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Vegetable Gardening

Homemade Garden Water Tower

15 years ago

I' ve been thinking about getting some rain barrels; it's already been a very dry summer in Houston. But, I have another idea. I was thinking of getting a plastic washtub and attaching a drain hose with an on/off spigot to it, then mounting the whole shebang onto a 6 ft tripod. The rainwater (assuming we ever get any rain, that is...) would collect and I could turn on the spigot when needed & away she goes into the garden. Has anyone seen something like this or tried it? Any suggestions?

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Comments (8)

weirdtrev
15 years ago
I can't see you collecting any water that way. When it rains it isn't normally that much water, maybe an inch or less and that would be all that is in your tub. If you don't use the water right away it would all just evaporate before you could use it. The reason rain barrels work is because you are collecting far more water than you would if it was just an open container. Lets say it rains an inch, your tripod container would only collect about an inch of water. A rain barrel (of the same diameter) in the same situation would collect several feet of water because it has a much larger surface area over which it is collecting. Plus water is heavy you would need a really strong tripod to support you washtub.
susaneden
15 years ago
A friend of mine set up something like this in her garden, hooking it up to the rain spout on her house. It is working well for her.

We had such a monster rain yesterday, it looked like a car wash outside. I had left a LARGE (@1/2 bushel) rubber bucket outside, and it was half full of water by the time the storm was over. I don't know what that translates to in inches of rain.

I do use raincatchers in my garden (soda bottles I have cut the bottoms off, and stuck the tops in the soil). Needless to say, yesterday they were all full :D
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That aquarium pump ain't a bad idea. One problem is water is heavy. Do you have a riding mower? If you do I would say raise those barrels just a bit more, high enough so you can pull a small wagon under the barrels. This is one of those wagons that would attach to the back of the mower. Place a barrel, flat not up right, in the wagon and fill it up part way. Then you can ride that barrel out to the garden. Also also long as the bottom of the rain barrels are at a higher elevation than the garden the water will flow due to gravity. Now that doesn't mean it will have a great deal of pressure. Pressure would be dependent on the amount of water in the barrel, fuller barrel greater pressure and length of hose the wter runs through. Keep in mind that a rain barrel with just a small amount of water and you standing holding a hose at a greater elevation than the bottom of the barrel will not flow. At that point simply lay the hose end down in the flower bed and the water will flow again. One other point is its best to slowly water so restrict the flow of water by crimping your hose end. This will conserve that water you have a hard time coming by. Mulch, mulch, mulch. Mike
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marlingardener
15 years ago
We are collecting rainwater off the house roof. Weirdtrev (isn't that a great name!) is right. There needs to be a large surface (roof) collecting water and channeling it (guttering and downspout) into a container. I'd suggest that you get a large container with a lid, put it on a level surface (we used paving blocks) with the downspout going into it, and install a small hand pump (we got ours for about $10 at Harbor Freight). Putting a water tub up on a tripod is asking for disaster!
HU-796661660
4 months ago
rainbarrel. Sits house. With

Mosquitoes .
Donald V Zone 6 north Ohio
4 months ago
Too much evaporation. Way to much, will not work.
HU-796661660
4 months ago
My rainbarrel the house. . mosquitoes .
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
4 months ago
last modified: 4 months ago
More to the point, it will just evaporate, AND there will be no mosquitoes. If you get one inch of rain, you get one inch of water in the uncovered washtub. The standard uncovered pool number is 1/2 inch of water evaporation per day in the summer. So after two days in an uncovered washtub, your one inch of rain is gone. Dead mosquitoes.

If you want to collect rainwater, you collect it as runoff from a roof into a covered container. Whereby, no evaporation, and no mosquitoes.

If it rains a lot EVERY DAY, you might have a chance of collecting a usable amount, but then why would you be worried about watering the garden?

Why in the world are we talking about a 15 year old post???
beesneeds
4 months ago
If you are getting skeeters. You can cap your rainbarrel when it's not collecting. Keeps the tank full and skeeters out so they can't breed in your barrel. Also, a wee drop of dish soap can help- it breaks the surface tension of the water so the skeeters can't land on it. This has to be repeated on the regular.

Water tower watering isn't odd, it's just gravity. A lot of water collectors have their tanks up on something, spigot and use gravity to drain the tank. Water tower is just putting the tank up higher than usual.

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