Making your own rain barrel can help you cut costs in your garden while increasing both the quantity and the quality of your produce.

Greg, over at NashVeggie, has put together a pretty nice pictorial of how to make your own rain barrel on the cheap. I’ve seen other barrels similar to his, and I’ve given considerable thought to building something a little more ambitious in my own “space challenged” garden*, so allow me to add my thoughts to his.

A problem to solve:

I’ve found that I get a dramatic boost in output IF (and only if) I never, ever, let the soil dry out. “Mid-day wilt” might be a natural response, but it is NOT the optimal response. And standing around with a watering can in my hands simply isn’t on the agenda. Not today. Not ever.

A simple water barrel, unless it is mounted way high, offers too little water pressure to power anything more automatic than a bucket. It’s not likely that I am going to use that arrangement very often. Certainly not often enough to keep the soil continuously moist. The word ‘continuously’ is the important one here. Even a few hours of wilt is damaging.

Nay-sayers Anonymous:

I can hear the nay-sayers with their nay-saying now. They are saying that allowing the soil to dry out between waterings forces deep rooting and that deep rooting is, as Martha would say, “a good thing”.

Forced deep rooting is accomplished by killing the shallow roots that the plant already had. Killing roots that the plant has already invested energy into growing doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ve found that keeping the soil continuously moist allows the deeper roots to develop, too, without the loss of the shallower roots. If the plant needs deeper roots to cope with the heat (transpiration loss), it will develop them. But stressing a tomato plant, for instance, with drought will lead to low output and blackspot (a calcium deficiency that looks hideous) on the blossom end, rendering some of the fruit that does develop unusable. It will also render every plant in your garden more vulnerable to insects and disease. Any stress will accomplish that last part and drought is as good of a candidate stress as any.

It is fine with me if, as a result of keeping the top of the soil most, the roots don’t probe more than a few inches. This is because the bulk of the bacterial action that produces the needed nutrients is in the first few inches of soil anyways. This leads to a problem, though, in that the water I apply continues to travel downward and these first few inches of soil are also the first to dry out. A weep or emitter irrigation system can keep that top layer of soil as moist – and biologically active – as the floor of the Amazon forest. I recommend the weep style of system because it is dependably reliable, very reasonably priced and very simple to install and operate. Once installed, it is an entirely passive system.

I’ve grown 14′ tall tomatoes in Michigan using this method with well over a bushel of fruit from each plant by this method. It works. Four years later, I’ve still got plenty in my pantry.

Moreover, it does not require that I be rigid in my plant spacing and layout. This is a good thing for those of us who use interplanting or rotation planting as part of our gardening techniques because, at various times in the season, the same general area may be occupied by several different plants planted in slightly different locations. With the Tyvek weep lines, I simply turn the water off for a few minutes, pull the lines from their old locations, dig a shallow trench in the new location with the corner of a hoe or the point of a triangular planting / weeding hoe, drop the lines in the trench and re-cover them.

Done. But that’s okay: that wasn’t the fun part of gardening anyway.

For each answer, a fresh question:

As you work in your garden, you are using sharp tools around delicate lines. You WILL cut them. Although the emitter lines are harder to accidentally cut into, they are also more expensive to repair. To repair the weep lines, simply clamp the supply end off with a paper clip and let the line dry while you go to a fast food restaurant to get a plastic straw. Don’t steal … pay for a small drink. For the sake of your health, make it water. Save the straw. On your return, snip off an inch or so of the straw and use masking tape to attach the cut ends near the middle of the straw. Keep track of the rest of the straw because 1) it doesn’t need to be in a landfill just yet, 2) you don’t need to be in a fast food restaurant, either and 3) summer isn’t over.

