As we enter the 2024 growing season in Shenandoah, Iowa, we realize that providing water to our garden is going to be more important than ever.
Since our garden is several blocks from our house, we don't actually have any sort of water hookup on site. From the very start we have had to haul water from our house to the garden. In fact, during our first year gardening, we would put five gallon buckets full of water in the trunk of our Honda Civic and drive them to the garden.
Since that time, we have purchased a pickup truck which makes hauling water so much easier. We often are loading up multiple five-gallon buckets full of water into the back of the truck and driving it to our garden. We then use watering cans to water the plants in the garden.
Using city water to water your garden can get quite expensive quickly. Adding to that, our city is currently implementing some water restrictions. While these restriction have not yet had a direct impact on us, they could soon.
A few years ago, we set up a rain barrel at our house. It has given us access to "free" water which we haul to our garden. We have considered adding some sort of water catchment closer to the garden, but we don't have any buildings or surface we could easily use set up at this time. There are plenty of options out there, but they all take time and/or money to implement well.
Feel free to share in the comments if you have any ideas we might be able to use to either capture more water or conserve the water we already have. For now, we are strongly considering adding another rain barrel to our current setup at the house.
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