Awkward title, I know. But here’s the situation.
My neighborhood wants to create a community vegetable garden in an unused common area. We can figure out how to fence out the deer (we think. We hope.) but water is trickier. There is no tap anywhere nearby and although we could run a hose from my house, the nearest to the garden area, I’m leery of draining my own well down. I was thinking there must be a way to capture rainwater into a barrel without a roof nearby. Any ideas?
use a tarp on a frame, funneled into a barrel in the center.
The tarp-on-a-frame could also be used as a shelter/shade for some kind of seating/rest area.
The collection point needn’t be at the centre - it could be at one edge, if the tarp is stretched out in a shallow V profile, slightly lower at one end than the other (keeping the tarp unpierced should make it last longer).
Right. And even a sizeable collection area and barrel will (depending on crop and climate) still leave you vulnerable to a couple of weeks without rain. There’s also the point that a large tarp left exposed tends to suffer UV damage and doesn’t do well in high winds.
Use the tarp to start, get sheet metal for a more permanent solution.
Thanks for the ideas. I’m thinking about building a small potting shed for the community garden and using that roof for the rain barrel but until then, I think I’ll give the tarp strategy a try. Thanks again.
Any other thoughts?
If the ground slopes, and there is sufficient space,you could just dig a hole for the barrel and pin a tarp out on the ground, with perhaps a little adjustment to make it funnel the water the right way.
How would I get the water back out of a buried rain barrel? My home barrel is elevated with an outlet at the bottom so gravity forces the water through the hose I attach to it. Am I missing a step in your idea?
Getting the water out of the barrel was not specified as part of the problem.
You could use some kind of pump, perhaps (even one of those old fashioned ones), or a bucket with a piece of rope attached to the handle, or if it was really sloping ground, you could set the barrel into a recess in a bank, with the tarp on the uphill side, but still gain access to the outlet.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of things will you be using the rainwater for? It strikes me using it to water the plants would either be futile or inefficient, since you’d either be collecting water falling on the (presumably small) fraction of your land that you’re not using to grow plants, or you’d be collecting water that would fall on the plants anyhow.
Some of the homeowners in my neighborhood would like to develop a community vegetable garden. Our neighborhood prohibits us from growing vegetables in our front yards and our backyards are far too shaded to get the 6 hours of sunlight we need for vegetables.
Most vegetables need more water than other plants, and more frequent watering. Water stored in a rainbarrel would be used to handwater during periods where we haven’t gotten enough. It’s not that we’d be trying to irrigate using water from a rainbarrel. It’s more of an insurance policy.
They also make little pumps you can power with the rotation of a cordless drill.
For example
http://www.amazon.com/Multipurpose-Drill-Powered-Pump-650-GPH/dp/B0000AX0B4
There are many models out there.
Depending on how big your garden will be and your local climate, one rain barrel may or may not be enough. Of course, you could use multiple containers and there are special made plastic rainbarrels available, if not a bit pricey. And I’m sure even trash cans could substitute as a cheaper alternative to custom rain barrels.
But there is also the rainwater cistern option that would prove a more permanent solution and supply a greater quantity of water. Here is a link to a homemade tarpaulin lined “hole” cistern with a roof that cost less than twenty dollars to build- a bit of labor involved, but it might be a viable alternative for your situation. You might also need some kind of pump for this set up as you reach the bottom of the cistern, however.
Once to start storing water you have a liability issue for drowning, and whatever bacteria grow in your water.
Well, it’s a garden cistern and it isn’t drinking water. It is enclosed and whatever access points it has are small and could be kept under lock and key if necessary. It’s just a larger container for irrigation water- no more than a buried rain barrel for all intents and purposes. Many places on the keys in Florida use rainwater cisterns for all of their water needs including drinking water, until very recently (last 80 years) it was the only water source available on the keys due to it’s isolation from the mainland and sparse development.
I’m just bringing it up before some inspector cites them or some kid drowns in a cistern that doesn’t have proper protection. Around here the water in greenhouses gets labels next to the faucet saying "non potable"and “unfit for drinking”. This is a group of people not an individual’s garden.
Why don’t the people in the community simply use their own rain barrels at their houses to collect water from their roofs, and bring it to the garden site? You could set say 5 forty-five gal. barrels at the garden, and collect rain water from everyone’s houses to keep them filled; no need to collect any water on-site. To get the water from the various houses to the garden, get a submersible pump and some garden hose. Either pump directly from the house to the garden (maybe up to 100 feet), or pump the rainbarrels into a tank in the back of someone’s truck and drive it to the site.
I’d suggest cutting a big hole in the top of the on-site barrels so you can dip a watering can into them (put some kind if lid on to cut down evaporation and keep sunlight out).
That’s what I’d do… kind of a door-to-door rainwater collection run. The thing to figure out is how big a garden you’ll have, and how much reserve water you’ll want - then you can figure out how much storage and water collecting you’ll need to do. Ideally you’d only need to do a couple water runs through the growing season. If you’re talking about a 50’x50’ plot, a few barrels is plenty. If you have a couple acres, you’ll need bigger tanks. Water tanks come in all shapes and sizes; farm supply yards sell them.
A low tech drip irrigation is a plastic bottle or can with a small hole in the bottom. Use a container that provides the amount of water you want to give that plant and fill it once.
Most of the rainwater that falls isn’t absorbed by the plants anyway - draining or soaking away and being lost - collecting some enables the gardener to distribute the watering temporally - i.e. spreading it across a span of time that may include dry spells.