After finding a source for a suitable used barrel, which is, in my experience, the toughest part of this project, Greg says that less than $25 in parts from any decent hardware store will finish the job. My own estimate is that the out-of-pocket cost is quite likely to be under $10, as almost anyone reading this page will have some or all of the pieces already laying around, unused. For instance, he bought a ‘no kink’ hose bib. That’s fine, and it obviously works, but either raising the barrel or turning the bib sideways when mounting it will also avoid kinking the hose and, even if you have to buy ‘new’, the regular hose bibs are only about $3-4.00 in Detroit. You’ll notice that Greg is going to have you raise the barrel after all … so why not buy the cheapest valve you can find with the right threads? You may even have a hose bib sitting around in your ‘junk box’ of plumbing parts. Over time, most of us develop a box or two like this … stuff that still works, pulled in the process of fixing something else that really was broke. Too good to toss – but with no immediate use – they collect in boxes patiently awaiting a moment of inspiration or even of desperation. I could probably get everything else he mentions for around $5 new. With the exception of the O rings, however, they don’t need to be new and there are ways other than using an O ring to seal the hole. In fact, the other methods, such as applying a liberal shot of silicone adhesive, might actually be preferable, since the washers he uses will not have a retention groove machined in them to capture the O rings. Just wet an old rag (or fingertip!) with water and wipe away any excess adhesive after the parts are tightened and you’ll end up with a very neat job.

This is, after all, ‘just a water barrel’ and probably not the centerpiece of your home or garden.

Your mileage may vary, but small deviations from his design are probably worth giving some thought to. He used, for instance, a PVC pipe fitting on the inside of the barrel. From a corrosion standpoint, this might make some sense, but, since the plastic barrel is going to degrade in the UV light found outdoors, I honestly don’t see the barrel lasting long enough for the corrosion resistance to matter. Use, if you wish, a pipe fitting made of iron pipe. Iron helps keep your plants green and iron from plants helps keep you healthy, so a little regular corrosion would actually be to your benefit.

You can ‘customize’ his idea by adding a drip or weep irrigation system powered by the tank. (That’s not an affiliate link … I just like the product.) If you do this, make certain to raise the tank several feet to insure that gravity will supply enough pressure to keep the lines pressurized. The top of the water needs to be at least 7′ above the surface of the garden in order to give at least 3 psi at the soil level. A 2×4 or 4×4 stand should prove more than adequate if you have at least rudimentary carpentry and design skills. Keep in mind that a gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds. Thus, 50 gallons is going to weigh about 400 pounds. For this reason, make the support sturdy with a firm foundation. If the soil beneath it is on the sandy side, you might want to spread the weight around by putting it on a stone bed or some sort of concrete / concrete block foundation.

Think about it:

With a little thought (and either a toilet or stock tank fill valve & float) you should be able to keep some water in the tank at all times but allow the rain water to improve matters. Tap a garden hose into the toilet float valve and place the float valve near the bottom of the tank in a manner similar to how Greg illustrates for sealing his hose bib. As discussed below, the actual height might be a bit fiddly.

The float valve will keep ‘some’ water in the tank at all times (enough to power the irrigation system) but the rain water will fill all the space above the float with chlorine-free / nutrient rich water. Keep in mind that the level of the “some” water will need to be 7ft. higher than the garden soil. Adjust the float so that the valve opens at this level and all will be fine. This is the ‘fiddly’ part, made somewhat more challenging by the fact that most of us live in single-story homes and our gutters are not much more than 7′ above the ground.

If you live where winters result in freezing temperatures, don’t forget to completely drain the whole system in the fall and to divert the water from the downspout away from the water tank until the weather is reliably warm next spring.

If you buried the weep tape (shielding it from UV rays while reducing evaporation loss) you can also store it, loosely coiled, indoors and get a second year from it. Don’t plan on re-using it if you left it outdoors all winter or if you didn’t shield it during its first summer.

The nicest thing about a watering arrangement such as this is that you can walk away from the garden for a vacation trip and know that the garden will not only survive, but flourish. If you are also a mulching ninja, even the weeds will still be under control when you return.

*I can’t actually implement those thoughts until I’ve had a chance to dig up the drain line from my house that runs under my garden — but is plugged by tree roots from the neighbors elm tree.

With the economic situation what it is, likely there are many first-time or returning gardeners searching the internet for tips this year. That is good. But there are many sites that are long on eye-candy and conjecture and short on facts.

