November 23, 2010

Packing up my rain barrel

Rain barrel attached to the downspout of my house.
I made a rain barrel (or cistern) for my house this spring at a Master Gardener workshop. They advised that we take them apart and store them over the winter. I haven't needed to water anything in weeks, so I guess the rain barrel is done serving its purpose for the year. I wasn’t completely sure what to do with all of the water that was currently in the barrel (approximately 50 gallons). I connected my garden hose to the spigot on the rain barrel and released the water into the yard. I took over 30 minutes to drain because the water is not under pressure. I packed all the parts away for the winter and reattached the section of downspout that I had removed last spring to install the barrel.

I’m hoping to get more use out of the rain barrel next season. It was really handy in early spring when I had just a few seedlings to water. Waiting a couple minutes for gravity to fill up my watering can took a short amount of time. But once the season got into full tilt, I couldn’t take the time to fill bucket after bucket from the rain barrel. Once I reverted over to the more time-efficient hose and spigot, I kind of forgot about the rain barrel for the rest of the season. I’ll try to do better next year.

P.S. I’ll be adding a dedicated post about rain barrels in the future sometime.

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