Just like the farmer who becomes a harvester when he collects the wheat at harvest time we can collect rainwater and thus become rainwater harvesters. It is not rocket science and many of us will currently be rainwater harvesters by having a water butt in our gardens to water our plants and crops.

When rainwater harvesting gets much more interesting is when you decide that you want to move up a stage to use rainwater to do more than water your plants such as washing clothes, flushing toilets and washing your car.

After this the next stage is to go for potable water quality or a quality of water that you can drink and cook with hence the “potable” description. For many this will be a step too far for now so we will step back to the use of rainwater for uses other than gardening without drinking it although it is essential to know how to filter and purify water in case you need it for human consumption.

There are many ways to harvest water from saving a bucket full to act as a mini pond for wildlife in the garden to full scale underground storage tanks of 10’s of thousands of litres of water.

You can use water butts in your garden, a wildlife pond will also serve as a water storage area and whilst these are not immediately available for human consumption storing water drawn from your tap or storing bottled water is also a form of water harvesting.

More coming soon