[] make it rain...[]

I love when I can modify things to fit my life better, which brings me to blog about my rain barrel.  I decided to buy one through Wickman Gardens last year ($70) so that I could water my garden, houseplants, hose off grandma (just kidding) and other things in the yard.  Conserving resources and money is always a fun challenge to me. My first step was to choose a central location with respect to everything that needs to be watered. I then took a saw to my downspout, cutting it off a few feet above my raised rain barrel.

Note: the higher you raise the barrel, the better the water pressure is.  So there was a two foot gap between the end of the sawed off downspout and the opening of the rain barrel, which is then where you attach the flexible downspout, which kinda feels like a slinky made from hard plastic.  The water will flow through the fine mesh top, straining the large particulate out, but mosquito eggs can still drop through and harvest.  I haven't had this problem, but a touch of olive oil to the surface of the water should prevent anything from growing.

So, at this point I have to take empty milk jugs out, fill them up, and haul them to various parts of the yard to water.  Which is great manual labor, but time consuming for someone with two jobs and a social life to get to.  Plus, my beautiful ferns that need to be watered every other day are getting crunchy as the summer drags on.  Sidenote: If you see someone watering their plants when it almost looks like the sky is going to dump, don't judge them to be crazy idiots...I am a pre-rain waterer only so that I can empty my barrel and get it ready for the next rain. I overheard someone talking about their rain barrel and how much they love it (i bet they don't blog about it) then they said something that got my attention: he drops a sump pump in the bottom so that he can walk around with the hose and water everything.  Brilliant man!

Westlake Hardware is where I dropped $60 for a small sump pump.  I then had to go back to my rain barrel and modify it since the pump is too large to fit between the little partitions at the top.  Sawing a few of them away made just enough room for the pump to be jammed through and lowered to the bottom.

Get my hose in place, plug in the pump and viola! I'm ready to water. Now if it would just rain...