Rain Barrels 2012 (ver. 1)

A clean and safe water source is an essential part of gardening naturally. Municipal and private water supplies often must treat their water with chemicals that rightly kill bacteria and reduce other harmful agents, but leave the water less than optimal for use by plant roots and foliage.

Dean of Green - Rain Barrels

The simplest version of my rain barrel system was: one rain barrel with spigot and top netting.

There was no collection capacity other than the netted opening at the top. I manually collected rain run-off from gutters in 5 gallon buckets and would haul them up one flight of fire escape stairs to my rain barrel. A few times a week, I would check the soil and water as necessary, definitely overwatering as new gardeners tend to do.

When I was out of water and no rain was in sight, I would revert to filling the barrel with tap water and waiting a day or so to let it de-chlorinate. Little did I know that this only removes chorine, not the more prevalent chloramine and certainly not the fluoride or any other treatment chemicals my municipal system included.

This worked, but was partially functional to say the least. I definitely needed to upgrade to some system that required less maintenance. Input and output, the capture of rain and the dispensation of water in appropriate amounts, both ends needed some revision.