Using Rain Barrels to Survive Droughts

If you’re a gardener that has an unlimited supply of water, consideryourself lucky. There are many of us who live in drought zones where thegarden and lawn watering rules are very constrictive to the healthy growthof gardens and plants. Many people just give up when they find out how fewgallons of water they are permitted to use, but some of us have just foundways to cope with less water. There are many ways to optimize ones gardento conserve water while still keeping it lush.

Some of the ways include drip irrigation (the use of a pipe or hose withsmall holes to gradually seep into the roots of the plant), the placementof plants in groups of equal watering needs (to prevent wasting water onplants that don’t need it), and using compost or mulch to insulate thewater and prevent drainage.

But one of the best ways to keep your garden alive during a drought is totake preventative measures. Occasionally a drought will be predicted farin advanced, or those already experiencing a drought will be given a fewweeks of heavy rain. When this occurs, you should take the opportunity toset up several rain barrels. Many people think this would be a timeconsuming, silly thing to do. But it can save you many gallons of water,and hardly requires any work.
Finding the barrels will probably be the hardest part. You can use yourown garbage cans, or head to your home improvement store to get a few 55gallon plastic drums. These can be expensive and difficult to transport,so keep that in mind before you go to the store. You will probably want tocover the top of the barrel with a screen of some sort to filter out anyunwanted leaves or debris that might fall off the roof of your house.

Once you have your barrels ready, you’re faced with the decision of whereto place them. Usually during rainfall, there is one corner or segment ofthe house that rain tends to pour off of. If you are taking the simpleapproach to barrel placement, just place the barrel under all the placeswhere you see large amounts of drips. However, while this might be theeasiest way to place them, you won’t see very high volumes of rain in thebarrels.

If you want to take a more complicated approach to placing the barrels,you should consider tweaking your gutter system a bit. If you remove eachindividual segment and place it at a very slight slant so that all thewater is diverted to the nearest corner of the house, you can place a rainbarrel at each corner. So essentially your entire house acts as a catcherfor the rain, instead of just a few feet worth of shingles. This is how tomaximize the amount of water your rain barrel will catch.

After a heavy rainfall, each individual barrel probably won’t see verymuch rain. If it looks like it won’t be raining more any time soon, it’s agood idea to empty each barrel into one main central barrel. Seal it andsave it out of the way, for whenever you may need it. Then the next timeit starts to rain, you’ll be able to quickly put all your catching barrelsinto place without having to lug around all the water you’ve accumulatedso far.

The use of water barrels might sound like an antiquated idea. However,when you’re in the midst of a drought and you’re able to spare that extracouple of gallons for your garden in addition the city allotment, you’llbe grateful for every bit of time and money you spent on collecting allthat rain. All it takes is a few trips out in the backyard every time itstarts to sprinkle, and you’ll be a very happy gardener when water isn’tso abundant.

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