Collecting rain water for garden on top hill.

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to tis form and thought I'd give it a shot. I'm starting a organic garden with heirloom seeds next year so I can harvest more seeds at the end of the year. I have good soil (did a soil test), started composting (made 4 compost bins out of pallets and lined walls with pond liner) planted winter wheat to plow under in the spring then rototill.

But back on topic haha. I have heavey dutie pond liner (some 40' by 40') 7 rain barrels and some junk wood from dumpster diving (Free!). So I need some idea's to set up a water collecting system with those things or cheap materials. The house is at the bottom of the hill an I can harvest water from the roof an haul it up in rain barrels or goto the creek 5 mins away and bring that up in rain barrels.


I wanna just collect it on site though near the garden. We have straw so ill use that around plants to keep weeds down and moisture in (instead of wood chips whitch do te same but you dont want in your soil)

Welcome to permies Jeff
Putting your location/climate info into 'my profile' means you're much more likely to get useful responses.
Aaand, here come the questions....
Where about in the USA are you? Rainfall? Is there a horizontal depression on the hill you could use to collect water in? Is the top of the hill on your land?
My experiences with collecting water involves roofs, so I can't help much with your situation, but maybe search 'keyline dam', although that's generally pretty major; also 'swales' and 'dewponds'.

Dont know if this helps, but you take some tin or what not and make a small structure to catch water and run it into a pond or what not at the top of the hill. I am from the northwest, where we usually gets lots of rain, but it seems to me the limiting factor in rain water harvesting is the size of the storage container. Almost anywhere can get enough water for a person, if they have a large enough capacity to store it.

I have been considering a similar idea, putting a garden far from house and source of water. My thought was to build a small outbuilding near it. For two reasons, the first being to have a roof to collect water off of and the second being to store tools in. With the garden being far from the house water is not the only thing I would have to lug to it, so why not kill two birds with one stone and have a source of water and a storage area?

Builditsolar dot com has plans for making water storage tanks out of plywood and pond liner. As long as your pond liner is not pvc you could use it in side the plywood box. One thought is you could build the tank right into the wall....get it off the ground for ease of drainage... I had thought about getting a (used?) heating oil tank for storing water. Math said approximately 1/2 gallon per square foot of roof per inch of rain. A 12 by 10 building could provide 60 gallons per inch of rain.


OHHH and look into the hugelkultur threads, water storage at the roots of the plants via buried logs sounds ideal for your use (and my potential use too )

Leila Rich I live in NE PA the hill is flat east to west and then has a mild slop to it going north. We postitioned it so it would get the most sun light away from the trees. It's 107' by 47' wide. An the land is my in-laws but im going to build up there has a nice veiw.

Nicholas Mason, Bob Doyle thats a good idea, make a box like 6'x6' an 5-6ft tall and line it. I have some tinn and spouting to collect wil but not alot. I could use more of the heavy duty liner and fram a roof out an line it with pond liner. Mabye even make a pond down by the lower end of the tree line by making a circlier berm (like a bowl) and lining that. Might be able to grow some tilapea but I would problly need some kinda spring to feed that more constant, whitch im not aware of any springs up around there as of yet.

Very good idea's got me thinking now.

BIG pond (or hand-dug well) wherever you can collect water and then a small solar pump to pump it up to the barrels in the garden.

be careful where you put the pond liner, I believe it its not covered it will break down in the sun light.

Maybe if you frame a roof with the pound liner, make it a shallow box and cover the pound liner with gravel or something to protect it from the sunlight?