The rain

The rain hit us really hard right at 10pm! Currently it's bright blue skies outside and cold. I was hoping the rain would continue into today, but it seems like all the fun rain comes at night when were asleep :(

The garden and the entire yard for that matter got a good soaking, which means I shouldn't have to run my drip irrigation for the next couple of weeks if we stay under the 80 degree mark.

Get ready for more rain tonight

A big storm is headed our way according to the local news reports. It should hit us with a lot of rain and wind sometime after 7pm.

I think I will cover my citrus trees with some frost cloth Sunday night since they are just now starting to burst with new growth. The new growth is what will burn really easily with a freeze. I think everything we have in the garden should be ok without covering. The broccoli and cauliflower are getting HUGE!

My make shift rain catchers to harvest rain water in the Arizona desert

Rain water harvesting in 5 gallon buckets

Here is some fun we had a few weeks back with some  extra 5 gallon buckets we had in the garden. I stuck a 5 gallon bucket under the newly installed rain gutter in the front yard about every 10 minutes. I was able to quickly fill the six buckets with rain water. This was just for fun, although it does make me want more 55 gallon drums for real rain water harvesting!

The rain from Cali is here

Looks like the rain is here tonight. It started raing hard a few hours back, but is now it is calm. I recently sold my two rain barrel set up and am now wishing I had more :) All is not lost, however, I was able to collect six 5 gallon buckets full of rain water! I have installed another section of rain gutter and was able to use the down spout from that section of gutter to fill the buckets.

Heavy fog last week

Had a lot of fog last week. Took a photo that I will post later.

Pictures of the rain in our rain barrels from the last storm

I shot a video of the small storm that hit us a while back, however, it was a little dark and hard to see all the rain in the rain barrel. Here a a few photos of the rain we were able to capture:

 This image shows the brown flex tube, (that is connected to the gutter downspout), connected and clamped to our green 4" atrium gate, which fits in the 4" opening on the top of our rain barrel lid. Since this picture was taken I have added pantyhose to cover the atrium gate so mosquitoes cannnot get inside to the water. More panty hose will cover the over flow holes as  well.

 Look at all that water in the rain barrel!!! I was able to get these pictures while there was a break in the storm. Later in the day it started to rain again, which added even more water into our newly made rain barrel. Currently it's just over half full of rain water! I can't wait to build the other rain barrels for more winter storms here in Arizona.

If you have any questions about rain barrels please ask and I'll do my best to help you out :)

Our rain barrel works and is now over half full with rain water!!!

Two days after hooking up the rain barrel we received a storm. This storm wasn't much, however it did fill up our rain barrel over half way! I will do another video showing the rain barrel and how I built it and why.

Rain barrel is now filled half way with rain water!!!

So the rain came as advertised  yesterday and it filled up our new rain barrel over half way!

I will post some video along with images soon. It's so cool to have this rain barrel working after all the work we've done. Hanging the gutters was definatly worth it. Now I just need more rain barrels, lol

Rain barrel update: Finished phase one of three

Rain barrel update:

I have finished installation of the rain gutter in location number one out of our three total locations. The gutter is hung, the down spout has been installed and the rain barrels have been placed in the proper location. I have my flexible hose attached to the gutter down spout and connected to the atrium gate which is installed upside down on top of the rain barrel  lid. I have taken some  pictures, but need to download them from my camera later to post here.

We may get some rain today as a matter of fact. Local reports are calling for later in the evening rain which will give my new rain gutters a good test run for larger storms in the future. I am excited to see the results of our rain collection device.

I will post the images soon as well as a detailed list of what is needed to accomplish what I have done here. It's really very simple and should be very rewarding!

Added alfalfa hay to the raised bed gardens

I added a couple inches of alfalfa hay to our raised garden beds yesterday. This should help with water savings as well as add some nutirents to the soil as it breaks down. I will add a few pictures in a day or two. The garden seems to be doing well. I did a foliar spray yesterday as well. I used the sameold mixture of liquid seaweed, fish emulsion and vinegar.

Also working on getting the rain gutters installed. Have not heard of any rain in the future, but I know as soon as I put it up we'll get some :) Until the next post!

