Making A Rain Barrel

Back in the 1970's, my grandfather had a simple rain barrel connected to the gutters on his house which he would use to collect water for the vegetable garden. It was simple in the sense that it was a 50 gallon metal drum with a wooden board over the top. The rain gutter simply emptied into the barrel and the barrel was allowed to simply overflow when full. Using the water in the barrel was a matter of removing the top and dipping a watering can in the water.

I recently came across this video on youtube.com on how to make a rain barrel from scratch:

How to Build a Rain Barrel

and here is a video from a company which sells ready made rain barrels and / or the parts you would need to build one:

Aquabarrel.com

both of which are a lot more sophisticated than what my grandfather had.

While I don't at all mind watering the vegetable garden, as this will eventually be eaten as food, I've always been reluctant to water the lawn as frequently as it needs it as using all that water just to keep a lawn green seemed wasteful. The rain barrel seems like a good solution to keeping the lawn green during the summer and the initial start up per barrel cost that is only slightly higher than my quarterly water bill.