Happy Earth Day! (Also — happy birthday to Sherry’s little brother, affectionately known as Almost-Doctor-Dan, and yes, there are very cute baby Clara photos over there.) To celebrate this eco-friendly holiday, we wanted to share a small neighborhood find that turned into a quick win for our garden: a rain barrel.
We’d been meaning to replace the rain barrel we built at our first house (here’s how we made the original: How To Make A Rain Barrel). We could have built another one, but we hadn’t yet signed up for a local class to get a food-safe drum. Then, while driving, we spotted a sign and pulled over to check it out.
It turned out to be Carolina Mike’s Produce Stand. Even though the stand wasn’t stocked with produce yet — he was still about a week away — Mike was friendly and helpful. The tall black barrels, previously used to transport jalapeños, were priced at $60, while the shorter blue barrels, which had held soy sauce, were $40. Both were 55-gallon drums. Interestingly, $40 matched the cost we paid to make our last barrel through a class, so we decided to buy the ready-made blue barrel and toss it in the car after a quick trip home to drop off Clara and Sherry so there would be room in the backseat.
The barrel sat in our carport for about a week while we decided where it would be most useful. We finally settled on the small fenced garden area behind our carport next to the sunroom. That space currently functions mostly as Burger’s bathroom, but we’ve got plans to remove most of the liriope and replace the thin brick path with a large stone patio accessible from the living room sliding door. We still want plant beds along the perimeter of that future patio, so placing the rain barrel near the downspout by the brick half-wall (which is actually the back of the carport) made sense.
Before installing the barrel, I checked that a watering can would fit under the spigot so the barrel wouldn’t need to be elevated on blocks. If we had built the barrel ourselves, I might have positioned the faucet lower to access more of the stored water, but our last barrel had a spigot at a similar height and didn’t develop smell or algae issues even after years of use. We can always tip the barrel forward to drain it completely if needed.
After leveling the ground where the barrel would sit and determining where to cut the downspout, I used a small hacksaw to trim the spout and fit the barrel underneath. The installation was simple: reposition the curved spout, slide the barrel into place, and secure it. The process is similar to the one we described in our original “How To Build A Rain Barrel” post, but with a lot less construction since this barrel was pre-made.
We’re still waiting for the next decent rain to put our new blue barrel to work, but it feels good to be collecting rainwater again. The bright blue color doesn’t exactly disappear into the landscape, so when we take on the larger patio project we might paint the barrel a brick red or plant around it to better conceal it — similar to how we camouflaged our utility boxes and propane tank in the past (Camouflage Rules).
For now, the barrel stands as our small, not-so-subtle Earth Day celebration. Are you in the rain barrel club, or do you have big patio plans of your own? Sherry keeps nudging me to start digging up the liriope: “Wanna go dig up some liriope? Come on, you know you want to.” It’s the adult version of “are we there yet?” — and yes, I’ll admit the 12-foot console table I built deserves a little more basking time before I pick up the shovel. But the garden won’t wait forever, so I suppose I have some digging to do.