Green the garden with a rain barrel

Just a few years ago, Bob Mason didn't pay too much attention to his water bill. He accepted the fact that if he wanted a lush lawn, big tomatoes and a happy green-thumb wife he had to have water — and lots of it. "It was the price I paid for a beautiful summer," the Augusta County resident said.




It was a hefty price. Mason estimates he spent hundreds of dollars each year to grow a lawn that would be the envy of any golf course grounds keeper. But now, given his tighter-than-ever budget, Mason has changed his mind — about the cost of water, not about gardening.

"When my wife lost her job late last year, we had to cut back," Mason explained. One way to do that, they decided, was to add on to their tiny tomato garden. "As soon as the ground was warm enough to work, we put in a large vegetable garden so we could cut back on groceries," he said.

They also made several rain barrels and connected them to their gutter system down spouts.

"I'm not going to pay water and sewer fees to water my grass and my garden when I can use the water the good Lord provides for free," Mason said. "With the rain we've had so far this season, the barrels are full and hopefully will provide all the water we need if it gets dry this summer."

He's making a good bet. According to Clean Virginia Waterways, 1 inch of rain collected from a 1,200-square-foot roof (30 x 40 feet) will yield more than 700 gallons of water. "We've connected our barrels so that when one gets full it spills into the next barrel, and so on and so on," Mason explained. Once the barrels are full, the excess water overflows directly into the vegetable and flower gardens through a hose that runs underground from the top of the last barrel. "We've had so much rain this year, we've had to disconnect the hose," he said.

Mason was lucky. He got his barrels from a friend who runs a restaurant. Others, like Deborah Hunter, haven't been so lucky.

"I've looked everywhere for empty barrels," she said. "I even started to use some from one of the local car washes, but then I realized that since they were used to store chemicals, it probably wouldn't be what I would want to use to store water for my vegetable garden."

Instead, Hunter says she plans to purchase two rain barrels from The Rain Barrel Company when they make a delivery to Staunton in a few weeks. "I couldn't afford to spend a couple hundred dollars or more on rain barrels, even though I need to save on my water bill and have a big garden to water," she said. "When I saw this company would bring barrels to Staunton for $65, I about cried."