Rain Barrels
Woohoo! Today I fiinally purchased my first two rain barrels for collecting water for gardening and possibly the lawn. I HATE spending money to water the lawn. Water in Texas is Quite Expensive. We stopped watering the backyard a long time ago. It’s a big yard and there’s simply no point in pouring all those dollars just to grow grass. Of course, rain barrels in Austin run 60 to 95 dollars–until I found them on Craigslist in a GREAT deal. Went and picked them up and they will soon be ready to go! We’ll need to install a bit more gutter and get some cinder blocks to hoist them up, but hopefully this summer I’ll spend a little less money keeping the front lawn looking presentable.
On the reading front, I’ve got Sandra McDonald’s The Outback Stars checked out from the library.
The freesias are blooming–just one or two here and there. I’ll put up a picture when more open. This is my first year trying them and I must say they’ve been very easy. I should probably have planted them deeper as the plants tend to lean over, but the flowers are gorgeous and it looks like there will be a lot of them. The bulbs were quite cheap considering the price of most bulbs. I think I paid six dollars for twenty-four bulbs of different colors. They are really pretty.
www.TheTownDrunk.org (moved to http://www.towndrunkmag.com) has their new issue out. Two new stories. Both of them were pretty weird this time around.
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Rain barrels? Never heard of them, but I would think I would see them more often because I would think - however I am not sure - that certain parts of Texas are like Phoenix, we get little rain. Ours tend to come in spurts a few times each year (They call them monsoons here). However, I like the concept. Whenever I get my own place (Ashley and I are looking to buy a place in the next 2 to 5 months. It is a little before the wedding, but we want to take advantage of the market and plus, I will be living there before we get married so I can move from my current location) I may have to try and set up something like this. We are all about saving money! [:-{D}
Ashley’s mom actually decided to do all of her own landscaping for their semi-new house. It was supposed to be their own little project, bonding time before I take her away. Well, that lasted all of about 15 minutes. That is when I came out and saw that they were still working on digging the first hole for the first plant. *SIGH* There went that entire Saturday, and then the following Tuesday and Wednesday evening. Another Saturday may have been lost as well, I forget at the moment. Hehe, rambling now, am I?
Hope you are having a good weekend!
Comment by Patrick — March 22, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Rain barrels are basically cisterns, only fancier.
These are the barrels actually made for the purpose–with a spout at the bottom of the barrel (the barrels have to be raised up) and a hose out the end. There’s a nice screen on the top to keep debris and bugs out. I’ve seen several different setups from home-made barrels designed so the drain goes right into the barrel with a rubber gasket holding it in place and sealing the top to keep out bugs/debris and other designs as well.
They are pretty useful if you garden a lot. I don’t know how helpful they would be in Phoenix–I would venture to guess you’d need to use a lot more gutter to direct water into the barrels and/or have more barrels. In NM we used earth tanks, but that is more for cattle than gardening!
Water is so expensive here that I really like the idea of having some extra water for the lawn or garden. Of course that is assuming that it rains…and while I spent almost nothing on the barrels, I then blew 65 dollars on cinder blocks to raise them high enough, gutters and hose pieces…
Comment by Maria — March 22, 2008 @ 11:07 am