From the archives: When it rains, it pours into a repurposed olive keg

In response to my readers who wanted more info on rainbarrels, I'm re-posting my rainbarrel FAQ from March 27, 2007. I would, by the way, damn near kill for the amount of rain shown in the photo below. I remember that flood fondly. If you can imagine dust and brown grass everywhere there's rain in the picture, you can imagine my yard today.

Since I wrote the post below, I've bought two more rainbarrels to collect garden-shed runoff. (You can see the math I did for that here.) Alas, between the 100-plus degree heat and the daily details of life, I haven't put gutters on the shed yet. Maybe next month, when there might actually be some rain.

Anyway, here's the retro rainbarrel lowdown from March 2007:

We're gonna need a bigger rainbarrel.
This is from January 2007; it looks the same today (Ed: 3/27/2007), only leafier

Reader Casey wants to know:

Any tips on setting up and maintaining rain barrels? I don't even know where to start. (Okay, besides the obvious: Obtain a rain barrel. Collect rain.)

With those two steps, you're off to a good start. Really, it's not hard, but there are a few things to consider. First, how are you planning to use the water? I say this because unless you hook up a pump to your collection tank, you're going to want the barrel close to the water's destination. That way you can use a hose and gravity rather than a bucket and your back to move your liquid gold.

Once you have a place in mind -- usually under a downspout or other area where you'll get good runoff -- make sure your site is level and stable. A full 90-gallon rainbarrel will weigh more than 700 pounds. You don't want it falling off its perch or tipping over on someone, and you darn sure won't be able to reposition it when it's full. I've seen people put rainbarrels on a cinder-block base to give them a little extra gravity to work with when draining the barrel, but because of my rowdy kids and pets, I set mine directly on the ground.

So you get the thing sited, and it rains. Now you've got to keep everything out -- mosquitoes (I throw in a a B.t. tablet every now and then to kill the larvae), critters and kids. Make sure the barrel has a tight screen and a secure lid, and make sure your family knows not to drink from it. Hurricanehead was eager to go behind my back and try some delicious roof runoff straight from the keg, but the phrase "bird poop soup" had an instant, repellant effect on him.

I use my rainbarrel (yes, I still only have one, but I dream about having a full-bore collection system) for watering veggies, herbs, seedbeds and -- in the heat of the summer -- the grass around the kids' swingset.

Right now, alas, my barrel runneth over. I really wish I had a big tank. We're on track to get about 3 inches of rain today, or so say the weatherfolk. I can't be sure because the dogs ate my rain gauge.

The best and most detailed information I've seen on rainwater harvesting is the book, Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged. It goes into way more detail than I needed for my garden projects -- you'll learn how to go off-grid and collect and purify water for drinking -- but it's interesting stuff. Anyone else have rainbarrel tips?