More on rain barrels...

Friend-of-Rant *Don at Urban Ministry Garden tried to leave all SORTS of great information in a comment on this post, but Typepad accused him of spamming and denied the comment.  I told him not to be TOO insulted, since just the other day Typepad accused me of the same thing and wouldn't let me comment on my own damn post right here on the Rant!  (It's especially humbling, since I was so recently urging users of Blogger.com to switch to wonderful,  no-hassle Typepad - ha!)

Or maybe Don's contribution was a wee too long as a comment, but not for a supplemental post.  Just click "Continue reading".

Now with all the great input from Don and others, how are the DC Urban Gardeners ever going to produce one article that explains it all?  Back it goes back on my ever-expanding list of Things To Do in 2008.  Thanks, y'all!

*Follow that link to see Don's caroling group. He's the behatted one playing the recorder.
 

Great topic and questions, Susan.

I too am skeptical of small capacity (200 liter/50 gallon max) "rain barrels", for the reasons you mention plus a couple more. On the other hand, if done right, I think rain harvesting has much promise for doing environmental good.

Our local Mecklenburg County Soil and Water Conservation Service (an excellent program that does lots of good locally, going far beyond just rain barrels) will help people purchase home downspout rain barrels, but I'm still not sold on them.

For small scale versions, I'd add risk of mosquitos, especially down here where skeeters have been known known to completely drain unwary gardeners who stepped outside at dusk in mid-summer 'just for a second' to pick a few cucumbers.

Also there's the matter of pressure. We've gotten used to watering from hoses where the water comes out. To get that, you have to elevate the barrel, making for all kinds of mostly funny, unstable and not very attractive jury rigs on cinderblocks etc - or water just kind of oozing out that handy spigot (before it breaks off).

On the other hand, if done right, rain harvesting can provide a way for us to use rain water for gardens and food, and save treated (expensive) water for drinking.

I've actually seen some systems that seemed to work beautifully. One stands out (I've got pics somewhere...darn, how do people store pics? Another topic...), a community garden in New York City that used a linked array of 20 55 gal (220 l) recycled cooking oil drums raised on a platform. A big "butterfly" roof was designed to capture rain and route it to the barrels. It was the major source of water for a garden full of fruit trees and veggies in the middle of the city.

There's also the "downstream" factor to consider. Especially with all our pavement, we turn gentle rains into cataclysmic flash floods for the fish and wildlife that live in our suffering urban creeks. Anything we can do to check this by slowing water down is beneficial, and even basic rain barrels help do that. In our landscapes, we can go far beyond that, though, by mindfully considering how water and rain behave in our own garden ecosystem, and making water part of our garden design dance.

Rather than blab on here, let me leave some links that have me thinking:

Thai Pot in Portland
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=118824831717549700

Check this out! Many lessons here - rainwater harvesting doesn't have to be in earnest utilitarian plastic barrels! Thai Jars work too (and what other ideas are out there???)! We can learn huge amounts from the rest of the world, especially the "developing" world. In our rush to the future, we dropped a lot of valuable things along the way, and we gardeners are ideally suited to gathering them up again.

The waterworks grant from Organic Gardening Magazine (good for them) is at:
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-2-10-1531,00.html

Seattle and Dan Winterbottom

http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/PI/rainbarrels.htm

Of course, Seattle has great info on this. The most helpful reference on this page for me is the article by Daniel Winterbottom, a landscape architect at U of Washington who really understands rain harvesting, and has been using it as water source for farmers in the developing world. Click on the Rainwater Harvesting link.

Pics on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/serpentor/sets/1351203 - a bunch of interesting rainwater harvesting pics

Some technical notes:

From  Green Clips -www.greenclips.com
RAINWATER HARVESTING: RECONSIDERING AN ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY
Rainwater collection in cisterns and on roofs, a traditional means of storing water for irrigation and other uses, is attracting renewed interest as concerns grow about depleted aquifers and chemically treated municipal water supplies.

