Rain barrels collect rainfall and store it, so that it can be used later.
There are 3 main components – The roof, the barrel, and the hose. These are not always a roof, barrel, and hose, but those functions will be present in almost every system (collection, storage, and output).
A very common setup is to place barrels under gutters and fill watering cans with the water as needed. This system will use a small awning as the roof (the gardens and barrels are located a bit away from the house), a barrel for each garden bed, and a soaker hose that runs into each bed from the barrel. Here’s how we made the barrels…
