I'm in Cambridge MA, and starting to research watering 3rd season native garden with rain barrels and soaker hoses.
This vid makes it seem like above and beyond diverter, cinder blocks, a water filter and special soaker hoses are needed. Are all these extras really needed?
https://youtu.be/aH3ZZiHMMQ0?si=SFY8O-ENUK498PVh
by oanamemoir
2 Comments
You need some way to channel water into the barrels; I just cut my downspout and added a flex thingy to get 100% water capture (my downspout was on a driveway so wanted to avoid runoff). The higher you can elevate the barrel the better (higher = more water pressure). I jammed a cheap styrofoam gutter guard section into my flex pipe as a filter. The filter prevents debris from clogging your rain barrel so I wouldn’t skip it. You don’t have to use a soaker hose if you don’t want to but if you do I think you need a special kind designed for low water pressure.
We have rain barrels that either:
1. Get water from a downspout directly (with a screen in between so larger debris doesn’t get in the barrel, and insects can’t hatch in there, with a separate overflow pipe.
2. Uses a flexible pipe connection to a diverter installed in the downspout, so any overflow goes down the downspout.
The barrels are up on a platform of treated lumber on cinderblocks, so we can put a watering can under the spigot at the bottom of the barrel.
I suppose we could connect a hose to the barrels, too, but we aren’t growing anything that needs that level of saturation.