When you spend time in your garden you start to feel that little bit closer to nature. I have done my best to be as organic as possible in my veg patch but I still consume a lot of shop brought compost as well as use a lot of water from the garden tap. Collecting our own water can help us become more sustainable and hopefully help reduce your water bill.

Sustainability at a global level is daunting and it is challenging to see how an individual can make an impact, but when you look at your own garden and home, sustainability can enhanced your own wellbeing, bills and contribute just that little bit more to keeping our environment just that bit healthier.

My family is a big user of water. We are a family of four with a large garden and I would like to reduce our water usage by collecting the free water which falls from the sky on a fairly regular basis hear in the east of England.

Collecting rain water is fairly easy. We have means to gather rain water that falls on our roof, greenhouse and shed. We just need to add in water butts to act as reservoirs and redirect water into it.

My first water butt will be added to my greenhouse and I picked it up from Amazon.com. This will supply my greenhouse with water through the spring growing months. I previously purchased the downpipes for my greenhouse and all it takes is to redirect the downpipes into the new water butt. If you are attaching your water butt to your main downpipes, an connector is supplied. I have raised up the water butt so I can run a small piece of hose into my greenhouse which will be connected to a wooden stake with a tap at the top. The tap needs to be the same level or below the level of the tap on the water but to make sure all of the water will drain from the butt. I have also chosen a relatively small water but due to it’s location and the relatively small surface area of the greenhouse roof.

Progress installing the water butt has paused now due to heavy snow blown in from the east. It’ll be good to have a supply of water inside the greenhouse for when I start sowing this years seeds.