Ohioguy wrote:
I pay water and sewer fees on every single gallon of water I use for
my plants. I recently planted a hedge of blueberry plants, and
noticed that the house has 2 downspouts on that end, roughly 25 feet
apart.
I've never actually had rain barrels, though I did experiment with 5
gallon buckets a few years back. (a neighbor complained that he felt I
was the source of mosquitoes in the area, and he may have been right)
I'm not sure that I would have enough room to use an actual rain
barrel, since the plants are only a bit over 2' from the foundation,
and there is a chain link fence close to one end of the hedge.

I'd love to build an underground cistern that would hold 2,000
gallons of rainwater, but I think that is probably out of the question
as well, due solely to financial concerns.

Can anyone suggest a solution that might let me capture the
rainwater and use it for irrigation? Keep in mind that the row of
plants is about 25' long, the plants are between 2' and 2.5' from the
foundation, and there is a downspout at both ends of the hedge row. I was
kind of hoping I'd find solutions for this at some of the big
stores near here, in the garden sections, but so far I haven't.

Years ago, I seem to remember seeing some sort of plastic/rubber
device you could fasten to your downspout. It would inflate with
water when it rained, and then slowly release the water over a couple
of days. You could simply unroll it, like a huge hose, and put it
near the base of the plants you wanted watered. As long as the land
was relatively flat, it would work fine. I never bought one, but I
think something like that might work well. Just can't seem to think
of what it was called, and there is no guarantee they still make
anything like that, I guess.

Thanks!

Instead of capturing the water why not just distribute it better, eg a
plastic drain pipe from the downpipes along the row with holes in it. It's
cheap and doesn't make mosquito ponds.

David