Wanted to run this past the group.
What might be some good CHEAP ways to capture rain water and store it while there is plenty of it (like now, the spring), so that we have it for garden and high tunnel irrigation when we have those weeks on end of hot summer and no rain?
I just collected a few hundred gallons of rain water in some large to mid sized totes (not really intended for that) and they're sitting in the greenhouse as that's where my little plant babies are getting their start. But that only gets me some to play with for a while. I need the greenhouse space a bit later on for plants. Our neighbors probably would have thought we were nuts for collecting that much. But... summer comes, and heaven shuts off the spigot, happens every year. And then, it gets dry. Very dry.
I looked at those large water tanks sitting in the lot of the local Tractor Supply, and loved them, at least until I saw the price. OUCH! I like the idea of a rain barrel but I'd need quite a lot of them, plus, when the quantities of those get to be large enough, it seems kinda cumbersome. I'm thinking I'd like to be able to store several thousand gallons of water.
One reason I say "cheap" is because I do have a fallback. I have a pond. It's not the cleanest water and would take a decent filter setup to make it usable for drip irrigation without plugging up the drippers. And I don't like taking too much water out of it because it's only input is rainwater, no spring. There are fish in there, too, so I definitely don't want to drain it dry.
I've seen the big round dome-topped ones at Tractor Supply. I've seen the cube shaped ones on a pallet around 250 or 275 gallons. I've seen 55 gallon drums. I've also wondered about a cheap swimming pool that I would always keep covered, actually, it would be a really small swimming pool, but not one of those little kiddie ones. Some of those can be had for not a whole lot of money.
And then there is always the idea of a cistern. We don't live in a place where that's practical, at least under the house. Mostly, it's a few inches of soil over rock with not a lot of houses having basements, usually crawl spaces being the norm. I like the idea. Just doesn't fit well on the property.
I do kinda like the idea of having a decent amount of water storage that's not dependent upon city water. Most everybody out here is on city water because wells are iffy. (One might be great, a quarter mile down the road, it might be terrible, etc.) So that's kind of a crap-shoot plus drilling one is quite expensive, often into 5 figures, and if it's nasty, it's a few more grand to try to make it decent to use.
So I kinda have this whole thing swirling around in my head and figured maybe I'd toss it out there to see if any of you might have a thought or idea that might inspire a direction to go on this project. In the past, I've carried a lot of water and done a lot of hand watering. The gardens are getting too big for that and the Mrs. n me are getting a little farther up in years that we don't wanna work quite that hard. Need to work smarter, not harder. So we're working on setting up drip irrigation, which we could very easily just hook up to a garden hose. (The water bill would hurt, but we could do it. I don't wanna do that.) I'm thinkin' this isn't rocket science. But I don't wanna start something, get 3/4 of the way into it and decide it was a mistake.
Anyway, glad for any thoughts you'd care to share!
Thanks!
What might be some good CHEAP ways to capture rain water and store it while there is plenty of it (like now, the spring), so that we have it for garden and high tunnel irrigation when we have those weeks on end of hot summer and no rain?
I just collected a few hundred gallons of rain water in some large to mid sized totes (not really intended for that) and they're sitting in the greenhouse as that's where my little plant babies are getting their start. But that only gets me some to play with for a while. I need the greenhouse space a bit later on for plants. Our neighbors probably would have thought we were nuts for collecting that much. But... summer comes, and heaven shuts off the spigot, happens every year. And then, it gets dry. Very dry.
I looked at those large water tanks sitting in the lot of the local Tractor Supply, and loved them, at least until I saw the price. OUCH! I like the idea of a rain barrel but I'd need quite a lot of them, plus, when the quantities of those get to be large enough, it seems kinda cumbersome. I'm thinking I'd like to be able to store several thousand gallons of water.
One reason I say "cheap" is because I do have a fallback. I have a pond. It's not the cleanest water and would take a decent filter setup to make it usable for drip irrigation without plugging up the drippers. And I don't like taking too much water out of it because it's only input is rainwater, no spring. There are fish in there, too, so I definitely don't want to drain it dry.
I've seen the big round dome-topped ones at Tractor Supply. I've seen the cube shaped ones on a pallet around 250 or 275 gallons. I've seen 55 gallon drums. I've also wondered about a cheap swimming pool that I would always keep covered, actually, it would be a really small swimming pool, but not one of those little kiddie ones. Some of those can be had for not a whole lot of money.
And then there is always the idea of a cistern. We don't live in a place where that's practical, at least under the house. Mostly, it's a few inches of soil over rock with not a lot of houses having basements, usually crawl spaces being the norm. I like the idea. Just doesn't fit well on the property.
I do kinda like the idea of having a decent amount of water storage that's not dependent upon city water. Most everybody out here is on city water because wells are iffy. (One might be great, a quarter mile down the road, it might be terrible, etc.) So that's kind of a crap-shoot plus drilling one is quite expensive, often into 5 figures, and if it's nasty, it's a few more grand to try to make it decent to use.
So I kinda have this whole thing swirling around in my head and figured maybe I'd toss it out there to see if any of you might have a thought or idea that might inspire a direction to go on this project. In the past, I've carried a lot of water and done a lot of hand watering. The gardens are getting too big for that and the Mrs. n me are getting a little farther up in years that we don't wanna work quite that hard. Need to work smarter, not harder. So we're working on setting up drip irrigation, which we could very easily just hook up to a garden hose. (The water bill would hurt, but we could do it. I don't wanna do that.) I'm thinkin' this isn't rocket science. But I don't wanna start something, get 3/4 of the way into it and decide it was a mistake.
Anyway, glad for any thoughts you'd care to share!
Thanks!