The front yard garden was super successful this Summer! Two things contributed to our success; shade and water catchment. See how I provided shade for my plants here. To be fair, the weather did work in our favor with a mild Summer and more then average rain fall. However, I think it is safe to say that we ROCKED the food production this year!

I usually shut down the garden during the “hotter than hell period” and take a short gardening vacation. There is a point when the money spent on water starts to rise above the money saved on food. This Summer we were able to save enough water to keep that from happening! GARDEN ON!

When it comes to making a DIY rain barrel I would rather show you, so we made a video explaining it step by step. We also show how I collected rain in my barrel before I got gutters! If you can’t afford gutters quite yet don’t let that stop you! I have put links to everything you need down below(except the rain barrel;)

One other advantage to having rain barrels is that, if there is a disaster, then you have plenty of water on hand for your family until things get up and running again. We keep a water filter on hand for just such an emergency. I will link up to the type of water filter we have. We also use it for our hiking adventures.

Hope this will inspire you to catch rain on your homestead so you too can have free water! FOOD NOT LAWNS!

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