Rain barrel tidbit

Growing up Grandma had a large flat rock off to the side of her front door where a small rain barrel sat. We were required to stand on that rock and take a scoop of rain water to wash our feet off before coming into the house. The water was always cold and clean. Her barrel had a lid on it, which she would crack whenever it rained to catch what came off the roof. I tell people all the time, Grandma was the original "green" queen. Nothing escaped her when it came to recycling or re-purposing things. But those are other stories waiting to be told.

We have 3 barrels and from the looks of the formula below, we are missing out on capturing a whole lot more!

How much rain you can catch:

Rain caught (gallons) = (inches of rain) x (0.6) x (portion of building footprint in ft2)

For example, if your home's footprint is 1,400 ft2, and you want to know the amount of water that comes from a ¼ inch of rainfall the equation would look like this:

Rain caught (gallons) = (0.25) x (0. 6) x (1,400) = 210 gallons.

However, remember that storage is limited to the capacity of your system. If your rain barrel holds 50 gallons, then 160 gallons will be lost.

Getting good as being cheap..

You know how I like to squeeze a dime. Well, growing your own veggies is a sure fire way to shave some bucks off the ole weekly grocery bill. So far, we have harvested a bunch of hot peppers, a least 10lbs. of potatoes and 11 patty pan squash. Adding up what we would pay for the squash alone is a cool savings of $14, or $13 if I take out what I paid for the seeds.

It's a win-win situation, I have many squash to come from my 6 plants, so of course the amount of savings will only go up. Just starting to get a few tomatoes. Down to my last meal of potatoes, peppers a growing and I just noticed today I have green beans!!! Corn is tasseling so won't be long until we're munching on some ears.

Yehaw...I love my itty bitty garden!!

Oh Happy Day

Corn continues to do well and looking forward to seeing some ears forming!


Dug up the first 2 potato plants and got enough for 2 meals. Only have 5 more plants so don't expect to get but maybe this box full. Very happy with what I did get, so I'll definitely be growing more next year.


Getting squash and the plants are continuing to do great. Bees have been all over them and got at least 5-6 more that will soon be ready.

My My