I like your optimism that we will have rain. :)

okielady, I don't really have an answer, just my own use.

I have these awful 300 and 500 gallon tanks sitting under the eave of the house. No rain gutters. Not enclosed. Just sits there under the eave of a roof with very old roof shingles. You can see the bits of the shingles on the ground after it rains.

I've had back problems so use has been sporadic. First year was mosquito Hades. I use it on my veggie plants (or any growies).

I can tell my garden plants prefer that tank water more than the chemically treated tap water crap!!

Last year: No mosquito problemo. I discovered these really gnarly water bugs inside the tank!! I freaked!!!

They were dragonfly larvae and they ate all the mosquito larvae as did the tadpoles. Nothing seemed to mind the bits of roof shingles. And life thrived because of those ugly tanks. :)

I purchased an Earth Minded rain barrel at the end of the season (2012)...and held on to it until I installed it last year in the spring. It connects directly into the downspout of my guttering, and will re-divert once the barrel is full (which happened last year).
I was happy with mine. I have a small home, only one barrel, and I used it to water my front flower beds...only.
At the end of the summer/fall, I removed the barrel and installed the little plug into the open hole. In a few weeks, that will be removed and I'll reconnect and pray for rain!
If you're interested, Earth Minded does sell a do-it-yourself kit meant for those finding different sorts of barrels to make into raincatchers. I purchased mine from Ace Hardware, but I'm sure there are other outlets as well...maybe even Ebay for the kit.
The only thing of note for mine (which came with a lid so I didn't have any insect problems at all), was that I wish I had covers on my gutters to prevent cedar needles from traveling down and kind of clogging the connecting hose.
My roof is only 2 years old, so...I'm hoping there are no problems involved there. My bushes and flowers were quite happy! If you've successfully removed the soap I would imagine that you're ok...do you know what sort of plastic these barrels are made of? If they're in the direct sun, could there be any sort of plastic breakdown? Hmm.

Sharon

I think a couple rain barrels would be nice and fun to have. I would connect a hose to them in rainy weather and run the excess to the garden as the rain fell. Maybe you can load up clay soil. I have rocks and all the water drains fast. An inch of rain fills up a 300 gal stock tank at the back of my house. That is only a third of the rain falling on my house. You would be amazed at the amount of water that runs off a roof. If children were around I would have to devise some sort of cover for it.

I have black stock tanks - lots of them and I can't really save enough water in them for mid summer. I don't worry about the metal barn roof or the house shingles, but the mosquito dunks worry me a little.

When it rains off and on, they are filled and I siphon them into the garden. Then they fill up again. Sometimes they help a lot, but a 50 gal rain barrel would not make a dent in my water needs. When it doesn't rain at all like 2011 and 2012, they serve as frog homes but aren't much help in the garden.

I take a shower upstairs and siphon water out the window; it is a mess but sometimes I'm desperate. My sister in N. CA was never interested in gardening, but since she retired she has become addicted to begonias and now that she has too many plants, they are having a drought.

If you are a creature lover, don't use stock tanks - too many pets. I waste lots of time moving all the babies to one stock tank or else I put nylon net over the end of the hose so my babies won't get siphoned.

What kind of roofing material do you have? Metal, cedar shake or asphalt/composition shingle? I have composition shingles and two rain barrels and plan to get a few more eventually. The ones I have are attached to our gutters, I think the same as Sharon's above, and I personally don't feel comfortable using that water in my vegetable garden so use it for the ornamental beds, trees and lawns. I plan to eventually add one to our swimming pool's filter system to collect wasted water there, too. There's tons of info and opposing viewpoints on this topic, and from what I can tell, no definitive answer. You have to do what feels right for you. Two things I have seen to help mitigate any fears of using asphalt shingle run off are "first flush" additions and sand filtration additions to the rain barrels, you might look into those. I do think I would use this water for fruit and nut trees, though, because I am sure these trees get the runoff from my roof and driveway anyway, and the vascular system of a tree just strikes me as a higher level of filtration than a tomato plant, for instance. I have no science to back that up, just a gut feel.

As for rain chains, the ones I've seen in action essentially replace the downspouts entirely. So the gutter is running along the edge of your roof, and where the hole is that the downspout would be connected, is where you would hook up the rain chain. So no downspouts in that scenario.

I put a link to an interesting discussion below ...

Here is a link that might be useful: rain barrel safety

Thanks for the link, mia.

Wow. Tons of fear mongering in that discussion with no facts to back up their claims. Just a bunch of opinion and wild speculation. I especially like the part about bird poop. I mean I've never seen any birds in my garden!

I guess my grandparents, dad and aunts and uncle should be lucky to still be alive. The water they used for drinking, bathing, and cooking came from a cistern that collected all the water than ran off their roof.

I believe it just ran through a charcoal filter before it went into the cistern. I'm not sure if there was any more treatment before that. Every so often grandpa would pump the cistern dry and clean out the grime that was at the bottom.

The roof thing sounds paranoid even to me. And I would think that if you don't see bubbles, your soap residue is gone. But check your water company for rebates. Ours has a $75 rebate for up to 4, so then attractive purchased ones hardly cost anything. Ours are full from the recent rains!

I had my walnut tree removed, but before it was removed I would have worried about walnut residue from the tree over my house getting in the run off water.

I used to have rain barrels set up when I was still living in Edmond. Never worried about the water.

Bird poop? Wouldn't bird poop just enrich the water, like worm poop enriches the soil?

I really need to get my rain barrels set up again. Thanks for the push. Will get with it, as soon as it warms up.

