We fianally got some extended rain in our area. It made a real difference as all my garlic is starting to pop up.
I need to really get some type of rainwater harvesting system in place. But I did mulch everything heavily and that seems to be helping to conserve water.
How are you coping in your area and what tricks are you using to conserve?
BB
Rain Roundup-How'd You Fare?
I put a couple of hubbies HD buckets on the steps leading to the deck to catch rainwater. I'll be moving 20+ plants inside if the temps get any lower and they won't have to be watered as often.
My son says he wishes it would rain 40 days and nights like in Noah's time!
We certainly need it.
How did your bucket system do?
I am adding a 55 Gal. barrel to my downspout, and hope that this helps, also I have been studing a "gulley" resavore to catch run off, and allow it to supply marshy plants.Water from tha highway passes through my neighbors, which ditched it on me, so I'll make it a blessing instead of a curse.Mike
This message was edited Oct 25, 2007 12:18 PM
Maybe we will catch up this winter or in a couple of years. Watching the news last night, there were two years (1981 and 2001) that had lower lake levels than now but they were in the winter. One of those years it took 4 months to get back to full pool and the other year it took two full years. Letting over 3 billion gallons a day flow out of Lake Lanier doesn't help a bit.
It looks like CA needs rain a lot worse than us but they haven't had water restrictions (makes a lot of sense).
Never hurts to have some back up though.
My hubby was working up around Lake Alatoona yesterday and he said it looked like he was in the desert. He used to go fishing there many years ago.
I am grateful for what we did get. It sure made pulling dead grass and weeds a lot easier!
BB, the buckets caught the rain in areas where the gutters are full LOL!
What I'm afraid of is people think the little bit of rain puts us back at normal
I actually saw people pulling into a car wash just before the storm came down.
Hey girlgroupgirl!
Have you ever posted any pics of your rain barrel set up here at DG? If not, can you take some pics? I'd love to see your set up
BB
Great
Thanks
BB
This may be too lil to matter to most of ya'll....
But I save about 3-4 gallons of water every day from our shower.
How easily?VERY-
I don't know about any of You, but it takes my shower about a minute to go from "freezing" to "warm enough to stick my toes in".
During that time I stick my shower head (its detachable/hosed) into a small bucket. By teh time it's 3/4 full,it's luke warm and bareble to jump into.
All in all its about 1.5 or so gallons of water.
.. We have only 3 family members ,and we all save it to pour into a drum outside after showers.
Every 3-4 days, I have plenty of water to hand sprinkle my most beloved ornamentals And my lettuces. I dont have a huge yard, but it saves what I cant stand to lose.
For what it's worth! :)
Nin
I've been saving shower water and bath water, too. Got a cheap fountain pump to pump it into gallon containers. We get 7-10 gallons from 2 showers and much more from my granddaughter's bath water. (She's here most weekends.) DH has 2 55 gallon plastic barrels filled now and I have been using this to water perennials and trees I've been planting. I also use it in my little greenhouse. I use a "drill" pump to get the water from the barrel to the watering can. Its a lot of work, but sure saves the plants. And I can use the exercise toting all those gallon jugs. Maybe next year I'll have some rain barrels too.
Great Ideas about the shower.
My master bath is WAY far from the water heater so it takes a long time to heat up too.
Question: How far are your bathrooms from the outside. I would have to carry a lot of water a long way through the house.
I do need a flexible head.
BB
BB
Both of our bathrooms are fairly far from the doors. The master bath has a window that opens onto the breezeway between the house and DH's workshop. The barrels are there so we just hand the bottles out the window!!!. DH is thinking of rigging up the pump and using a hose put directly into the barrel. Not sure if the little fountain pump would handle that. I need to get some hose or tubing for that. For the other bathroom, I have to carry them about 20-25 ft to the front door. If I'm lazy, I just leave them on the porch. If I'm feeling energetic, I carry them out the the greenhouse.
Becky
Thanks Becky
I've been collecting water from the shower for weeks. What we do is run the tub to bring up the hot water since it is so much quicker than running the shower (20 seconds versus 1 to 2 minutes yet the same amount of water) and it is easier to collect water in the tub than from a shower head. We use a 5 gallon bucket and it is easily filled in a day. I have 3 large plastic tubs (Target, Wal-Mart, Big Lots) that may hold 20 gallons and are placed around the garden at strategic spots. Hand watering and carrying the buckets of water to the tubs is a small chore and provides a little bit of exercise. I also collect dish water and A/C condensate which is just another means of recycling.
We close off the drain while running the water to get it warm and while taking a shower.
We have a pretty small house BB... so it' s not very far to any of the doors :) I don't currently have any bathtubs (something we're trying to remedy.. but finding somene to finish our lil home has been crazy!)and teh basement level shower only gets used for guests until my boys bedroom gets finished.
So its no fancy pumps... I just lug alil bucket of water out whenever someones done showering . I just replaced teh larger o/s bucket with a water pond liner I wasn't using ... and placed it where one of my dogs insisted on digging next to the house. 2 birds with one kinda ugly stone. Thank goodness we live in teh middle of teh woods!
I was saving a/c water, but we recently had a heatpump put in. So now I am looking as to wether I can channel that condensate to where I want it in a fairly small area of teh foundation. Mabye find some kind of Tigon splitter and channel it in a 4 foot line where I might put water liking Huechera?Lobelia? Something that doenst care if it gets alil dry during teh fall/winter months.
One of teh many things i love about Daves... the ingeniuty of teh folks in these parts! :D
Nin
You folks have given me some great ideas.
Run it in the tub first!...Well Duh! Why didn't I think about that?
Thanks everyone.
Here's hoping that we get some rain from that tropical storm.