Rain Barrel 2013 (ver. 2)

To remedy the host of problems with my 2012 rain barrel setup, I scaled out a bit and invested some time and energy to really automating water capture and distribution, as well as optimizing capacity and application effectiveness.

There are a number of important health and safety concerns when storing run-off water for garden use. Mainly, non-potable run-off water can harbor bacteria and contain concentrations of heavy metals from the surfaces they run off of. You should always have your water tested each season, multiple times if you change your run-off water source.

Dean of Green - Roof Water Runoff (05/04/2012)

Also, before making any grand plans, you'll want to make sure you live in a state/province that does not prohibit rainwater reclamation (as completely ridiculous as that may seem). For U.S. citizens, a map of which laws go where can be found here. The stated concern is that health and safety issues arise from private, undocumented, and unlicensed reclamation; the crunchy version of this argument usually refers to rights infringement and government over-reaching. Either way, if you don't want trouble, just verify you aren't breaking any laws or city ordinances, and you'll save yourself the worry.

Capacity

I called around and found a source for large 55 gallon food grade plastic barrels. The people at Mercury Brewing of Ipswich we friendly and very willing to give these things away. All that were missing was the caps. Some had one side, but not the other. I could live with that, since I didn't need them to hold a seal, but simply one side to be water tight.

Capture

I bought a rain barrel diverter kit, which is simply a unit that fits to existing downspouts and redirects some or all rain run-off from your roof and gutter system to the rain barrel. Easy enough, right? Well, your gutters need to be relatively debris-free, and the height of where you install the diverter needs to follow the instructions that come with the kit. With a little bit of adjustment here and there, I got it working well, reclaiming about 40 gallons with just an inch of rain overnight.

Distribution

Between professional and family duties, I knew it would be nearly impossible to remember to water every time I should. So I decided to buy a water timer and drip irrigation system (1/2" parts). Because my roof is slanted downward at about 5 degrees, the roof barrel fed the drip system with enough PSI to keep the 1 GPH emitters flowing fine. However, I failed to check the minimum PSI rating on the timer (10 psi) which I had to compensate for by re-purposing my PC water-cooling pump into a post-barrel, pre-timer addition. This I put on a digital outlet timer on a schedule equivalent to the outdoor water timer. I opted out a few containers from this setup, those containing plants that either needed less vigorous watering schedule or ones that I wanted to baby throughout the season.
(1/2" tubing recommended profusely by this guy).

Application Effectiveness

A drip system is only as effective as you make it to be, though it's way more effective than my watering can every other day. Placement of the emitters with spaghetti tube to help direct flow and control over/under dampening, where the emitters are pointing slightly downwards and the tube goes right to the plant base, seems to be the most effective use of the water. A mulch cover (such as landscaping fabric) also helps to reduce soil evaporation and control weeds, though I will still manually apply nutrients every month or so as required.

Reference:

Q: How much rain is "one inch"?
A: Approximately 5.5gal per square yard

For my 20x20ft back roof, this is approximately 45yds x 5.5gals = 247.5gals per hour
...
in a perfect world. My diverted is not 100% efficient, it is not connected to this roof, and the roof leaks from all sides, not just the one with the gutter. Also, its connected to a different roof than the one I grow veggies on.

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.

The History of a Rooftop Garden

In early summer of 2010, I began to challenge a long-held opinion that I had a black thumb. All my previous attempts to grow things had failed miserably, mostly due to my poor stewardship and lack of true interest.

That began to change when I became a father. I started really looking into what we put in our mouths as food, what labeling tells us is "safe" and "natural", and the total cost of bringing this food to markets for me and my family to consume. We purchased a CSA farm share, which changed the way we looked at food quality and preparation time, and allowed us to stretch our legs at a local farm each weekend.

It was a slow but purposeful separation from a lifestyle unintentionally driven by what could be packaged and shipped to us as non-perishables as cheaply as possible in a grocery store setting.

That summer, I purchased some tomato, eggplant, and cucumber plants. I stuck them on the 2nd floor back roof (no porch, just roof and fire escape) and watered them when they looked like they needed it. It was fun and enlightening, but not cost effective.

That winter I tried my hand at hydroponic lettuce in the windows. While also fun and enlightening, it definitely did not produce the quality or quantity veg that I wanted to have on my plate. It did however teach me the value of a light source, proper nutrients, and environmental variables (such as pH, EC, salinity, and air flow) as well as toleration ranges for common veg plants.

The challenge of growing indoors with only two window spaces drove me to do much more outdoors for 2011. I decided to scale the back roof operation out a bit. I got some "fish buckets" from a neighbor, sourced some free soil from a college compost pile, received some seeds from a friend, and began sowing them and transplanting nursery starts as the space allowed. I fertilized every few weeks with liquid fish fertilizer, and amended one box with glacial rock dust. And we had a [very] small crop of assorted veggies throughout the season, even without successive sowing. Municipal water, relatively last minute planting, and no vertical support were all clear faults that would have to be remedied in the year to come.

Container growing is very different than cultivating a plot of land. There are common themes, soil and selection choices, but not having "buffer zone" like a traditional garden means that every little detail matters in the containers. Soil balance, plant tolerances, temperatures, wind, watering schedule...they all have to be part of a conscious effort to maintain and optimize conditions.

Over the winter, I developed a habit of researching everything I could learn about container and raised bed gardening, books, YouTube, podcasts, online articles and forums. The number one theme I found was to "build your soil biology", meaning that it's more effective to develop the means by with plants thrive than on trying to buy or cultivate big plants. This is IMO because nature already has the means to thrive in the right conditions; we simply have to know and respect those conditions. So I hopped on the compost/inoculant/mineralization train and never looked back.

Thanks to a tidy tax refund for 2012, we began planning the garden in January 2013. We bought seeds from Johnny's Seeds in Maine, planned and drew up a timeline the back roof soil boxes, and researched non-municipal watering options. I bought some soil blocking tools and began to experiment with indoor soil/medium growing again using worm castings, coconut coir, and other natural (OMRI certified) amendments. The plan was to use the Square Foot Gardening (SFG) technique in the fish buckets, using soil blocks to start seeds indoors under greenhouse-like conditions.

We remedied the prior years errors by buying some wooden treated lattice, a gravity fed drip line irrigation system, and pre-emptive soil amendments well in advance of sowing and transplanting some final frost date. To date, I have spent a lot of time and a bit of money getting these conditions properly set, but with a little maintenance to open and close the gardening season each year, these improvements put us on an equivalent track with that of a 2' x 20' raised bed for years to come. For renters of a 2nd floor apartment in a dense urban area, this is really an accomplishment.