As gardening season winds down for the year, home gardening enthusiasts already are making their plans for next year’s growing season. One option is a gravity-based irrigation system.
Barrels made of fiberglass, wood, earthenware or polyethylene are ideal for building such a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly system for irrigating a home garden — or even supplementing irrigation at a commercial food-growing facility — by collecting rainwater from roofs and gutters and recycling it to water plants.
While home improvement stores offer newly-made barrels, most gardeners prefer used barrels and are often willing to pay top dollar for cleaned, intact post-consumer barrels, offering warehouses and manufacturing facilities an opportunity to both earn extra cash and make a valuable connection with the communities in which they operate. It’s even possible to package the used barrels with tubing and an instruction manual as an entire gravity-based irrigation system kit.
Used barrels also can be sold as a discount to workers or offered as a free employee benefit.
Gravity-based irrigation systems work by placing the barrels beneath a downspout or crevice in a roof to collect rainwater, which is then stored in the catchment area. A barrel that has 500 square feet of storage area collects about 300 square feet of rainwater. A small hole is drilled into the bottom of the barrel and a hand valve is installed.
Tubing connects the valve with the area to be irrigated. The pressure created by gravity and the weight of the water forces the water into the tube whenever the valve is opened and the water is forced into the tube, where it irrigates the area via small holes in the tubing. To increase storage or rainwater, several used barrels can be connected together.
Gravity-based irrigation systems provide water with 90 percent efficiency, compared to spray systems which have only an estimated 50 to 75 percent efficiency. That’s because when water is sprayed onto plants, much of it is lost to evaporation.
The biggest advantage of drip systems is that they provide free water, a necessary resource for growing plants either at home or commercially. They also help reduce erosion and flooding that can be caused by runoff during heavy rains.
Drip systems require a little maintenance, however. They must be kept free of debris and in some cases require pressure regulators, self-cleaning emitters and filters. If you are using a drip system, make sure to mark the location of the tubing so that you don’t accidentally cut the tube with a mower or landscaping equipment and be cautious of covering it with too much mulch otherwise it may become clogged.
Gravity-based drip irritation systems offer a cost-efficient, environmentally-friendly way to recycle post-consumer barrels, build inroads with the community in which you do business, and offer employees a useful, free benefit.