legal restrictions do you have on rainwater collection? Here in Oregon, it’s legal as long as it’s being collected from an artifical surface (like a roof). The only information I could find on limits are less than 5000G without a permit.
I’m in Oregon as well!
I just looked, and you are correct. It seems I was misled, or didn’t fully understand, but when I was building my greenhouse I was told by someone that it was not legal in certain counties. But I can’t find any source to back that claim. So I guess I’m not as rebellious as I thought.
My understanding is that not being allowed to catch rainwater is more of a urban legend. People took not being allowed to divert streams and other bodies of water and over time the telephone game turned it into not being allowed to gather rain off your roof.
I believe you are correct. It seems I must have fallen for it. Well I guess I’m not as big of a rebel as I once thought. TIL