I’d like to be able to water my garden with rainwater as much as possible. I have long term plans for this, but in the meantime I want something that will be good enough. I used an old dryer exhaust a neighbor was throwing out to connect the downspout of the short gutter on the shed beside our garden to a cooler with a drain spout raised up on some bricks I hauled in the basket of my ebike from a different neighbor’s trash pile.

I did this all right before a storm following three of the most pollen heavy days I’ve seen in Columbia in several years, so I ended up with a good bit of pollen in the water. This could be a big problem if I was running a large system, but I think I’ll be fine with the small capacity and rapid turnover over the water in it.

By elevating it on the bricks I was able to fit old milk jugs that I had washed out and saved to collect some of the water. I’m storing this in my shed, and will probably move it to a darker place, as sunlight can promote algae growth fairly quickly.