Harvesting rain

We've done quite a bit of rain harvesting at the Tatnam organic patch, and I it try at home too. I have 5 water butts, connected to different roofs, and when a kind donor offered an IBC (1000 litres), I jumped at the chance.

And then it was delivered to a friend's and quietly forgotten until last weekend, when he was under orders to clear up the garden. My planned location involves moving 3 compost bins, a significant haircut for several bushes, and moving stone and existing waterbutts around, so instead I plonked it on the drive, next to one of the two linked water butts that seem to instantly fill whenever it rains, as the whole downpipe from a significant part of the roof empties into one of them, whilst a rainsaver tops up into the other.

It took a while and several attempts to get the syphon sorted (for this temporary location), but that done, the result was that two linked waterbutts were much depleted, with rain forecast.

And only today, when I happened to be home having dodged a shower, did I notice that much of the rain was pouring down the outside of the pipe due to a docking failure way up high, and also that the watersaver from the other roof was not doing its business.

One of the joys/hazards of collecting rainwater is that it is best tweaked when it is, er, raining, and so you get wet. The rainsaver was full of leaves, now why didn't I sort that on a dry sunny day ? And finding a short section of guttering (lying within reach of the problem) I soon sorted (or should I say bodged) the downpipe escape. All fixed, so inevitably it has now stopped raining. Ah well, the next shower I will catch. And a cautionary tale to clean it out if you haven't checked your rainsaver recently. They do tend to catch detritus perhaps more efficiently than rain !

As a sailor, I do find the www.windguru.cz website great, but it is also good for the garden, as it predicts the rain quite well. Plenty more rain is forecast for later in the week, before I know it, everything will be filled, and (I think) it will be touch and go on whether the IBC overflows before my downpipe.

The other job I got around to was to provide some shade for the IBC. This is to try and reduce green algae growth in the tank. Had I purchased, I'd have gone for a black tank to avoid this problem. I have some thin tongue and groove, secondhand, and varnished on one side. Since it was cluttering up the garden, a bit of sawing, and the top is roughly covered. Which reminds me, I left the saw outside. Better go and retrieve it.

Postscript: Gone back out tonight to take a picture, it is a bit messy, and it blocks my woodstore, but there's a great permaculture principle that Gary often quotes - get a harvest. And if there's a dry summer ahead, I have over 1000 litres already in store.