Water an Essential Resource - Part II

It has been six weeks since we installed two rain barrels. Since that time we have had plenty of rain to keep our barrels resupplied and we have been faithful to use the collected water on our vegetables and flowers. It takes between one and three minutes to fill our watering cans depending on the amount of water in the barrels. I typically water with one can while allowing the other to fill with water, which helps me use my time efficiently.

We have also added a third barrel to collect overflow when we have a good rain. We accomplished this by cutting a 3/4" hole near the top of an original barrel and inserting a PVC pipe to move the water from barrel A to barrel B.

We filled a 4th stand alone barrel by filling it with water from a barrel just prior to a big rain. Thus, we  currently have four 55 gallon barrels to capture and store over 200 gallons of water when they are full.

I have noted that using a watering can to water the vegetables gives me the ability to focus on specific plants versus using a sprinkler which waters everything but wastes a some water as well.

We'll have to wait and see if the water bill is significantly less this summer compared to last year and of course, this assumes that we'll continue to have some nice summer rains.