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Re: $$$ from Garden/Rainwater Catching

At 09:33 AM 12/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I'm
>looking for rainwater catchment systems if anyone has any experience
>with cisterns and capturing rainwater from their roof. I have 3600+
>square feet of roof to work with on 2 downspouts.
>
>Happy Gardening
>
>AG Pitsilos
>Zone 6 Eastern PA

My experience is sort of labor intensive, but the price is right, and for a
garden of about 700 sqft, it seems to work.  I salvaged 2 55 gal plastic
barrels.  I went looking for ones that used to hold detergent, so the
amount of residue left in the barrels wouldn't be especially toxic. You
might have some luck finding these at colleges, labs, anyplace that has a
need for extensive use of detergent. I cut out the top to leave as much
reinforcement as possible but also be able to get one of those 2 gallon
plastic watering cans into it.  One section of my house consists of 2 eaves
meeting, where water runoff from a rain meet and pours off in a torrent.
This allowed rinsing out the buckets by filling and emptying several times
over the course of a rainfall.  

My garden is by a small barn.  I went to the expense of buying leaders &
gutters to catch and direct all runoff into the barrels, but it should be
possible to fabricate something yourself - anything that could direct the
runoff to a specific location would do.  I cover the barrel with some 1/2"
mesh hardware cloth.  With my setup and the size of my barn, I find that
the barrels get full after about the first 1" rainfall.  I aim for between
1 and 2 inches of water in my garden per week.  If I don't get it by
natural rainfall, I make up for it with water stored in the barrels.  This
has worked well the last 2 years.  This past summer was especially dry
during the summer (after a real wet spring) in the Albany, NY area, and I
only had to use my house water supply for 2 weeks to supplement natural
rainfall and water stored in the barrels.   

Hope this helps you, and please keep us informed about your commercial
success.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Rich Raczkowski, Sr. Bacteriologist                       *
* NY State Dept of Health, Rabies Lab                       *
* 518 - 869-4527                                            *
* richard.raczkowski@wadsworth.org                          *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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