1) Many sites will refer to compost as ‘fertilizer’. While most of my readers know better, new gardeners might get hood-winked. With an NPK macro-nutrient rating of 1-1-1, “fertilizer” is the worst of all possible reasons for using compost. Although the actual values will vary somewhat from batch to batch, compost will NOT ‘shock’ your plants into incredible growth spurts like the bagged and commercially-hyped stuff will. Moreover, some of these sites will try to sell you some compound or other for making ‘super compost’. Ain’t no such thing. Stuff rots. Compost happens. The formula for a healthy compost pile is simple … and free. Water and air along with a 50:50 mix (by volume) of nitrogen-bearing material such as kitchen or garden refuse and any manures you might have access to and carbon-bearing material such as dried tree leaves or straw. Add enough water to make the whole thing fairly moist, toss so as to mix things up pretty well and walk away.

2) Compost is an excellent source of minerals and trace nutrients. These are needed for the major nutrients (usually present in the soil and air in sufficient quantities) to work. The neat part about it is that all of these nutrients are available in a very complex and precise ratio with no effort on our part. The trees, grasses, manures, and other plants that went into the compost already did the mixing for us, having drawn from the ground precisely what they needed … and nothing more. As they decay, they release these micronutrients again and, voila! compost!

3) Many sites will tell you not to use (fill in the blank) type of manure in your compost. These sites are full of (fill in the blank). Don’t use any manures directly in your garden; that is, don’t just toss a shovel full of cat turds on top of the soil. DO include them in your compost.* DO work them into the soil if you can completely cover them to a depth of an inch or more. Nature has effective means to deal with pathogens or mankind would have become extinct a LONG time ago. The idea in organic gardening is to work alongside the mechanisms of nature synergistically. Figure out how nature is handling things and, when beneficial, ‘turn up the volume’.

4) DO make compost and DO add it to your soil. It will work wonders for it, no matter what type of soil you have. It will loosen clay soils, bind sandy soils and will cause your drainage to become right in both cases. If, by some chance, you are able to make more than you can work into your soil, apply it as a mulch in a layer at least two inches and preferably 4 inches (5 to 10 cm) thick.

5) DO read up on compost. Get a sense of how to do it right. Then get out in your backyard and make some. Then make some more. It may take several batches before you get it just right. But that day will come and you will never look back.

6) There are a lot of ways to make compost and only a couple of them call for an obvious above-ground pile. Possibly the above ground method is not the best one for your circumstance. For instance, nosy neighbors might object to what looks like a pile of garbage in your backyard, but they wouldn’t think twice if they saw you layering straw over the ground (especially if they didn’t see you spreading out garbage and manure beforehand). The neighbors and the police are unlikely to say a word if you dig post holes during the day (and fill them with kitchen scraps, straw, grass clippings and leaves at night). There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. Find the one that works best for you.

7) DO invest in a compost thermometer if you are going to use the above ground pile methods. A good one with a 20” stem and an analog dial is roughly $20 mail order. It will last for years and, among other things, tells you if the compost pile is getting hot enough and alert you to when to turn it by letting you know when it has begun to cool off. If you turn too often, the pile won’t reach its peak temperature of 160F but if you turn too seldom, the outside layers will lose their nitrogen before they get a chance to heat up, too.

DO plant more than you think you’ll be able to eat. The critters will take some, the neighbors will appreciate your largess. ALSO plan on preserving much of what you grow … it won’t be harvest time all year.

9) Many years ago the USDA determined that a quart of home-canned vegetables or fruit cost (are you ready?) just 10 cents from planting the seed to the table. Ten cents! Using organic methods, my wife and I normally grow food that we value at over $4,000 (compared to in-season grocery store prices) from only 240 sq. ft. in our backyard. We are out the price of the seed / plants, the water and some perspiration in the spring and fall. During the summer, a few minutes in the morning, coffee cup in hand, is enough to keep the weeds down.

10) Although, as I stated in item (1) above, compost will not shock your soil into record production, it does something else even more valuable. It builds up the soil, while the commercial preparations deplete it. When a soil is converted from chemical farming to organic farming, the first year sees yields drop sharply. The second year, there is some improvement. By the third year, the organic output matches the chemical output. That’s where most of the studies of the process, funded by the chemical companies, end. In the fourth year … and every year after that … the organic soils out-produce the chemical soils. I have a 10 ft trellis in each of my garden beds. I’ve picked tomatoes, ripe tomatoes, 11 feet up in the air. I live in Michigan, so that was no ‘long season’ stunt. We’ve got about 6 good months to grow vegetables and a couple of ‘iffy’ ones. I garden organically.

