Come and stay!
C and I went ahead and bought two rain barrels off Craigslist in June and definitely seeing the payoff! As luck would have it, we bought the barrels, rushed to set them up that day since it was supposed to storm, and... it didn't. We had almost 2 weeks of no rain, and finally we got massive storms the following week! Ever since then it's been on and off, but thankfully we've never completely run out of stored water. We've come close, but never run out.
Our setup is pretty simple; we have the retaining wall that was built last March, where we put in a French drain to divert the water away from the house. We purchased a little piece of flex gutter which is set up to drain right into barrel #1 under the deck. Knowing that we want to keep as much water away from the house as possible, we chose this one to be the recipient of the trash can we had been using to catch water. A little piece of hose, a hose fitting and there you have it... an overflow container!
Barrel #2 involved a bit of cutting, but it was still very easy to set up. It is positioned at the back corner of the garage, conveniently tucked behind the house. This barrel doesn't have an overflow container, but I think that is going to change very soon. We did take off one of the caps for the overflow water and let it just drain out where we already had water problems from the original gutter.
An example of them in use was one week early on that brought .75 inches of rain according to the Weather Channel. We filled up both 55-gallon barrels, 2-5 gallon pails, 1-2 gallon watering can, 1-1 gallon watering can, 2-2 gallon pails, 1-1 gallon pail, and 1-33 gallon trash can. That puts us at a grand total of 161 gallons saved from one rainfall! This means that I can water the veggie garden 5 times (when it's in its max planting) without running out. Due to the constant fear of drought, the rain barrels were crucial to our garden. Overall we never had to use the hose to water, yay!
Showing posts with label Garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden. Show all posts
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Spring has Sprung!
I guess I'm a grownup now, so maybe I should do some grownup things. I've gotten into gardening of all things. First it was cooking, now gardening. Who wudda thunk?
When we first moved into the house, the outside was a bit of a mess. Overgrown bushes, that awful river rock, and a deck that we thought would collapse every time we walked on it. In Spring of 2007, my mom and stepdad graciously offered to help us totally revamp the gardens on the front and side of the house and tear down the old deck.
(Pics to come when I remember where they are!).
Wow, what a change, right? Apparently, not enough change to satisfy me. This past fall, I decided to plant bulbs. Now, a normal person would maybe plant 40, 50 or even 100, but I decided to plant.... wait for it... 681. I wanted a kickass garden that would blow people away. I envisioned tulips in various colors blooming while my daffodils were growing, then the daffodils would be in bloom while the tulips died off. Quite the vision, huh. Unfortunately my vision wasn't so great and didn't come out exactly as planned. For one thing, you can't see the driveway side of the garden from the street. Another thing was that the tulips ended up shorter than they were supposed to, and the daffodils taller than they were advertised to be.
Lesson learned, I guess. Now, here's the list of what was planted.
Side yard:
Allium
April 16, 2008
When we first moved into the house, the outside was a bit of a mess. Overgrown bushes, that awful river rock, and a deck that we thought would collapse every time we walked on it. In Spring of 2007, my mom and stepdad graciously offered to help us totally revamp the gardens on the front and side of the house and tear down the old deck.
(Pics to come when I remember where they are!).
Wow, what a change, right? Apparently, not enough change to satisfy me. This past fall, I decided to plant bulbs. Now, a normal person would maybe plant 40, 50 or even 100, but I decided to plant.... wait for it... 681. I wanted a kickass garden that would blow people away. I envisioned tulips in various colors blooming while my daffodils were growing, then the daffodils would be in bloom while the tulips died off. Quite the vision, huh. Unfortunately my vision wasn't so great and didn't come out exactly as planned. For one thing, you can't see the driveway side of the garden from the street. Another thing was that the tulips ended up shorter than they were supposed to, and the daffodils taller than they were advertised to be.
Lesson learned, I guess. Now, here's the list of what was planted.
Side yard:
Allium
- Gladiator 4 50" tall, May/June Purple
Tulips
- Passionale 40 18" tall April/May Purple
- Purple Prince 16 14" tall March/April Purple
- White Emperor 16 14" tall March/April White
Deck Area:
Allium- Purple Sensation 35 32" tall May/June Purple
- Christophi 15 24" tall May/June Purple
Hyacinths
- Mixed 30 18" tall March/April Mixed Pastel
- Mixed 24 8" tall March/April Purple/White
- Luciliae Mixed 60 4" tall March/April Mixed Pastel
Front Yard:
Tulips- Dancing Lady 135 22" tall April/May Mixed Primary
- Ile de France/Bastogne 60 18" tall April/May Red
- Yokohama 84 16" tall March/April Yellow
Daffodils
- Yellow Cheerfulness 36 18" tall April/May Yellow
- White Cheerfulness 30 18" tall April/May White
- Mt. Hood 60 16" tall March/April White
- Geranium 36 8" tall April/May White w/ Yellow center
Phew that was a long list! Here are some pictures now :)
April 11, 2008
April 16, 2008
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