Moni

I don't think there have been any definitive answers on the topic and that's why it is a matter of personal comfort level. I wouldn't disparage anyone's choices one way or another, but thought that link hit the high points of both sides of the discussion. As a matter of personal preference, I would not choose to use the water from my roof for my vegetables unless I had no other option. If I had an open air catchment system (like how my grandma would run out and put all the buckets and dishpans and galvanized tin washtubs out on the patio if it was going to rain) I would use that with no qualms. I don't think there is anything unsafe about the rainwater itself, but once it's run across my roof - which is fairly new and still sheds grit during rain and smells faintly of tar in hot weather - I'd rather not use it on my vegetables.

Here is a link to a scientific study of the topic for those interested in further reading - it's a little technical which was why I thought the GW discussion was easier to read - and focused on potable water rather than irrigation for edibles. As far as following in our elders' footsteps, I think they were doing the best they could with the knowledge available to them at the time, but asbestos fibers, lead paint and knob and tube wiring indicate to me that historical methods are not always the best options available for us today.

Here is a link that might be useful: Water research

I went through the process a couple of years ago. At the time I could not justify a rain harvesting system. With water costing me about $5.75 per 1000 gal. (plus other taxes and fees). If I were going to need extra water I decided drilling a well would be my best bet, but at this time I would just let the garden die if the water was restricted to household use only. (our water co. has never done that) At the time a well would cost me about $2500. I feel I am too old to get a return on either system.

Larry

Thanks for the responses. I thought the roof thing sounded paranoid as well so it's nice to know I'm not the only one that thinks so. My thought was that there's plenty of grass and plants growing around our downspouts and they're doing great! So, wouldn't my veggie garden benefit more from the rain water than from the chlorinated city water? I read through that entire discussion thread (listed above) and have decided to go for it using what I have. Birds poop in my garden, the runoff from the downspouts feed into the garden area I had a few years ago and there were never any problems. Now to figure out how to attach the chain to my gutter!

Thanks again!

PS: Okievegan, I'm always optimistic that we'll have rain. Isn't gardening really just an act of optimism anyway? ;)

Bon, In your case with the open top container, I would put fish in the tank. Even if gold fish is all you can afford, they will take care of the mosquito larvae.

Bird poop, that's a good thing. Soap may be hard to rinse out, but I think it can be done. If your water could run through a tank of sand on it's way to the garden, I would think it would remove most things. I think most things coming off the roof are going to end up in the ground anyway, so short of lead, it probably isn't going to matter.

While I wouldn't like roof particles in my garden beds, in the long run it probably isn't going to hurt the soil. After all, it came from the earth originally.

This is a quote from an article written by Geoff Lawton who teaches and designs restoration projects all over the world. The Bill Mollison that he speaks of is "the King" of permaculture, and wrote the book that has become the permaculture 'Bible'.

Here is the quote: "We also looked at the spraying of oil residues and oil waste products over sand dunes which is a system proposed by Bill Mollison in the first Gulf War in Kuwait, where oil wells that were destroyed and were causing a lot of pollution across the landscape. These oil residues and surplus oil waste products can be used to spray sand dunes after they have been seeded to rehabilitation species and pioneer sand dune stabilisation species."

I am not suggesting that it would be safe for food, but in the long term it was removed from the earth and returned to the earth so I wouldn't be concerned about what falls off the roof onto the ground, but I wouldn't want it directly on my food plants unless it was run through a filtering area first.

one of the best free sources of water, well not entirely free, after rain and other natural sources is your homes air conditioner. I had a set up on the condensate drain of my central heat and air system. i would collect up to 10 gallons per day. could have been more but that was all i set it up to catch. The water is pure water that is removed from our homes. Some people might argue that the water could have some metal from the A coil but I even tasted it once and it tasted like pure water which it is.

Even in a drought your AC is making water for you. Not enough for a large garden but my container plants enjoyed it.

What I did was put the drain into a bucket that had an overflow pipe so when it filled up while I was at work it would just drain the extra down the floor drain. Pretty simple set up.

Mike

Great idea Mike... mine is a no frills drain, as my unit is in the attic, and the drain goes in to my side yards bushes. Win, win!

:)

Sooner, I second the goldfish idea. I did this even in a covered barrel. Cause even there, mosquitoes will grow, cause they come in via the downspout.

Moni

This is a great thread. I have contemplating doing this for awhile. just the boost I need to get moving. and I love the idea of putting the fish in there to keep larvae down.
kim

This is from this month's water bill insert: Oklahoma City and the Central Oklahoma Storm Water Alliance (COSWA) are partnering to encourage residents to conserve water and reduce pollution through the use of rain barrels. The organizations are offering discounted rain barrels online at www.upcycle-products.com starting at $59 plus $2.50 online handling fee. Click on "order forms" on right side of web page and choose "Oklahoma City." The deadline to order is March 28. For details contact Kacie Horton at 405-297-1774." There is more, but that should do you!

This post was edited by nowyousedum on Sat, Mar 8, 14 at 23:42

FYI, I see on that website that other municipalities are offering this, too, you can see them listed over on the sidebar. Looks like Moore/Norman and Yukon/Bethany/Mustang/Piedmont have already done theirs, but the dates for the others are:

COSWA Midwest City / Del City / Choctaw
Pick up Event on March 21st and 22nd

COSWA Oklahoma City
Pick up Event on April 4th and 5th

I think I paid $90 on sale (regular $99) for my 65 gallon rain barrels at Lowe's, but it included the diverter kit which is a $25 add on through that website, which makes their 55 gallon rain barrel $86 with the diverter, so I think I did pretty good at Lowe's. Moral of the story is to shop around before you order, I guess!

Here is a link that might be useful: My earth minded barrel