If you want to know the REAL ins and outs of composting, there are lots of books you can read and I’ll list a couple of them below. But if you are really curious about what happens in a compost pile, I can recommend no better volume than The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, Third Edition by Joe Jenkins. Don’t let the title put you off – the guy not only knows his stuff, he documents it and presents it in such a way that you’ll know your stuff, too, when you’ve finished reading it.

Be safe. Have fun. Eat well. – Bill

*Cat turds can pass parasites to humans. While this is a rare occurrence, if you have any doubts about how well a particular compost pile containing them did, allow it to sit for a year. The additional exposure to temperature extremes will work wonders.

Sometimes my meat-eating friends like to yank my chain about how hard (they think) it is to grow my own food instead of just toddling off to the supermarket “like a good little Nazi consumer”. Has that ever happened to you?

Well, nothing speaks louder than facts.

According to the FSIS (Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA) between January 3, 2011 and April 1, 2011 – a span of under 90 days – there were 28 separate recalls of meat-based food products for everything from mislabeling (“undeclared ingredients” Rat droppings?) to blatant adulteration to listeria, salmonella and staphylococcus contamination. (Note that recalls fall off this page as they are completed. You can find the rest of them for this time frame in their archives. This is an average of about one every third day and only reflects the “mistakes” that got caught.

I know that this is indelicate to mention, but have you ever gone straight from the restaurant to the bathroom? Don’t be embarrassed; at one time or the other, most of us have. Unless we’ve consumed a copious amount of greasy food, quaffed an excess of ale, or have an eating disorder, that’s usually a sign that the food we ate poisoned us and our bodies are trying to defend themselves. When you hear of people getting sick on food, think of that as a recall that should have happened, but didn’t. FSIS tries hard, but they’re stretched thin.

In nearly 20 years of growing and canning my own produce, not once has anything I’ve grown made anyone ill. Not my tomato products (sauce, catsup, juiced, stewed and whole), not my green beans, not my relishes, not my soup stocks … the list could go on and on, but I think I’ve made my point. Not once in 20 years has there been any reason to fear the jars that line the shelves in my basement.

Unhappily, I wasn’t able to garden the past two summers, so I ran out of a couple things this winter. Usually there are about 400 quarts of good, wholesome, food on my basement shelves when fall rolls around.

But, hey, I’m only an amateur … what do I know?

I can home-can my own produce … I know that much. I grew up in a family that canned … our backyard, whether a subdivision lot or an entire acre, was always about 2/3 garden. So for roughly the past 20 years, I’ve nearly always had a garden – and canned. Whenever I actually owned the soil, that garden has always been organic. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The first summer after we got married, I introduced my wife to canning. To be honest, she wasn’t all that thrilled. She thought of the garden as my hobby, so she wasn’t especially happy when I picked the first heaping bushel of beans and brought them to her to string and snap. I told her to “look busy … there was another bushel still on the vines and these needed to be canned before I could pick them”.  It was early afternoon and we didn’t get the whole bushel done that evening, but we did finish it the next day, when I also picked the next bushel. We no sooner got that first couple bushels of beans canned up than the tomatoes started coming hot and heavy. We made a lot of juice that year – 106 quarts, if I recall correctly, another 80 quarts of green beans and two dozen jars of jam.

If you done it, it ain’t bragging. – Walt Whitman

That’s the way the rest of the summer went. We gave a little to neighbors. We gave a lot to any of our friends who would come and pick for themselves. (If I sow it, grow it, pick it and can it, I’m darn sure going to eat it, too.) We slipped bags of produce onto the porches of people we knew who needed a little extra help. We ate some fresh. But, mostly, we canned.

Then, early in the winter, she got a taste of her home-canned green beans and tomato juice. From that moment on, she’s been hooked.

Yesterday, in a drizzle, she carried some banana peels back to the compost pile. She’s no fool … she wouldn’t do that if there wasn’t a pretty good pay-off attached. As a result of an auto accident, she’s got a bum shoulder and won’t be able to help much in the garden this summer, but she’s already begun doing what she can.