Rainwater harvesting systems typically include six components: catchment area, roof-wash system, conveyance system, cistern, delivery system, and water treatment system.

The most common contemporary catchment areas are roofs, with stainless steel or galvanized steel with a baked-on enamel, lead-free finish considered the best roofing materials for rainwater collection.

To figure rainwater yield: 1 inch of precipitation on 1 square foot of collection area yields 0.6233 gallons. Gutters, downspouts, and piping convey rainwater from the catchment area to a filtration or storage unit.

For collection systems used solely for irrigation, filtration can be as simple as leaf screens combined with a roof-wash system that drains particulates from the roof during the first flush of rain. To achieve potable water quality, appropriate filtration systems include a simple microfiltration process employing gravel, sand, and charcoal; UV sterilization; or ozonation. Cisterns, which range from small drums to structures storing thousands of gallons, can be made from a variety of materials, including galvanized steel, concrete, and polyethylene.

Construction costs tend to be high (a common rule of thumb is one dollar of construction cost per gallon of water stored), but rainwater harvesting may become more economically feasible if municipal water costs rise. - Landscape Architecture, Apr 00, p 40, by Daniel Winterbottom. Yield formula  from: Natural Home, May/Jun 00, p 74, by Molly Miller.

From the developing world, a different approach:
There is also a way to utilize rain water without contraptions (we Americans love our contraptions, though, and more power to us - but they are not always necessary). Doing berms and natural moist areas with adapted plants in our gardenscapes may be more effective than plastic barrels? Check this out:
http://www.fadr.msu.ru/rodale/agsieve/txt/vol2/8/art1.html

A couple key ideas that caught my eye:

Just as there are many different kinds of irrigation methods, rainwater harvesting can be accomplished using a broad range of technologies, from very simple and very small structures to very extensive and complex ones. Scientists with the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Institute for Desert Research have divided the technology into five categories, including Micro-catchment systems, Terraced wadi (stream-bed) systems, Hillside conduit systems, 'Liman' systems and Large-scale diversion systems.

Designing a System
For rainwater-harvesting to be possible, three basic landscape elements muxt be present:

1) The landscape surface or soil conditions must be able to produce runoff.

2) The landscape surface must include variations in elevation so that runoff water created during rains will flow into and be collected by cultivated areas.

3) Collection areas must have adequately deep soil horizon of a suitable structure to store sufficient runoff for crop production.

Comments

[Rebecca]

Very cool to see the inventiveness and creativity being brought to this issue. It's clear that each locale will have its own optimal solutions. We have a half-acre yard and no turf grass, and we think we have a pretty good system. It was developed after we moved into our current house. If we ever move I'll be looking into installing a below-ground cistern. The water collected will be mostly for the veg. garden as I plant native, low-maintence perennials, shrubs, and trees in the rest of the yard. (I only give supplemental watering to the newly planted.) Anyway, if you'd like to read more about my rain barrel project, take a look:
http://home.comcast.net/~leavesdance/rainbarrels/myproject.html

[Barry]

Great information from wonderful resources. www.aquabarrel.com is looking forward to answering your rain barrel questions and providing an expanding product line in 2008. One new product just went up yesterday and 350 and 425 gallon tanks are to be available as early as January 2008.

[chuck b.]

Hi Susan,

You wrote: "I'm...contacting you for the link to your posts about rain barrels so I can add them to my rain barrel overview."

I put them on my blog here:
http://coldcalculation.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-love-my-rain-barrels.html

But I actually think I wrote about them more extensively in the Garden Rant comments--either the first time or the second you posted on the subject.

I think it's great that you're doing this round-up. Just a few weeks earlier, and I might have picked different barrels.

I hope other people will enjoy having them as much as I do.

:)

[Jason Rankin]

Rain barrels are great but a must have is a Rain Barrel Pump. They will keep you from having to lug pitchers of water across your property. They are also very afforable and much cheaper than a chiro bill.

www.rainbarrelpump.com