I pay water and sewer fees on every single gallon of water I use for my plants. I recently planted a hedge of blueberry plants, and noticed that the house has 2 downspouts on that end, roughly 25 feet apart.
I've never actually had rain barrels, though I did experiment with 5 gallon buckets a few years back. (a neighbor complained that he felt I was the source of mosquitoes in the area, and he may have been right) I'm not sure that I would have enough room to use an actual rain barrel, since the plants are only a bit over 2' from the foundation, and there is a chain link fence close to one end of the hedge.
I'd love to build an underground cistern that would hold 2,000 gallons of rainwater, but I think that is probably out of the question as well, due solely to financial concerns.
Can anyone suggest a solution that might let me capture the rainwater and use it for irrigation? Keep in mind that the row of plants is about
25' long, the plants are between 2' and 2.5' from the foundation, and there is a downspout at both ends of the hedge row. I was kind of hoping I'd find solutions for this at some of the big stores near here, in the garden sections, but so far I haven't.Years ago, I seem to remember seeing some sort of plastic/rubber device you could fasten to your downspout. It would inflate with water when it rained, and then slowly release the water over a couple of days. You could simply unroll it, like a huge hose, and put it near the base of the plants you wanted watered. As long as the land was relatively flat, it would work fine. I never bought one, but I think something like that might work well. Just can't seem to think of what it was called, and there is no guarantee they still make anything like that, I guess.
Thanks!