It’s really very simple.

If you are canning high-acid foods such as tomatoes and a few others, you can get by with a boiling water bath, jars (regular or wide-mouth), lids & rings and the wire rack to hold the jars off the bottom of the pot. (The wire rack comes with a new BWB pot. To adapt a pot you already own, you can buy the rack separately.) Grow heirloom varieties and there will be no need to worry about the acid content of your tomatoes – it will be plenty high. If you’ve grown hybrids or bought field grown tomatoes and don’t know what sort of tomatoes you actually have, add acid in the form of lemon juice or vitamin C (ascorbic acid, available as a powder).

If there are elderly people among your family or friends, ask around and you may not have to buy much to get started. Only the flat part of the lids has to be new – the rest can be old as the dirt the garden was grown in so long as the BWB doesn’t leak, the pressure canner will hold pressure, the jars are sound without nicks and the jar rings aren’t too rusty to use (so long as they will draw the lid down tightly, they are still okay to use). Note that the ring doesn’t have to remain on the jar after it seals. It can be removed, cleaned and dried. If you’ll do this, it will last a very long time.

Freecycle.org might also be a source for used canning equipment … although you’ll also need to have something to give … an old bicycle, some Herb Alpert cassette tapes, 1960’s dance lessons … something of value so that you are not simply a taker, but part of the overall community. People who are donating canning supplies might also be willing to help you learn the craft … kindred soul to kindred soul. Start by asking for a few tips and see where things go from there.

If you are canning anything that is not naturally acidic, you’ll probably need to invest in a pressure canner. This will set you back some serious coin, but less than a good cell phone / PDA. Moreover, unlike a Crackberry, it is a lifetime investment. Other than that, the tools you used for the high-acid foods will all serve double duty with the low-acid foods. I prefer the kind of pressure canner with a weight that slips over the steam vent. When it starts to rattle like crazy, reduce the heat slightly to produce a steady rattle and set your timer. When the timer goes off, turn off the heat and walk away for a while. The steam canner will not allow you to open it until it’s safe to do so. So, once the steam stops coming out of the top vent, take the weight off (wrap it in a towel to protect your hand from the steam that may escape … steam scalds!) and wait for the last of the steam to escape. Give the lid a wiggle, or undo the turn bolts, and it should turn right off.

There are also pressure canners with a dial pressure gauge. In fact, most current production models have them. I guess I just grew up around the sort with a weight and am more comfortable using them.

Is it worth the effort?

You can’t buy cantaloupe jam just everywhere, but you can make it. You don’t have to grow the cantaloupe … just keep your eye out for an in-season price dip. Grapefruit jam is simple and tasty. You can add any blend of citrus you like and play with the amount of sugar you use to get the tartness ‘just so’. Marmalades and conserves like you’ve never known will simply fly out of your canner once you get the knack of things. Really, you can make the jam for a whole year for your family in an afternoon or two for a small fraction of its cost in the stores.  By your second batch, you’ll be a pro. Well, maybe the third. It will be the stuff of legend … no kidding! The neighborhood kids will think you’re awesome and the cranky old woman across the street will start to wave. Once in a while, at least.

If you are thinking in terms of ‘survivalism’, note that you can preserve not only foods (with sufficient liquid to cook them already in the jar), but also sterilize your own water. When canned up in glass, there is no fear of chemicals leaching, as there is with plastic jugs. And you can do both inexpensively. When you cook up a pot of beans for the family, use the largest pot you have and make way too many … then can the excess (use your pressure canner). In fact, this tactic works for any soup. There is very little that will survive 40 minutes in a pressure canner set for 10# pressure.

Little House on the Prairie redux?

I need to emphasize something I haven’t mentioned yet. A person with gardening and canning skills is less at the mercy of layoffs, power outages and so on than a person who hasn’t learned these skills. It is easier for us to set aside a healthy reserve of food and water. It’s easier to look for a job when your stomach isn’t rumbling and not having to buy food (indefinitely, if you wish) is one less financial burden when things get tight, as they have for uncounted millions around the world.

