Bucket of rain

by | Jun 4, 2012

Bucket of rain
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center just outside of Austin, TX has an assortment of rainwater catchment systems. These satisfy all of the center’s horticultural needs. Of course they only grow native plants, so the need is lower. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive accomplishment especially given how little it rains in Texas.
We get a good bit more rain up here in what I like to think of as “sane country.” We also don’t experience months of 100° weather. Maybe we vote more rationally because we aren’t suffering from heatstroke and dehydration.
As my regular reader knows, I strive to live as “greenishly” as possible. To this end I purchased three rain-barrels from the Northampton DPW and placed them in appropriate spots around the house. Most cities provide water pressure at between 30 and 50 psi. To duplicate that, I raised my barrels on 75 foot towers (0.4 psi per foot roughly). Of course this was a good bit higher than my roof, so didn’t really work out so well. The view was fantastic; I could see all the way to the river.
I was forced to compromise and placed them on some cinder blocks. As my garden is lower than my house this gives me about 7 feet of drop when the barrels are full. That’s not a lot of pressure — about 2.8 psi. The good matriarch used to refer to this pressure as “like a little boy peeing.” Sometimes it’s warmed by the sun too.
Most people use a watering can from their rain barrels instead of trying to run a hose. I have just enough pressure to use a low flow head on my hose. It’s slow going, but I can water seedlings this way. I could buy a pump to increase the pressure, but good ones cost at least $100 and they take a bit of maintenance.
More frequently I use the rain barrels with short soaker hoses. This works pretty well on established plantings.
In Northampton we pay $10.25 for 100 cubic feet of water. this translates to 748 gallons. My three rain barrels hold about $2.25 worth of water. Now if my rain barrels had bottled water in them I could buy a new laptop after every downpour. At about 1.50 per quart, I’d have $1,080 bucks in those puppies. Of course it’s dirty rainwater not sparkling clean re-packaged tap water.
The barrels do fill up after a pretty brief rainfall. I find that often the best thing I can do with all that water is not restrict the children’s use of it. So instead of being irritated when they want to use the hose to make moats, I can let ‘em have at it. It’s free and they distribute it around the yard anyway.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center just outside of Austin, TX has an assortment of rainwater catchment systems. These satisfy all of the center’s horticultural needs. Of course they only grow native plants, so the need is lower. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive accomplishment especially given how little it rains in Texas.

We get a good bit more rain up here in what I like to think of as “sane country.” We also don’t experience months of 100 degree weather. Maybe we vote more rationally because we aren’t suffering from heatstroke and dehydration.

As my regular reader knows, I strive to live as “greenishly” as possible. To this end I purchased three rain-barrels from the Northampton DPW and placed them in appropriate spots around the house. Most cities provide water pressure at between 30 and 50 psi. To duplicate that, I raised my barrels on 75 foot towers (0.4 psi per foot). Of course this was a good bit higher than my roof, so didn’t really work out so well. But the view was fantastic; I could see all the way to the river. Somewhat ironically, I could also see some swimming pools.

I was forced to compromise and placed them on some cinder blocks. As my garden is lower than my house this gives me about 7 feet of drop when the barrels are full. That’s not a lot of pressure — about 2.8 psi. The good matriarch used to refer to this pressure as “like a little boy peeing.” Sometimes it’s warmed by the sun too.

To get around pressure problems, most people use a watering can from their rain barrels instead of trying to run a hose. I have just enough pressure to use a low flow head on my hose. It’s slow going, but I can water seedlings this way. I could buy a pump to increase the pressure, but good ones cost at least $100 and they take a bit of maintenance.

More frequently I use the rain barrels with short soaker hoses. This works pretty well on established vegetables and fruit plants.

In Northampton we pay $10.25 for 100 cubic feet of water. this translates to 748 gallons. My three rain barrels hold about $2.25 worth of water. Now if my rain barrels held bottled water I could buy a new laptop after every downpour. At about 1.50 per quart, I’d have $1,080 bucks in those puppies. Of course it’s dirty rainwater not sparkling clean re-packaged tap water.

The barrels do fill up after a pretty brief rainfall. I find that often the best thing I can do with all that water is not restrict the children’s use of it. So instead of being irritated when they want to use the hose to make moats, I can let ‘em have at it. It’s free and they distribute it around the yard anyway.