Water from the carage roof to the garden

It was a rainy day yesterday.. A great day to think about irrigation!

I got an idea for the garden area that is next to our carage. Last year we installed gutters and drain pipes and had huge (500 litre or 110 gallon) rain water barrels to collect the water and then manually watered the garden with watering cans.

So… The plan.

Basicly a mini ditch from the other drain pipe to the garden, it slopes just nicely! When it rains, the water will go straight to the garden:



Here’s me lifting up the row cover to see the water flow:




I would plant stuff that likes a lot of moisture (or at least doesn’t mind it) close to the ditch.

Potatoes?
Maybe some determinate tomatoes on cages.
I want to do (at least) two indeterminate tomato plants that will be trellised horizontally, imagine taking a ladder and putting four or more legs to it so that it would be raised from the ground. One plant on each end. Those tomato plants would give shade for plants that enjoy a bit of shade.

When I have my moisture loving plants around the ditch and those who want the shade made by the trellised tomatoes I would plan the rest of the area using companion planting.

I will have one rain water barrel on the other side of the garage with an overflow ditch joining this irrigation ditch.

I think that’s the plan for now.. Yay, mini earthworks!


I would need your thoughts about the plan. Should I do something special to make this work? Might there be something that I haven’t thought of?

Too much water is just as bad as not enough water.

There is also the possibility of eroding your garden soil in a heavy rain, or leaching out your nutrients.

Personally, I would catch the water elsewhere and then drain it by gravity to the garden in a way that can be monitored and controlled.

Thank you Douglas for the reply!

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Too much water is just as bad as not enough water.

Been there done that! Not on ground though, just pots.

There is also the possibility of eroding your garden soil in a heavy rain, or leaching out your nutrients.

Hnmm. I think that it would be super rare if we got so much water in one go that it would be too much.. In those pictures I poured a bucket of water, that would not be a realistic amount of water in a normal heavy rain event. It’s also not a downhill, just a slight slope.

Do swales have that nutrient leaching effect or is it the bigger scale that makes the difference?  Swales wouldn’t probably go through a garden..?

Sorry if my questions are stupid, I’m just learning all this water management stuff. If the water goes slowly enough through the garden and seeps in to the ground on the way.. Would it be a nutrient leaching problem?

Personally, I would catch the water elsewhere and then drain it by gravity to the garden in a way that can be monitored and controlled.

I do have one of those IBC tanks coming to me but there’s just that there’s no way to do it all by gravity.. Not from that corner of the garage. The other one yes it might work.

We’ll see. I’m thinking that this is something that is very easy to undo if it looks like things are going to go south and even if it wouldn’t work the damage done wouldn’t be major (please do correct me if I’m wrong!). I like experimenting!

The people that previously owned my house just let the gutters drain from the house onto the driveway which went down to the road and was totally wasted. I wanted to use as much of that water as possible to replenish the front yard, flowers and trees. We used to have really intense monsoons that would easily create big ruts in the dirt so 2 years ago I built an aqueduct. I used an old bucket which I painted green as the starting point and made big grooves in some old garden ties (free) (no creosote) to divert the water in several directions. Drilled small holes every foot or so to disperse the water evenly. Some are layered, one above the other on a slight slope, and a simple hole drilled in each which drops water down to the next one. I can adjust the amount of water each section gets by simply placing a small rock over a hole if needed. Worked well when the deer ate all my new plants in one section and I simply stopped the water from going that way for awhile. Very little maintenance. It's easy to walk over and now the bushes are so big in the summer that you can't even see it. But I did have my roof re-shingled that year so I don't put anything edible out there, just pretty stuff.

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Sorry if my questions are stupid, I’m just learning all this water management stuff. If the water goes slowly enough through the garden and seeps in to the ground on the way.. Would it be a nutrient leaching problem?

... We’ll see. I’m thinking that this is something that is very easy to undo if it looks like things are going to go south and even if it wouldn’t work the damage done wouldn’t be major (please do correct me if I’m wrong!). I like experimenting!

Saana, do not apologize. You are asking smart questions!

I am only noting possible pitfalls to consider. But you know your climate and your garden!

We are all experimenters here -- we try crazy new things, observe the results, and adapt our methods. That is how we succeed!

Debbie, what a beautiful yard. I love it!

What are those ”garden ties”? I tried searching but all I get is those wires that one would use to tie vining plants to a trellis.

Maybe I should line the ditch with something and make holes to the lining, so that I could spread the water to a larger area.. Or make some kind of ”ground gutters” with holes like you have made. The plan is to not use money on this project so I’m going to have to see what would be available..

Hi Saana,
Most people know them as 'railroad ties'. Just type 'railroad ties' into your search engine and look at the images. Originally those were the 4 inch by 6 inch by 6 foot pieces of wood that  made the railroad tracks the trains ran/run on. Back in the day they were always soaked in tar or creosote. But  they began making the same things without the creosote years ago using pressure treated wood. All the big box hardware stores carry them now. Pressure treated is usually soaked in a type of copper solution instead. Not quite as nasty but I would still not use them for a vegetable garden. Since my water came off a shingled roof I couldn't use that for  vegetables anyway so the garden ties worked well. And the ties were probably 20-30 years old so I suspect most of the copper solution had leached out of them long ago.
Here, I found them free on Craigslist. Always looking for free stuff to recycle into something new. In the past I have done some small, temporary projects once using old cast off gutters and once using 6 inch pvc pipe that I cut down the middle lengthwise.  All depends on what I can find for free. I came up with the idea by researching "crazy, whimsical aqueducts" and looking at hundreds of images. You could even do something similar by lining the ditch with heavy plastic and lining over that with rocks to stop erosion. Lots of luck with your project. Happy gardening.

Thank you Debbie! Happy gardening to you too!