Jason Nault

We grow quite a mix of things including a lot of flowers. We can and freeze dry a lot of it. 2024 we got 27 quarts of pasta sauce, 15 pints of salsa, 20 lbs of sting beans and at least 30 lbs of cherry tomatoes. Also 60 or so heads of garlic and lots of other stuff I'm not remembering. We're making some changes this year to the "upper" grow space. The row space will be converted to blueberry bushes, the main isle will get another tunnel for growing kiwi fruits.

Due to the massive cyclone we got late in 2024 we have to replace one of the pear trees and a couple sections of fence that were taken out by a fallen tree. Thankfully we lost no structures as our neighbors did. The housing development 1/4 mile south of us has over 100 homes that aren't inhabitable. We lost 4 trees that were over 125 ft tall that blocked us on our street for 2 days, with no power or water for 6 days. After a month of hard work the property is about 50% cleaned up, there are still 7 down trees to clear but they aren't in the way of anything so not in a hurry. During the night (without saying anything until later) we both wrote off the green house thinking, "well there is the insurance claim for the storm" and that by morning it would be a pile of broken metal and glass. Falling trees shook the house all night and some how against the odds there wasn't a crack in the greenhouse the next morning!

My wife is already planning out the garden for next hear, here's to the 2025 garden season!

The tanks i have are a lot thicker than a plastic water bottle (like 100x) and are made with UV stabilized polyethylene.

Gina Rann wrote:Then why are rainwater tanks made out of polythene?

Hope you all had a great summer and good winter so far, seeds are germinating and  the rainwater tanks are filling as I type this, spring is coming! No changes to the systems this year. We had a concrete sidewalk poured from the driveway to the garden entrance so I will be building proper gates for the entrance and maybe another tunnel to grow on. The area outside the entrance will be landscaped, irrigated and lit up soon, need to get some soil to build up that space. Here are a few pics from last summer, anxious to see what the wife grows this year!


The rows and some of the dwarf fruit trees are planted and now fully irrigated including a hydrant for manual watering


An overhead view of the whole garden, the water tanks are on your left and the new area we just added with the orchard is to the right.


The little shed has been invaluable, so nice to keep everything close to where it gets used


Lots of bees and butterflies this year!

It will be fine from the bottom as long as the height of the source is higher than the top of the waterline in the hot tub.

Sounds like an awesome project and very similar to what we built, view the build thread here if you want for reference.  We learned that getting the largest containers you can find is a lot better than many smaller ones, less connections means less points of potential failure.  We ended up with 6 x 2500 gallon black poly tanks for 15,000 total.  The tanks weren't cheap, $1100 each, but the shipping was brutal.  If you look around, you may be surprised to find a manufacturer or distributer of tanks close to you, This gets our garden and landscaping through the dry summer months here.  Also, I am a little concerned about your pump choice.  If it was moving water a shorter distance I think it would be fine but that is a long distance to run a 12v pump. The filters will slow the flow a bit plus if you have any elevation change that will effect it as well. Do you have any AC power at all? Maybe from a solar system with an inverter?

Cameron Green wrote:Good morning, I am designing a rain catchment system at my off grid cabin in the mountains of Oklahoma.  I am building a 24 X 48 foot garage/shop.  The structure will be 24 x 28 with 10 foot overhangs on each side and will have a North /South roof peak orientation.  I plan on putting in multiple food grade dark resin containers that will be connected at the bottom allowing rain water to fill each of them with a single entry point.  The tanks will be in one of the 10 foot overhang areas and should allow me to collect roughly 30,000 gallons per year.  My question is does anyone have a good source for containers and the attachments I will need to hook everything up?  I've seen pictures of gutter connectors that screen out or remove things like leaves and pine needles.  I plan on using a tractor sprayer 12 volt pump that can move 2.2 gallons per minute at 100 psi to move water through the filters ( I plan on having in the shop) to the off-grid cabin which is 40 yards away.  If readers believe there is a better way of doing this please let me know.

Thank you for your time and the sharing of your experience.

That's what we did, we have 6 x 2500 gallon tanks.

Dan Fish wrote:I need more storage. What is the cheapest route I can go to store about 6000 gallons? It would have to be above ground or at best extending 3-4 feet below grade. Is the answer just big plastic tanks?

I just figured while we are all here....

We actually upgraded our system to 15000 gallons this spring and this being a dryer winter for us we never even got them filled this spring, only made it to about 3/4, if we were drinking this we might be in trouble.  The dry season last year lasted about 1 month longer than normal so 7500 wasn't enough for the garden to get through the dry season, this motivated us to add more storage.  3000 wouldn't begin to be enough.

Stacy Witscher wrote:I agree with Jason Nault. 3000 gallons is unlikely to handle all of your families needs through the west coast dry period if you are relying on this for all of your water needs. Are you urban/suburban or rural? We are interested in adding more rainwater collection because well water isn't permitted for irrigation purposes except a small 1/2 acre amount and not at all for commercial purposes. At little more information might be useful. Generally speaking to store water costs about $1 a gallon.

Solar for pumps is tricky, they use quite a bit of electricity and it's variable based on the head distance you are trying to pump.  I have set up a few solar installations including our entire 1400 sqft lake house and pumping water uses the most power out of anything we do.  

A 12v pump would be where I'd start, then size a solar panel accordingly.  Then add the appropriate solar charge controller and a marine battery and you're good to go.  A basic timer could control the pump but some solar charge controllers have an output that will be live when the sun is out or live when the sun is not out so that may be able to be leveraged.  This is completely do-able, just may need some experimentation to get there, good luck!

All types of PVC are good for rainwater collection, it just depends on what you plan to do with the water.  Our system uses standard PVC on the collection and delivery side as well as lots of PEX and uses the black ABS on the overflow and drain side of the system (for irrigation only).  You will probably get a bit of taste from the plastic pipe but the filter may help to control that.  If you're not collecting off of a metal roof (you didn't mention the roof) the plastic taste may be the least of your taste issues.

The fencing is finally done!  It's been a busy few weekends lately, we had 5 dead cedars that were hanging over the greenhouse removed and the stumps pulled.  We backfilled and leveled the area as well as added a small set of stairs up to the area from the original lower garden.  We put in 3 rows to grow things like corn, pumpkins and zucchini as well as an area for fruit trees, all behind a 6' deer fence.  The fencing near where the fruit trees will be planted are NOT set in concrete so they can easily be pulled up and moved as the trees grow.  The fence and gates went in last and now the entire garden is finally enclosed in a total of about 250' of fencing.  Extending the irrigation and low voltage lighting into the new space is next on the agenda.  I will be adding a single valve box with 4 valves (zones), one for each row and one for the orchard, drip will be connected to each zone when the plants are added.  Also a yard hydrant will be added to have a standard garden hose in that area for general use.  Here are a couple pictures for now.