Building rain barrels - Adding the hose spigot / hose bib

Had a few free minutes today so I decided to drill the hole for the hose spigot. I'll get you the exact size of the spigot I used later. Right now all I remember is that I used a 1" hole saw to make my cut out, and used teflon tape around the threads before threading the hose bib all the way into the rain barrel.

Of course when I saw a blue hose spigot you know I had to use those! It really looks good with this style hose bib. I have angled the hose bib slightly on an upward angle. This should allow me to keep the barrel on level ground,(without using any stands), and still connect a piece of hose to this hose bib without leaving that much empty space inside the bottom of my rain barrel. My plan is to not use any type of stand or base under my rain barrel and see if I can still get a hose connected without much headache. The rain barrels on stands or some type of base scare me as far as them falling over for whatever reason. If I angle my water spigot just enough, like in the photo, I think I can have my rain barrel sit on the flat dirt and still not loose much water that would settle below the spigot inside the barrel. This would also help me keep the rain barrel from standing to tall in which it will be more obvious. I'm trying to make my rain barrel very incognito and blend into the landscape :)

I also used a small amount of aquarium silicone around the hose bib in addition to the teflon tape around the threads for a water tight seal.

How to make rain barrels using food grade 55 gallon barrels

So I decided adding a few rain barrels would be a great way to reduce our use of water we have to pay for. I'll be doing this process from start to finish all the while adding pictures of the progress along with posts on idea's and such.

I am very excited to start this rain barrel project and anxious to see how much water we can collect from our Arizona rain storms.

Here is an image of my rain barrels. So far I have two, but I plan on adding a few more  in the near future. My rain barrels are food grade, 55 gallon blue plastic barrels with removable lids that secure to the top of the barrel with a metal clamp.

REMEBER:
- Always use a FOOD GRADE barrel so that you do not contaminate your rain water with chemicals that were once inside the plastic barrel.

- Removable lids are a MUST in order to clean your rain barrel properly.

I look forward to posting more progress soon. You might have rain gutters installed on your residence, I however do not. After I find the perfect place to put the rain barrel, I will have to install rain gutters on the roof. This should not be very hard, although I've never installed rain gutters before. Time consuming at the least is all.

Large puddle from rain storm in Arizona

One photo of the rain we had a couple days back. This large puddle was from five minutes of rain! The picture is blurry because I had to take the shot through the window screen.

Even more rain today!

Well the rain we had yesterday decieded to stay around today and we couldn't be more happy!

Yesterday the rain came down very cold and very hard. It left a lot of nice sized puddles, but didn't last that long. Today it was more off and on sprinkles with a few light down pours every now and then. Currently the sun is breaking through the clouds to the north, but we can always hope :)

Rain in Arizona!

The rain is here!

It started to pour about 20 minutes ago and looks like it might stay for a while. It's a cold rain too. It's a nice welcomed drop in temp that we've all been waiting for :) I'll try and post some pics in a while.

No rain after recording breaking heat

Well I thought it would be to good to be true and it was...no rain, at least where we live anyway. The news was stating that we might see some much needed rain after we went through thee days of record breaking heat, but this is Arizona, we don't get rain here :)

A couple photos from the storm that came through

Sun breaking through as it sets behind a storm cell. Arizona - Aug., 2010

A Arizona sunset while a storm is moving in. Aug. 2010

Summer storms are making the ocotillo leaf out nice!

The last monsoon that rolled through here really made our ocotillo happy. The beautiful ocotillo flowers are no longer present, but the green leaves are very impressive. Have a look:

Back from out of town

A bit of a delay in posting to the garden blog I know. We have been out of town recenlty which hasn't allowed me to post some of the images of what we wereup to before leaving. We are getting ready to pour some alfalfa tea on our plants and trees tomorrow. I have a few images of how to make the alfalfa tea which is supposed to be a great fertilizer!

We had what looks to be a lot of rain while we were gone. This is a great thing, however it hasd made the alfalfa hay and straw smell a bit ripe if oyu know what I mean, lol. It's almost time to put the alfalfa hay into the raised garden beds! I have a lot to add just as soon as we get caught up from our travels :)