Vegetable garden planting and rain barrel installation

It was a long two days at the vegetable garden.

Yesterday was planting the rows - still have one bed half empty waiting for onions, but the rest is done. All the work tilling, turning, amending paid off as the beds were like buttah! We have a lot of tomatos, peppers, radishes, beets and hopefully the squash and cucumbers do their thing. We also planted some pumpkins, watermelons, and cantelope in what used to be the mud lot for the horses years ago.  Oddly I have no pictures, but it's not that exciting as it just looks like the beds shown previously but with some little green bits sticking up. So I'll come back to that in the future.

Today was setting up the rain barrel  system. A full 8 hours work, so I am tired and sunburned but pleased. The steak, potatos O'Brien and cabernet help!

First we repurposed some old gutters.

Next we  figured out how to assemble three barrels together but that will fill and drain evenly. The idea was a manifold connecting them and filling from the bottom up. We did make some air bleeder holes in the tops of the barrels so they will not pressurize.

Anyway here is the fitting assembly. We were fortunate in that the bungs are 1.75" threaded so we just needed to get the same size fittings. The rest is 2" PVC.

Now we flip them over and use some rubber connectors to complete the manifold, install the valve and downspout and we are done!

And there we are! Looks like the heavy lifting is done. Now time, some weeding, watering and harvesting await! I'll keep you posted. Soon will come back to the perennial garden and show you what is happening there.

Happy digging!