Rain barrel construction begins...

As my little seedlings become larger, proper plants, it's becoming obvious that I need more grow-lit room in which to house them until planting time. So the first part of this weekend was spent expanding my "Guest Room Greenhouse" setup to accommodate many more plants. I added two freestanding racks and my dad built some shelves to span the distance between them. Installed about 6 fluorescent fixtures and still have some more to go, but I'm back to having more lit space than plants (for now...). If all these plants get to produce (big "if" there), I'm gonna have a bunch.

As both a boon to my soon-to-be garden beds and an aid to keeping my basement and foundation dry once spring rains arrive, I'm working to put together a somewhat extensive rainwater collection system around the house. This system, along with a re-grading of the land around the house and repair of the existing drainage system, should help keep water going only where I want it.

I'm sourcing the used 60-gallon barrels from a local winery. The 5-gallon buckets are (obviously) from Tractor Supply Company, and the spigot hardware is all from the local big box hardware store. It took some foresight and searching to come up with the right combination of parts to cobble together a watertight spigot that would marry to a standard garden hose, but I think we did it.

The last picture is the barrel with some standing water in it, not leaking a drop. Hopefully that continues as it becomes more full. We made four barrels, meaning we've got 12 more to make. Then I'm probably going to go back and add overflow capability to each one, so that any extra water beyond what fills the barrel can be automatically diverted into a proper drainage area or to garden beds.

Some warmer temps have finally arrived and brought with them the melting of some of the seemingly ubiquitous snow drifts... is spring finally on the way?