Hi, I'm new to gardening and new to this great website. I'm thinking about getting a rain barrel to collect rain for my plants. If you have one, do you like it and any suggestion for picking one out. Any suggetions or ideas would be apreciated. thanks!
If you are thinking of a rain barrel then I'd make sure it has a secure top/lid on it as you'll end up with floaters in it otherwise. We found a dead mouse and a dead sparow in ours when I forgot to replace the lid. I don't know if you can get barrels where you are with taps at the bottom but they're a great idea and certainly save a lot of effort.
Anything to catch the rain water is a good thing, but just make sure that you are able to get the water back out to use easily. A tap is a great idea or a big enough opening to fit your watering can into. My first barrel was great at catching and holding the water, my only problem was getting the water OUT!
Randy built me one early last year. We found a garden center that specializes in organically grown native plants. They buy vinegar by the 55 gallon barrel and lots of them and sell the barrels either as-is or they will convert them to rain collectors or compost bins and sell them. We put up guttering along the roofline at the back of the house with a down spout into the top of the barrel, thru a protected opening so critters can't get it and he put a spigot at the bottom. It is also sitting up on cinder blocks to get it off the ground enough for gravity to work getting the water out thru a hose. I also have one waiting and waiting to become a compost bin
Finding dead critters in my rain barrel would be very sad. Which reminds me that I have 2 kitty litter buckets outside and open...better cover them until it rains. Our neighborhood is backed up to the wetlands, so we have lots of critters running around. I checked on ebay for the barrels and found the shipping to be almost as much as the barrel. I think I'm going to see if I can find a food barrel (like the vinagar one) and talk my husband into putting a spigot on it and a screen on top...that might work. Thank you all!
If you can have the barrel hooked up to catch rain from the roof thru the guttering you will get much more rain. My barrel is a 55 gallon size and less than a 1/2 inch of rainfall will fill it up. Otherwise you have a large opening catching only a fraction of an inch or a couple of inches at a time.
We live in SW British Columbia and get a lot of rain. We use these big blue plastic barrels. I have no idea how my husband comes by them. Just seems to run into people who want to throw them away and he's picked up a couple. I've also seen similar being sold at local flea markets. My husband - who enjoys building a better mousetrap, so to speak - put a sump pump into our rain barrel, attached a good size hose and we're good to go anywhere in the garden for watering. The main thing to watch out for is the barrel becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
To prevent mosquito problems you can either put things called mosquito dunks in the barrel or sprinkle in Quick-kill granules...they both kill the larvae but do not contaminate the water. I use the granules in my rain barrel, waterplant pots and anywhere the water won't be changed frequently.
I have goldfish in my rain barrels. They eat mosquito larvae. My husband loves the idea of a separate eco-system
Catching Rainwater There are brownish/red heavy plastic 55 gallon drums out there that have black screw-on lids. My husband cut a square hole in the top for a downspout to fit through and a small hole in the side, near the bottom and installed a spigot, sealing it with silicone sealant. Works fabulous. We also came across these huge 325 gallon square white containers that have a sort of cage around them. I haven't measured it but they're probably about 5' tall x 4' x 4'. They are for shipping liquids in because they can be picked up with a fork lift. Anyway, we found 2 of them at $35 apiece. They already have a huge screw of lid in the top and heavy duty spigot in the side near the bottom. Ours originally had cooking oil in them so we stopped at the carwash before bringing them home and flushed them out real good. We put some extra water in them, left the spigot open a bit and the ride home on our gravel road helped clean them out further. We set them up on blocks so that gravity can help , plus it makes it easier to get a bucket or watering can under them. Made a small square hole in the upper side for the downspouts from the roof and 'voila' - we have more than enough rainwater for our gardens when things get dry around here; which they always seem to do here in southern Missouri. I realize not everybody wants something that big sitting in their yard but they sure work great, and you can let the gourds or morning glories grow all over them to beautify them (as long as there are not openings for them to creep into.
My husband is worried about mosquitos...I thought a screen on the opening would prevent the mosquitos. The dunks might be the way to go. I love the goldfish idea....but I live next to the wetlands and right next to a pond that is visited daily by egrets, herons, a hawk family, a couple of owls, and who knows what else. I'm sure they would love for me to put a few fish out for them. Kjalady...I know exactly what you are talking about...the containers look like the ones the landscapers carry on their trucks. My soon to be nephew inlaw is a landescaping nusery manager. He took me on a tour of the place a couple of weekends ago and I seen them there. They plan on rigging something up to catch rain water to save on their $300+ monthly water bill. I would love to have one of those but I live is a neighborhood that has a homeowners association. So I need something smaller and easy to mask the appearance. Buuuuuuuttttt a trellis with gourds might hide it. I'll run it past my husband.
I second the goldfish idea. Together with a bit of mesh fitted on top (maybe use one of those round spatter-guards used for cooking bacon?). I keep goldfish in all my ponds with nary a mosquito problem. And fish in a pond make a wonderful, dilute fertilizer.
I love the goldfish idea. Do you ever have problems of the water getting to hot and killing your fish?
My goldfish haven't fried, yet. They are getting kinda big, though. We just have those $6 black trash cans from W-mart. As soon as we get guttering on the trailer, we will hook the barrels up to the downspouts. Right now, bathtub faucets are a bigger priority than gutters.
April....How do you get the water out of the trash cans? Did you do something special to the trashcan? I did find a rain barrel on ebay for a great price but I gotta figure out how to disguise it. I think I'm going to paint it the same color as our house.
