On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 12:15:24 -0400, "JNJ" wrote:

I'm curious to know how some others are using
gardening/landscaping/horticulture to further energy conservation. Of
course, planting a tree to shade a house is one way but what else have
others found gives a beneficial impact?

I divert all the house rain gutters to rain barrels for garden water
and it keeps the electric bill down (we have an electric pump to a
private well). Just 3/4 inches of rain can fill each of 3 40-gallon
trash barrels. The water isn't pretty so it only goes to the garden
and peach tree. Any excess runs over the barrel and into irrigation
ditches which I dug into the garden. Last year we had a drought,
about one small thunderstorm every 3 to 4 weeks...so every drop
counted.

The rain barrels are covered with a 1/2" thick wood plate, with a
8"dia hole drilled in the center. The hole is covered with two layers
of window-screening to keep out mosquitos, then covered with a single
1/2" hardware cloth to keep mice from chewing out the screening. It
has worked extremely well the past 6 months in keeping pests out of
the water, although in once occurrence I left the barrel open for 5
minutes and a mouse got in.

Dan