Rewilding My Lot

Water is a valuable resource, not to be wasted.

While I do have access to a hosepipe here, it is my goal to use it only rarely. So in order to conserve water, I need to capture rainwater, and install plants that have low water needs.

This house has no gutters, but rain water does fall more abundantly at two locations behind the house. For each of those locations I have purchased a rain barrel. One is installed and I’m working on installing the other.

The 55-gallon rain barrels that I purchased came with a standard spigot, but I chose to install a quarter-turn spigot instead, for convenience. The spigot is higher than the bottom of the barrel to make it easier to fill a bucket without building a tall platform but if the water level gets below the spigot point, then I can just reach in and fill a bucket by dipping.

This barrel soon fills up when there is a significant rainfall, and then the overflow is directed into the garden. So while this system doesn’t capture all the available water, what is collected is certainly helpful. In fact, we have not had rain here in a month, and I have only just got to the point of emptying this barrel.

The barrel has a lid with a screen, which theoretically prevents mosquitos from laying their larvae, but in addition I add a Mosquito Dunk every month.