Rewilding My Lot

Behind the house there are two 55-gallon rain barrels that capture water from the roof. There are no gutters on this house, so I’ve located the barrels to collect water falling from two places on either side of the patio where there are corners. As a rough estimate, an inch of rainfall will fill one barrel and almost fill the other.

Those barrels, plus the few gallons a week saved from my shower, are my primary source of water to take care of new or struggling plants. (I use a hosepipe to top up the pond.)

Once the barrels get down to about a quarter full, the flow of water from the spigot is so slow that I usually dredge water out with a bucket. There is quite a bit of dark particulate matter at the bottom, which looks to be primarily the remains of Mosquito Dunk tablets.

September 20, 2025 was the first day this year that I filled the watering can from a hosepipe. It would have been nice to go the whole summer without using extra water, but it was not to be.

I try to clean the barrels about once a year. Having them empty at this time means that I can clean them without wasting stored water. The other time when I might clean them is in the winter before an expected hard freeze, because to avoid the risk of cracking the barrels I empty them out. However, if I’m going to do an outside chore that will make me damp, I’d rather do that when it’s warm!

So late one hot afternoon I poured whatever water was left in the barrels onto trees. First I rinsed the barrels with a hose jet…

…and then I scrubbed them with diluted white vinegar (about 50% by volume).

And then back into place they went.

I am hoping for some rain soon. This year’s overall rainfall has been close to normal (although that does include a July major flash flood event where we got 8.64 inches of rain in just four hours that was mostly lost to run-off). This month of September 2025, however, has been very dry so far. Here’s one chart of data from my CoCoRaHS precipitation reporting.