If you are reading this, you still have internet access. So does my son, although, even though he is working two jobs, he gets his internet at the library. Life takes funny bounces and sometimes it takes a while to work through them. It’s easier to work things out in your life if hunger isn’t part of the picture.

So, get a good canning guide. The Kerr or Ball Blue Book home canning guides are well-respected and experience proven (I recommend both because of the variation in recipes) or just look to the USDA for guidance. Don’t ‘wing it’ until you’ve gained some experience. That’s what puts people in the hospital … or worse.

Then, just get started. You can laugh at the nay-sayers over dinner.

As you may already know, quite some time ago I posted an article on an easy to assemble and inexpensive hoop house. Hoop houses are distinguished by their use of PVC pipe as supporting members and polyethylene film for glazing. While their width is constrained by the expected roof and wind loads, their length is principally constrained only by ambition, space and expense. Depending on their location, they may also require ancillary heating but, with double glazing, much or all of this can be provided simply by housing an active compost pile.

This time I’m going to point you toward a geodesic dome construction. Geodesic domes are inherently stronger for a given volume of enclosed space, but are a bit more complicated to erect. A well-built geodesic dome will shrug off a wind or snow load that would utterly collapse a hoop house, moreover, its strength is relatively uniform no matter which direction the wind arrives from.

The geodesic dome I am pointing you to was apparently purchased as a kit; so much of the difficult brain work with compound angles and such had already been done. This puts this complicated structure soundly within reach of a determined amateur.

Hoop houses can be enlarged simply by adding to either end and a geodesic dome can be enlarged by tacking an additional dome on in any direction (basically, any point in its construction can serve as an attachment point). Thus, if growth is anticipated, a geodesic dome design may prove to be the better use of available real-estate, while the hoop house may prove to be the short-term better use of funds.

– Bill

(Revised 2/26/09)

If you’ve never started a garden from seed, you’re in for a treat … if you do it right.

Here are a handful of links and some useful commentary to help you do it right.

The first thing you need to know (to a reasonable degree of certainty) is the last frost date in your location. While the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAH) keeps the detailed records, you’ll probably find that this list, at Victory Seeds, works well enough for your needs. I don’t have any financial association with them but, since they had already did the grunt work with the tables from NOAH, why not give them the credit?

Then, when you’ve got that handled, head on over to Little House in the Suburbs for a little calendar / planner to help you use those dates you got from Victory Seeds.

If you don’t already have seed catalogs filling your mail box, surf on over to Jungs Seeds and Plants, Hirts Greenhouse or Totally Tomatoes and either order the seeds and plants directly or at least get your name in the hat for their catalogs. Hirts claims to have the world’s hottest pepper, the Bhut Jolokia.

A few years ago I made the mistake of handling a number of habaneros with bare hands. I will NEVER, EVER repeat that mistake again. At well over 1,000,000 Scoville units, the Bhut Jolokia blows the Habs away. It deserves to be handled with extraordinary care.

In the past, planting a few extremely hot peppers scattered through my garden has seemed to repel a number of bugs. Apparently they know to avoid the aroma and having the hot peppers interspersed with the other plants makes the whole area smell ‘off limits’. I have seen exactly ONE bite taken from a habanero leaf. The Bhut Jolokia is pretty expensive … a show-off plant. But a dozen habaneros (or similar) would not be terribly expensive and could well pay for themselves via produce saved from bugs.

I would encourage you to give extra preference to open-pollinated and heirloom varieties. These do not fall under plant patent protection and will generally breed true … allowing you to save seed from one year to the next. You may need to select for disease or pest resistance if such are not controllable through other means (and they usually are – see the tip about hot peppers above), but the hybrid plants or seeds that you buy will not breed true the following year – if they will sprout at all.

Avoid GMO seeds and plants at all costs. Pandora’s box is being opened by the seed companies in a bid to monopolize all food production everywhere. (When their plants breed with your plants, your seeds end up carrying the patented genes added by their pollen. You, then, are held to have violated their patent on that gene. Is this unfair? ABSOLUTELY. But it is the way the law works.)

If you’ve got a favorite seed or plant vendor and I haven’t mentioned them, why not pass the word via a comment below? When we’ve collected enough to make things interesting (a dozen or so), I’ll create a list as a permanent page.