In
case you weren't aware yet, collecting water runoff in a rain barrel is
an eco-friendly way to prevent erosion and provide a water supply for
your outdoor needs. I first started considering a rain barrel when I moved into my house,
but after thinking about the amount of water I spend on my lawn and
gardens (none), I decided a rain barrel probably wouldn't be the most
worthwhile investment. Last spring, that all changed when I planted some
seeds in the backyard and had to water them a handful of times. This
got me to thinking that maybe a rain barrel wouldn't be such a bad idea
after all.
The
timing was perfect. That summer, I learned that if I installed a rain
barrel outside my home, Prince George's County would reimburse me the
cost of the rain barrel, as part of the Rain Check Rebate
program. If the rain barrel cost me nothing, well, that was a horse of a
different color! At minimum, it would create at least one spot in my
yard where the gutters don't run directly into the ground next to the
foundation. So I bought and installed a rain barrel.
A
lot of time passed. Summer turned to fall, fall turned to winter, the
water in the rain barrel alternately iced up and overflowed out the
overflow hose (right into the ground next to the foundation, SMH), and I
still hadn't used a drop of the water I collected. I needed to step up
my rain game.
Other
than watering the plants in my landscape (of which there are few, and
which I have very little interest in watering after their planting day),
the first use I came up with for the rain barrel was to hose off my
bike after riding it home in messy weather. For this, I tried to use the
garden hose I already have attached to the front yard spigot, but it
was too long and too high off the ground to produce enough
gravity-powered pressure to blast the gunk off the bike. So I was
obliged to purchase a hose, naturally the cheapest one I could find: a
15-dollar spiral hose that also failed to produce enough pressure to
blast the gunk off my bike (I should have expected that, but optimism
won over my tenuous grasp of hydraulic flow). Oh, well, at least I now
have a hose for watering the plants in my landscape, should I suddenly
develop a passion for gardening and a boatload of patience (watering a
single plant takes forever with the trickle that comes out of the hose).
The
second use I came up with for the rain barrel was to source the water I
use on my houseplants. Unlike my lawn and yard, my houseplants are
cared for more or less faithfully, and as they continue to grow in
number, I need increasingly large vessels to water all of them
efficiently. For the past several months, I've been using my boyfriend's
beloved VitaMix blender cup, as it's the largest easily poured
container in the house, and it's always sitting conveniently on the
counter.
However,
the first time I used the rain-barrel water for my indoor plants, I
realized I needed another container. As I watched the water flow out
from the spigot labeled "non-potable," I realized I probably shouldn't
be using a food preparation vessel to haul around water of questionable
purity. Of course, I washed the blender cup thoroughly after that, but
as if to remind me that the water from the rain barrel was just about as
sketchy as water can be, my Norfolk Island Pine sprouted a magnificent
garden of neon yellow fungus just a few days after watering.
That's not the kind of mushroom I want touching my kitchen equipment, so I vowed not to water the plants with the Vitamix any more.
But
what to use, then? A sensible person would advise me to use a watering
can, but I have never owned a watering can in my adult life, and I've
never even run across one on Freecycle or at the thrift store. They must
be the kind of thing that once you have, it's til death do you part.
But my conscience (scientifically proven to be one part Extreme
Cheapskate, one part Tree Hugger) wasn't really too keen on the idea of
buying one new. Watering cans are outrageously expensive, apparently
starting out at well over 10 dollars for a decent size. For something
whose basic purpose is just to carry a couple liters of fluid, they seem
exorbitantly priced compared to, say, a 2-liter bottle of soda, which
can be less than a dollar in the right stores, and already comes with the fluid in it!
The
compulsive crafter in me tried to devise a clever solution that I could
construct from, say, a gallon milk bottle or one of the aforementioned
2-liters of soda, but ultimately, I decided I really wanted a watering
can. I needed something with a spout that could get down to the base of
my plants without spilling on the leaves (and thence to the floor, as
such things go), that was sturdy enough not to collapse no matter what
part of it I held onto, and that was graceful enough that I could
maneuver it around my window fence
without spilling or stabbing myself on a cactus. I needed an
honest-to-goodness watering can, and I needed one now, before my plants
dried out and I was forced to load up the Vitamix with fungus spores
again. Finally, I acknowledged that, barring a miracle (perhaps a rain
of watering cans instead of water?) I was going to need to pay money for this new necessity.
And
this is when the other half of my conscience revved into action—the
tree-hugging one. After reading a lot of recent news about the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch, I'm more depressed about the environment than
ever, and, consequently, trying extra-hard to avoid buying new things
made out of plastic. But sakes alive! All the steel watering cans out
there are like 3 times the price of an equivalently sized plastic
one...and the plastic ones are already exorbitantly priced, as I might
have mentioned. I decided to search for a watering can made of recycled
plastic, and I found one—one of the cheapest cans of its size, even, and
made in the USA! Wow! Practically everything an ethical miser could
ever want! I put it in my Amazon cart, and when I came back to make my
purchase the next day, I found an even cheaper version of the same can!
So, for 9.63$ (3 times as much as I'd originally hoped to have to pay,
but less than I'd resigned myself to paying), I had a watering can of my
very own.
When
it arrived at my doorstep, I took it out of the box and was instantly
worried because it looked smaller than the blender cup, and I'd really
been hoping for an upgrade. But once I filled it with water, it became
clear that looks are deceiving. It held as much as the Vitamix, and then
some! I watered half my plants, did not stab myself with a cactus, and
considered the whole endeavor a success. The can even makes an
acceptable addition to my decor!
