Many hobby gardeners are afraid that the costs of watering will get to them. Why don't you just use rainwater?
Nobody can predict what the weather will be like in summer. Sometimes it rains like cats and dogs, then another dry period follows. The fact is, your garden needs consistent watering. Neither the vegetable garden nor the lawn like long dry periods. But there are two ways you can water your garden with little effort and almost free of charge. The magic word is collecting rainwater and dosing it cleverly.
Watering with expensive water from the tap is a thing of the past if you use the rainwater that is already there properly. To do this, collect the rainwater in appropriate containers (rain barrel), a purchase that will quickly pay for itself. This water is much he althier for your plants anyway, since it is not calcareous. In addition, the water is returned to the natural cycle.
Collect rainwater in the rain barrel
The simplest and most common form of collecting rainwater is the rain barrel. Nowadays, a bin does not have to be big and ugly and make an ugly picture in the garden. There are now water butts in a wide variety of shapes and colors, so you can skilfully fit them into the garden picture.
Since the rain barrel is in most cases directly under the gutter, the size always depends to a certain extent on the roof area. If this is larger, then you must also use a correspondingly large container. Rain barrels that cannot catch all the rainwater are a waste, because the excess water flows next to it and sometimes even causes waterlogging.
Collect rainwater in (underground) water tank
Another way to collect and use rainwater in the garden is to set up a water tank. These "colossi" often hold several thousand liters and are therefore really only recommended for large gardens.
My tip: sink the water tank into the ground and let the rainwater in from the house roof.
If two garden plots are close together, it can also be worth making a deal with the neighbor. The acquisition costs for the water tank are shared, as is the collected rainwater. ThatThe practical features of water tanks are the integrated pumps and devices, which save you having to lug around watering cans.
But cisterns or water tanks without an integrated pump can easily be retrofitted with an external rainwater pump.