"Zbox" wrote in message
om...
I'm moving into a house in the rural area and I picked up three 50
gallon plastic (clean) barrels that I would like to use to collect
rain water and then use the water to provide water to flower beds and
brushes around the house.

Hello gardening friends:

I use only rain barrels to water my flower beds. Unfortunately, I don't
have a choice. We live in a somewhat rural area. We do not have city
water. (The county has told us that we will probably never get it, not
enough houses in a mile. A mixed blessing.) We use cistern water for our
household (rain water from the roof is directed into the cistern which is a
stone lined big hole in the ground with a lid). The biggest problem with
roof water is dirt, leaves, etc. With the cistern we use a piece of
guttering which has 3 openings. The gutter pipe coming from the roof goes
in the top opening, then there is a lever type thing that directs the water
to one or the other openings. The rule is to let the rainwater run for at
least 10 minutes through the opening which goes to the ground, then turn the
lever and direct the water into the cistern. We also have a roof washer
which is a galvanized box with washed gravel and a foam filter type liner
(we invented our own and had a fabricator make it for us). Absolutely
amazing the amount of dirt.

My rain barrels for watering are the 55 gallon plastic kind, with one large
plastic tank enclosed in a galvanized exterior that used to hold soda pop
syrup. In about a year's time, I get about 6 inches of crud from
leaves/dirt/roof buildup in the bottom of the barrel, I don't use any
diverter for these barrels. I have enough of a slope from my one barrel to
water my one front bed. However, I cannot use any type of irrigation
system. The reason is that the dirt/crud clogs up all those little holes.
I get a forced relaxation because I have to use a hose and manually water
the beds, slowly. The other beds I have to carry my watering cans. When I
fertilize I have to use two 5-gallon buckets on a wagon. I add my
fertilizer to the bucket and then gravity feed the water to the bucket. It
takes a while to fill the bucket so I can use my watering can to take from
the full 5 gallon bucket while the other bucket fills.

And don't forget about mosquitoes! Those little guys appear in a matter of
hours into a water barrel. We have frogs by 2 of our barrels and they lay
their eggs and as they grow the eat the mosquitoes. The other 2 barrels
have a sunfish, or bluegill, in them. I can't figure out how, but the
bluegills survive the winter. We are in Northern Kentucky, so we can get
pretty cold and freezing. When I'm digging or just checking the flower beds
I try to find bad bugs or nightcrawlers and throw them into the barrels.

A long answer for your question. Sorry for the length. I'm not sure if I
even answered the question. ;o}

Judy