Water, Water, everywhere, but not a drop for the garden!

 Top news of the day- We have our building permit!! Our GC, Troy, says we'll get started in a couple weeks. Foundation, septic, and power are top of the list. We can't start framing until the trusses arrive, which currently are not expected until late Aug/early Sept. From that point Troy says about 4 mo to completion, so looking at taking possession somewhere around the Holidays. I was hoping to be in by Christmas, but that looks doubtful. 

Now for our current project. My garden will be across the ravine from the house, and a second well does not seem to be financially viable. It's not really a possibility to run hoses that far, so another plan is needed. A good friend got ahold of 2 IBC totes for us, which will work to feed a drip system, but we need to keep them filled. The plan is to use a pump to fill them from the creek while it's running in the spring, then keep them filled with rainwater capture. A very light snowfall total last winter meant a very brief period of a fully running creek and it was down to a trickle before we even got a pump. The difference in height between the creek and the hilltop where the tanks are has made finding an affordable pump capable of doing the job a difficult task. While I won't have a garden in until next year, we do have some fruit trees planted that need water this year, so we need to have this functional. A drought so far this summer has NOT helped, requiring more frequent watering.

Step 1, a delivery system. The tanks have a 2" port, and we thought it would be fairly simple to find step-down connectors to get us to garden hose size. Boy, were we wrong! Different size ranges are designed to serve different purposes, and not to work together. No single type would do the job, and the different types do not work together. Sid cobbled together a system using sump-pump hose and working down to a faucet to attach the garden hose. Unfortunately the sump hose is relatively fragile, and we already have several leaks. As a result, if I forget to close the valve on the tank, we loose water. A lot of water. Patching it has done nothing but slow those leaks down a bit. 

Step 2, fill the tanks. To get us started, a post on the local FB page in search of a company that will deliver water got us instead a neighbor willing to fill them for us. I was surprised at how quickly the first fill got used up. Between a drought requiring daily watering and a left-open valve, we were empty again in a couple weeks. We didn't want to take advantage of his kindness and did not contact him again, but after a month he contacted me to see if we needed more. Yes!

Step 3, a way to collect rainwater. We have discussed multiple options, and ultimately we want a garden shed with an oversized roof with gutters. Wood prices mean Sid is very hesitant to invest in a permanent structure yet. Plan of (my) desperation was a tarp slung from the trees above the tanks, with an outlet above the hole on the top of the tank. I used a couple rain gutter/downspout connectors to create a funnel that would hang down into the hole. I climbed a ladder (NOT a fan of ladders and heights!) to sling the top end of the tarp from the branches, and used a couple cane poles left from an earlier project to create anchor points for the low end above the tanks. Sid also climbed up to get it higher in the branches than I could reach. I put a large rock on top of the funnel to hopefully keep it in place if it got breezy. 

Then it got windy. A flapping tarp can generate a significant amount of throwing power! I found the rock about 6ft away the next day, and the make-shift funnel was also shaken loose. No rain yet, but obviously this isn't going to work in a storm! 

Brainstorming led to the idea of a giant funnel that is secured in place and will catch water even if the tarp is blowing around a little. Below is what I came up with. Think a "toilet bowl" like on an amusement park water slide. PVC pipe frame, which I made using supposedly "international standard size" measurements that I found online. Our tanks are smaller, so a bit of make-do was necessary when I put it in place. (What happened to "standard"?) The funnel portion is made from a single sheet of flexible plastic paneling that is intended to go on walls. A  half-sheet square, with a cut from one corner to the center, and a hole the same size as the one on top of the tank. I should have made the hole slightly smaller so it would not have to be aligned as precisely. The edges of the cut were pulled in to overlap and glued with Gorilla Glue. A few pair of drilled holes and zip ties reinforced the seam. The funnel was placed on top of the frame, more holes drilled and zip ties inserted to hold it in place, and the protruding corners were cut off. The stuff cuts with a pair of Fiskars scissors, so it's easy to do. Then the frame was positioned on top of the tank and anchored in place. It was intended to fit inside the tank frame and on top of the tank itself (per those "standard" measurements) but was too big in one direction. It would be more secure, and the funnel would go down inside the hole, if the PVC frame fit inside the tank frame. 

I checked it during a break in a (blessedly!) rainy day, and while everything appeared to function, and it stayed in place, the tarp had too much slack in it. The water had collected in a saggy spot outside the frame. Attempting to make it flow into the funnel put most of it over the side instead. I rigged up a support under the sag, made some adjustments to the tarp, and headed home. Went back out today, after more rain, and found the same situation but to a much less dramatic extent. But in the end, the water level in the tank was 1/4" higher! It WILL work! Sid arrived after work, and between us we pulled and adjusted the tarp to remove (hopefully) all the slack from the tarp. No more rain due for another week, so we'll have to wait for final results. At the very least we have a functional prototype to build on. Sid had an idea to consider one of those cheap car port kits to use the frame as a support for the tarp, so we will keep our eyes out for a good deal on one of those. 

Edited 2 days later: 

I found a car port kit on FB Market place for a good price and we picked it up this morning. It took both of us several hours to set it up and get the tarp hung properly to get a good flow from top to bottom, but I think we finally succeeded. Next tweak needed is to lower the front edge of the catch basin as that is the one spot that water got caught on the way down. 

Edit: July 28

Well, our improved collection system lasted only one storm. We hadn't been able to stretch the tarp smoothly enough to eliminate pooling and the weight of the collected water brought it down. Last weekend it got another makeover.

New tarp- a heavier-duty one.
New plan- Two drains, one into each tank instead of just one. A dividing pole to separate the tarp into two separate catchment areas. There is now NO where for water to pool and weight it down. 

The large funnel and frame got cut down into two smaller ones. The holes for drainage from the tarp were reinforced with duct tape for durability. Sid came up with a way to anchor the tarps to the tanks to mostly eliminate blowing and flapping in the wind, and to keep the holes lined up over the funnels. 

So far it has survived two "storms", which consisted mostly of wind. They sure didn't drop enough rain to add any measurable water to the tanks, but the tarp didn't blow apart. 

Bonus: Sid realized that for the winter we can just put the car port cover over the whole thing, which will keep snow from collecting and also provide a small amount of covered storage. 

Update Aug 8th.

Finally a rainy week to evaluate our system. We put a rain gauge nearby to track amounts. In the last few days we have recieved 1" total of rain, and got about 5" in the tanks. Going by surface area, 1" of rain should give us about 7" in each tank. Our first half-inch only gave us 1", the next half-inch gave us about 4". I don't know why the difference; my best guess is wind direction and the trees nearby affected it. In the pic below, the top edge of the pink tape was the water level last week, pre-rain.