Rain Barrels

I hope this is the right place for this. Does anyone use rain barrels for collecting rain water.

Hello from a neighbor in Brighton, Co!

We all use rainbarrels here - some people have the fancy ones made for that purpose, my neighbor across the street uses horse troughs, I use trash cans. Also make sure you have an overflow mechanism on them so a heavy rain won't fill them up and flood you out!

You just have to put a fine screen over the top to keep the skeeters out! And I only use them where I don't have anywhere "productive" to divert the water to. In my front yard I use the "bendy" black tubes that go underground to lead the water where I want it to go - its a great way to give naturally "thirsty" plants a place to live, or I use river rock to "fan" the water out to a larger area.

-Christie

Hello their neighbor, your the first one from CO to hear from. I thought I was alone here on DG. Down here where I am nobody uses the rain barrels or even trash cans. I have two of them that I use for making compost tea and for indoor/outdoor plants. Do you brew tea there.

TQS- YOUR NOT ALONE IN COLORADO-BEST WISHES FROM CS.

See, there are more of us Centennial Staters around!!
Well, I don't compost here (everything suitable to do so gets fed to the animals - weeds, kitchen veggies, anything really - horses, goats, ducks) so I don't do compost tea. But I am making Alfalfa tea for fertilizer!
I also make sort of a "poo" tea w/ aged chicken manure for my few things that like a lot of nitrogen - don't make a whole lot though :-) -Christie

bstovall1, great to meet you. Hello Christie, yes it is great to see more folks here in CO. More the merry. I have never made Alfalfa tea for fertilizer, matter of fact, I have no idea as to what you would use it for, interesting. This site is amazing, I learn something new everyday.

yes I use rainbarrels and get the mosquito pellets with BT to help the standing water not attract varmits.

I'm going to use Alfalfa tea as lawn fertilizer and see how well it works there, and I have a few perennials that "like" a little extra nitrogen, but not enough to warrant the ol' chicken poo tea :-) My grass was gorgeous when I kept geese out there - I never had to mow and it was always nice and green.
Fortunately, I only have a small lawn so I don't really need that much tea for it and my neighbor's foal is still on Alfalfa so it doesn't cost me anything at all to make.

I think the BT would probably work really well on my south side rain catcher, but my north side needs the screen to keep debris from blowing into of it (mainly tumbleweeds, which seem to really be wandering around a lot in the past 2 weeks - especially with the dry winter we've had).

I have never used the mosquito pellets in the rain barrels. The screen on the barrels will not allow them in, I have it sealed pretty good. Let me know how the Alfalfa tea works out for your lawn. Ya, those tumbleweeds are something else out in open country, it's like playing dodge ball.