660 Gallon Rain Barrel & Compost Tea System

[rebel69society]

Open to good ideas? Attach a spray hose nozzle to the end of your compost tea fill faucet & you can gain extreem water control ez as pie.From mist too powerfill. Just my $.02 for ya. I like yr set up.Mine is being built similar.

[samohtzoo]

if you haven't done so ,i suggest you close the system to keep mosquitoes out.

[bsntechdotcom]

@samohtzoo

Yes, that is one thing that I absolutely had to do. Everything is closed up to prevent mosquitoes from getting in.

[tucsonpersonified]

Do you find your pvc wholes get clogged up? 

[bsntechdotcom]

@tucsonpersonified

Yes, I have had some of that problem before - with algae. I have to just hook it up the lines to water from the house - which is pressurized - and it took care of it.

[TheWillow20000]

Farms also use these barrels if anyone is struggling to source them



[timbutler27]

Brian, cool idea for recycling the 55-gallon drums. I wonder what kind of roof you have above the barrels. I believe you have to be careful about harvesting rainwater off of any type of roof that is not steel or natural clay tiles. A tar-paper roof can leach toxins into your water that can poison your garden soil. Also I have to agree that you could better your compost tea recipe. May I suggest looking up youtube vids: Amrut mitti, Amrut jal or the One man, One cow, One earth series. Cheers!

[trje246]

can anyone shed any light on where to find these barrels? like a business/companies that uses them for example...

[bsntechdotcom]

@trje246

It is somewhat hard to find these. I found most of mine at a oil changing place where they got windshield wiper fluid in these containers. Rinse em out a little bit and you are good.

[plumber1227128]

@trje246 yes you can goggle water treatment plant and be nice to them. they simply dispose of them anyway. rinse and bleach real good before use. good luck

[MAGTRAIN]

it looks like you may need some cross bracing with the wood structure, also what are the cross beams, the short pieces look like 1x4.

[jgrjr55]

man i like the way you do shit... go big or go home! yessssssssssss

[123SGTTOPDAWG345]

So how did your crop turn out?

Love your system by the way.

[bsntechdotcom]

@123SGTTOPDAWG345

Still have tomatoes and lettuce in the ground - almost got a freeze a few days ago but no damage.

[vormwmik54]

True compost tea is made with finished compost, not greens & browns in a barrel.

Could have saved a fortune using garden hose instead of PVC pipe out to the garden beds.

[bsntechdotcom]

@vormwmik54

The PVC pipe was a better solution in this case. Garden hose is actually more expensive - because a 10-foot section of PVC was less than $1 each. 50 feet of garden hose is more than $5. Using garden hose would have also made it harder to drill small holes in and can kink up - whereas PVC pipe is easy to drill holes in, connect together, and it is rigid so it will never kink or collapse.

[TheBSideDJ]

well you can also make normal compost now and then and spread it around in your garden, and let the rain do the rest without any system ....it will have the same result.... so is this system necessary after all (material cost, a bit of energy cost, time, visual aspect,....) ? I wonder....

[FutureLaugh]

this is such an awesome system, i just wish there was an alternative to PVC.

[paulgem123]

Brilliant. I wish I could do that.

[sly2kusa]

This really isn't Compost Tea that you are making, but Leachate. Big difference.

[rbxtreme96]

you really should secure the barrels to the structure, i know that they wont blow away when full, if your system breaks, some barrels may not be filled, and anything can happen then.

[bsntechdotcom]

@rbxtreme96

I don't see much need to actually secure the barrels to the platform. The fact that all of them are hooked together makes them around 240 pounds total without water in them.

[TheHossUSMC]

@bsntechdotcom its not that hard to tie down the barrels, and you will be thankful you did the first time there is heavy wind, eathquake, or rowdy niegbor kids climbing on them. I'm a plumber so trust me there is a reason why we strap water heaters to the wall.

[marmaladekamikaze]

You could probably use less water(need less barrels) if the irrigation pipes were lowered a few centimeters underground. Not to mention that your PVC pipes will degrade in 2-5 years due to UV rays from the sun. But I like your system man!

[ArizonaAdventures]

great set up! When you do something, you sure go all out ;) Nice job!

[rwmsijnet]

Good system, may I suggest, hose fittings with short hose connections to allow easy emptying of compose barrels and secondly, add worms to the compost they love water and will aerate the compost, just watch the PH.

[NOLATAC]

Very informative video. thanks

[hoz49]

white PVC is not "rated" for outdoor use. UV rays will weaken it over time and it will crack rendering your irrigation system useless. You should paint that line.

[TheBushdoctor68]

Great system. My compliments. However, I do believe you have to use the actual compost to make tea, not the ingredients for compost.

Good luck with your garden!

[SkynetNealUK]

thats awesome dude must have taken ages to do, might do somthing simular with my plants but at our local plant store they do a automatic tap water feeder but instead of connecting it to the tap i might aswell connect it to some rain barrels that i still need to get.

[Torontomato]

owesome job, man!

You must have spent lots of bucks and labour on it. The barrels are heavy with water up there. The wood structure needs to be strong enough. Did you dig and make cement post in the ground?

[bsntechdotcom]

@Torontomato

Absolutely! With the thousands of pounds of weight in water on this, you must have the posts dug at least two feet deep.

[slybarger]

Very nicely done. Quick question. Does everybody look just as funny when they first see yours as they do at my house? haha... I invite you to check out my 600 gal system. Its not as elaborate as yours however I'm not anywhere near the gardener you are. I guess the audio got removed do to me adding a song, but you will get the idea without it.

[electrodacus]

Really nice system.

Do you have more garden? or that is all?

It seems you have a lot of land there and you are close to a forest or something like that.

[bsntechdotcom]

@electrodacus

I have a garden bed next to the house, behind the garage, and two 4x20 areas in the front yard - along with two 4x4 strawberry beds. Takes a lot of water to keep everything hydrated.

[MsRubberbiscuit]

That's pretty amazing.  Nice job.

[flashmaker13]

Looks like one hell of a project! Very cool