Rain awareness...something new to stress about!

[chuck_n_grace]

Hi,
For over 20 years we avoided any type of garden. We managed to cut the lawn when required and spent time in the house hiding from the hot and humid South Carolina climate. If it didn't rain I thought...good...no grass to cut. =) I have never stressed about rain until this year.

We are in our 2nd year of gardening. We have two tanks plumbed to catch rainwater from the roof. That's 2000L (~530 gallons). Anyhow, we've been very faithful to use it to provide 100% of our water to the garden in the backyard. Of course, we can always turn on the spigot...but I don't want to spend any more money on water...it's a principle of being 'cheap'. I'll do it only as a last resort.

We've not seen rain in over 4 weeks. So yesterday, I pumped the last of the water to three small rain barrels we have placed in the garden. This allows Grace and I to fill watering cans conveniently.

As a Christian, I began praying in earnest for rain last week. In fact, I cannot recall ever praying for rain before...accept in the case of some severe summer forest fires in areas with friends we know.

Anyhow, it rained last night. I couldn't believe how excited I was about it. It was more exciting than Christmas morning and opening presents. We collected 350L overnight. The forecast is for more rain with thunderstorms this week. Yeah!

I figure we need about 4" of rain to fill up the two tanks. We got 1/2" last night with more to come.

Anyway, it occurred to me that 'rain' is now something new to stress about...and something else to test my faith.

Regards,
Chuck

[eco-mick]

can we have some here please - in this part of Lincolnshire we ain't had any rain since Jan - and my soil is starting to look like a beach lol.

[KathyLauren]

I'm glad you got some of the wet stuff.

I'm a great believer in rainwater storage. We have 4500 imperial gallons (about 5300 US gallons) of rainwater storage, and we want to add another 2000 gallons to that if we can. Our summers are virtually rain-free, so we need enough stored water to see the garden through the entire season. It helps if your winters are mild enough that you can collect over the winter without worrying about frost damage to the plumbing. Our well is useless for gardening - it just barely produces enough for the house in summer.

[Millymollymandy]

Ha ha ha welcome to my world Grace and Chuck!

By the way you need a bigger roof for your IBCs - one of mine fills up with 20mm of rain (less than an inch). Not that we get that much in the summer!

We had the grand total of 1mm yesterday and I think this month might hit record lows. Some of my flower beds are very dusty already.

[contadina]

We're like you Keith and generally get no rain between April and September. When the first rains do come they can fill our 100,000 litre underground cistern in just a couple of hours . Touch, wood, we've never run out of water during the long hot summer months, but we're still saving up to have a another cistern built as we're currently not catching rain off the drive up to our house. Rather than praying to il signore, I reckon you'd be better off capturing rain, ready to use for those times when you don't get any .

[bonniethomas06]

Our soil is practically all dust too - I REALLY hope we don't have another very dry spring like last year...everything bolted, everything in the garden was totally stunted...it was horrible.

[MuddyWitch]

The UK is heading for the dryest March since 'records began' as they say. Locally, reservoirs are already a tad too low for the water companies' liking.

If Boris looses the Mayoral elections (PLEASE!), they could make him Minister for Drought. Methinks any self-respecting diety would make it rain then!

MW

[Minnesota]

Central Minnesota must be getting all the moisture.
our snow pack is melting and there are lots of Flood predictions,
more that usual. last summer and fall were some of the wetist on record.
so our soil moisture is way up there.
Plus, we had lots of snow storms...I think the season total so far is around 85"
We had a rain the turned to snow last week, the weather guy said there
was about 2" of moisture in that storm, and they are predicting
a wet spring. Weather sure is a funny (strange) thing.

[Keaniebean]

We had a light drizzling today, here in London, but I was only thinking the other day hat my soil is already looking dusty. I think I'm going to have to dig up my plants and put cacti in by July at this rate.

[chuck_n_grace]

Hi,
I'm sorry the UK is experiencing a dry month..along with the Carolinas.

Minnesota,
Maybe you can 'float' a large piece of ice down some rivers to my place. =) I remember in the movie "Mosquito Coast" that Harrison Ford built an ice machine in the jungle. He had to carry a large piece to a distant tribe, only to have it melt into a very tiny ice cube...I suppose that's all I would end up with. =)

Update
It did rain about 1" over the past several days. I've collected 500L so far. That's actually quite good and will support our needs for a week or so.

It does occur to me that I'm only using about 20% of my roof surface for this rain collection. Need to figure out how to add more tanks without offending my neighborhood home owner's association. I'm already pushing the envelope.

I do hope and pray it rains for all of you...except in Minnesota. I'll offer a 'prayer exemption'.

Regards,
Chuck

[Thomzo]

Tee hee and welcome to our world. Don't get stressed about rain though. Just love the fact that you now appreciate it.

Remember that if the rain dries up you can use 'grey' water on the garden. That's water from your baths, showers, washing up and clothes washing. Don't use dishwasher water (too salty). Some people think that you shouldn't use grey water on vegetables in case of contamination. That's up to you. If you can rig up a diverter to take grey water into the garden then you won't have to carry it out from the bathroom in buckets.

Enjoy the rain.

Zoe

[wulf]

I'm definitely getting back into the swing of grey water collection. At the moment I'm concentrating on the cleaner stuff, like what you can catch when giving lettuce leaves a rinse off but, as the heat ramps up, all but the very greasiest water can find a use somewhere in the garden. I'm happy to use a bit more water and a bit less soap for washing up if I can then reuse most of it in watering the garden.

Wulf

[Millymollymandy]

I was wrong in my earlier posting - it's 25mm (one inch) that I need to fill one IBC.

However we had a real downpour yesterday evening and got 14mm of rain, so it won't be our dryest month since records began.*

* that is, since I started taking rainfall readings and keeping a record here.

[Zech]

After a few weeks of dry weather, I was very glad to get some rain last night. Our two new waterbutts (210l each) are both half full now, but we may never need that water...

The neighbours tell us we might not get another dry day until October

[chuck_n_grace]

Hi,
My wife and I had a conversation about using gray water. However we couldn't figure an easy way to 'plumb' it. Because of the high humidity and temps we experience here in the summer, we usually take 2 or more showers a day. Thought about a solar heated outdoor shower. I might be able to rig that up...using the used water for the garden.

I'm curious how to dilute the effects of soap...maybe using an organic soap that would not damage plants.

It rained 'exceedingly' well today. I've got about 1200L of rainwater from the roof. Seriously considering connecting another tank up to the other end of the house. Of course if I did that, we would have one of those rain-soaking summers where we have too much water.

Regards,
Chuck