In the excitement to share photos of my huge tomato plants I realized I neglected to show how we get the rainwater.

It’s quite simple. We have four 1,000 litre tanks under the deck. We put on a new roof last year – metal – and put up new gutters at the same time. A simple diverter on the downspout feeds water into the tanks in the warmer months or out on to the lawn during winter.

The diverter

We rigged up a bunch of 4″ PVC pipe under the deck from the downspout and into one of the tanks.

Tank tops

To equalize all the rainwater in the tanks, we just ran hose off the valves on the front. It took a few hours to get all the tanks at the same level after the first rains but it doesn’t affect the operation.