Saving Water in The Garden: Harvesting, Storing & Moving Rain Water Using Sustainable Recycled Materials
By: Stefan Drew
Tags: Growsustainablecrops, Gardening, Savingwater

Saving Water in The Garden: Harvesting, Storing & Moving Rain Water Using Sustainable Recycled Materials

Saving Water in The Garden Is Becoming Essential As Climate Change Affects Our Weather & We Need to Grow Sustainable Crops. However, Low-Cost Systems Are Easy to Install As I Demonstrate In This Post Stefan Drew Dec 26, 2020·5 min read

Having moved to a new house and garden last year, and having experienced a long hot dry period last spring and early summer, I wanted to be Saving Water in The Garden. I wanted to build a “reservoir” against future dry spells.

We pipe our water around the garden using unused/recycled underfloor heating pipes

Lacking the space to build a grand lake I had to resort to something far less ambitious. But, with minimal outlay, some recycled equipment and not a lot of effort, we now have 2500 litres of water stored ready for next year. Better still the whole system has no moving parts, doesn’t need electricity or manual pumps and relies on gravity to move water around the garden.

It’s a far cry from when I had a 120 ft borehole, filtration plant and lots of pumps to move water on my nursery and market garden.

Saving Water in The Garden Using Gravity

We are lucky enough to have a gently sloping garden where we can collect water from the roof of our bungalow and use gravity to move it to a number of strategically placed tanks in the garden. The first tank is actually uphill from the house but it’s not a problem as the rainwater starts its journey at roof level and we can utilise this height advantage. So we allow the rain to run from the roof to the downpipes and intercept it at the top of the downpipe where we can utilise gravity via a rainwater diverter. This is placed just below roof level and is, therefore, higher than the “high” part of the garden by a few feet. It’s not exactly making water run uphill but it does the trick.

Saving Water in The Garden: This low-cost water diverter sits under the eaves and feeds a 1000 litre tank on the other side of the garden

From the rainwater diverter we pipe it to the first 1000 litre tanks From here we can then let it overflow to another 1000 litre tank, on the other side of the garden, behind the greenhouse. This, with a few tanks dotted around the house and greenhouse, filled via more rainwater diverters from adjacent rooves, completes the system.

In time I intend to add a 200-litre tank, in which I can bulk mix tomato feed, next to the greenhouse. The plan is to add trickle irrigation so that I can use gravity to feed my tomatoes, cues etc.

Sourcing Recycled Materials

I see so many hosepipes, water butts etc in garden centres as ridiculously high prices. How can a plastic hosepipe cost nearly £100 when it consists of £2–3 of materials at most?

Saving Water in The Garden: Large tanks can be an eyesore. So I’ve masked this one with some recycled trellis

So I was determined to build my system of good quality materials and show you how it can be done.

My water pipe is from my plumber. It was brand new and he was throwing it in the skip. It’s from an underfloor heating system. They buy it in bulk rolls of 100 or 200 metres, use what is needed and throw the rest away. Apparently, in sealed underfloor systems, the leftover pipe cannot be joined, so the surplus is thrown away.

We had enough pipe to run the full length and width of our garden and some to spare for a few other jobs I have in mind. I’ve buried the pipe a few inches below ground level and am not worried about it freezing as the sections above ground will freeze first and we don’t get really severe frosts most year anyway.

To be absolutely sure the pipes don’t freeze they need to be a couple of feet deep .. and lagged above ground. But if it’s that cold the rain/snow has frozen anyway!

The 1000 litre water tanks are ex-food quality tanks, are very sturdy but single use. Loads of food additives and dyes are transferred around the world in these tanks and they are then sold to gardeners and other people needing low-cost storage tanks. I bought two for £50 including delivery. In my case they had a slightly different heritage, they had been used to transport and store teat dip on a dairy farm.

This 1000 litre tank is the last in the series and hides behind the greenhouse. It’s encased in a steel frame and sits on a steel pallet. It should last 20+ years

If you want these 1000 litre tanks Google “IBC tanks”. They are also often found on the recycling sites such as Facebook Marketplace. Prices normally start at around £40–50 and as high as £100. But look long enough and you could find them as cheap as mine were.

Most IBC tanks come with a 2-inch tap and need a reducer to take a hose pipe. The reducers cost around £7–8.

Water Diverters cost from between £4.50 to £10 depending on where you buy them. They tend to be cheaper in trade type outlets such as Screwfix rather than the DIY centres.

Saving Water in The Garden: The Costs

My total system has cost me around £65. It should last at least 20 years and possibly much longer. So the cost per year is minimal. Well worth the outlay I believe.

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