As mentioned in my previous blog, I went to two classes last week at my local extension office. The first was a composting class. The second, and topic of this blog, was a class about water barrels. I have always wanted to save money on watering my garden, so this was right up my alley. We paid the $30 for a water barrel and signed up.
This class taught me a lot more about collecting rain water than I had anticipated. Using a rain barrel has many benefits besides saving money. Catching rain in a rain barrel reduces the amount of rain water that gets pointlessly rushed into storm drains and sewers, where it benefits nothing. Also, it reduces the chances that rainwater contaminated with fertilizers or pesticides end up in our water supply. Another benefit of rain barrels is eliminating erosion. When rain comes down hard and fast it doesn't have time to absorb into the ground and used by native plants. Instead it displaces dirt and causes storm run off. And lastly, you save money if you use nature's faucet instead of your own :)
We ended up getting a standard sized blue rain barrel. It was formerly used as a bin to store grapes in. Normally, you need a gutter with a down spout to hook a rain barrel to. However, one of the many ways my house still puzzles me is that we have NO rain gutters. The rain falls off the roof and right onto the ground. I have very bad erosion all around my house, making it very difficult to garden with any kind of tender plant along the borders. In my backyard, once upon a time we had a downspout but it fell off, so rain empties out particularly hard there. We decided to put the barrel on two bricks and station it there. The water falls right in with little splashing. We don't have a net to cover the hole from mosquitoes yet, so we set a piece of plastic over it for now. It has not rained much where I live. This time of year, it could pour five minutes up the road every night but be dry here, and that is how it has been. I hope it rains soon, my plants are starting to look sad!
My good friend and incredible artist Rachel agreed to paint our barrel for us. I envision a light and dark green background, with lots of bright beautiful zinnias, sunflowers, daisies and roses. Once you put a plastic primer and bottom coat on, the rest can be acrylic paints, topped with a polyurethane clear coat to weather proof it. I have no doubt it will look beautiful, she is a wonderful artist. Wonderful creations just seem to come out of her and onto paper/ceramic/easels. I am very excited to have some of her art be a permanent part of our house! She has a pottery shop on etsy, Rivermist Clay, if you are interested in buying some unique, eye catchy pieces ;)
I will post pictures of the painted product here soon!
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