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Rain Barrel

Rarely does Mother Nature provide your lawn or garden with just enough rain to keep if fat and happy throughout the Summer.  Usually your little green friends suffer through days of hot weather only to be rewarded with torrential downpours which requires them to binge drink (do plants get hangovers?) all they can.

Wouldn't it be great if you could some how collect some of the rain from those downpours and use it for an un-rainy day?

Well, thanks to rain barrels you can do just that.  Rain barrels are simple and they consist of :

• A barrel (preferably a re-claimed or used one)
• screen (prevent debris/bugs from getting in)
• spigot (not necessary but nice)

Pretty simple huh.  As you can see in the picture, you simply place the barrel under your gutter down spout to maximize the amount of rain that enters it.  According to this website, 1" of rain falling on a 1000 sq. ft roof will yield 600 gallons of water!  But if you dont need that much water, just place your barrel out in the open.

I've seen fancier versions at Whole Foods or Ace Hardware for around $100 but if you have any kind of old barrel or even just a decent size bucket its not that hard to make your own.  Remember the screen though, especially if you live in an area with mosquitoes.

Quit using drinking water that you PAY for to feed your greenies and start collecting the free water Mother Nature GIVES you!