I got some plastic drums to make rain barrels!

**leighcat** · 06-29-2010, 08:53 PM

My friend at work told me about a place not too far from where I live that had some for sale. I got 2 35gal? ones and 2 of the 55gal ones. They were $10 and $5 each. I am going to cut the top of one of the small ones to plant potatoes in and make a tumbling compost (hopefully soon) from the other small one. Does anyone have any tips for getting the syrup out of them? There is still some in there after I rinsed them out with water and vinegar. I'd hate to use bleach and ruin my clothes. Now I just gotta get the hardware and blocks and I can get them set up!!

**pollypurebred39** · 06-29-2010, 09:08 PM

Dawn dishwashing liquid and some boiling hot water, a big scrub brush?

**onencgirl** · 06-29-2010, 09:50 PM

A very nice find. Congrats. The best price I've found is $20 for the 55 gal.

**Debbie-cat** · 06-29-2010, 10:30 PM

Great find! Congrats!

**leighcat** · 06-30-2010, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by pollypurebred39

Dawn dishwashing liquid and some boiling hot water, a big scrub brush?

I think I may have to tie a bottlebrush to a handle of some sort to get down in there. The openings are too small for my hand and I don't want to make big openings. I didn't think of Dawn and boiling water, thanks. I will try that!

**mndtrp** · 06-30-2010, 07:01 PM

What kind of syrup? If you are just going to use the water on the garden, I don't see any reason to do more cleaning than you already have.

You could take the barrels to the car wash, and use the pressure washer.

**Judi Dial** · 07-01-2010, 09:23 AM

Here's an information page about rain barrels:

WDNR Runoff Management - Rain Garden Links

Judi

**leighcat** · 07-01-2010, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by mndtrp

What kind of syrup? If you are just going to use the water on the garden, I don't see any reason to do more cleaning than you already have.

You could take the barrels to the car wash, and use the pressure washer.

Chocolate, apricot, mango, green apple. The only ones I really have to clean out are the 2 big ones which will be the rain barrels. I don't want any of the stuff to clog the spigots when I get them assembled. I hadn't thought of a pressure washer. Thanks for the idea!

**TigerGirl1226** · 07-01-2010, 04:58 PM

Car wash sounds good, or a mop from the dollar store.

**RetiredVeryEarly** · 08-01-2010, 01:13 AM

We have a rain barrel, and we run the extra water off to three other barrels for storage through a faucet and hose on the bottom of it. They are all 55 gal. and were gotten free by my brothers somehow. We just had to buy the faucet part. We also have an about 75 gal. heavy duty garbage container on wheels that we also use for rain water storage.

For a long time we just dipped watering cans and 5 gal. buckets in and watered the hard way. This year we wised up when Menards had submersible pumps on sale for about $20, the kind with a hose attachment. So we drop that down in a barrel, plus it in (hubby made a switch box for it) and we just water with the hose like normal people do. :-) Really great! Those 5 gal. buckets of water are HEAVY. So this is wonderful. Have managed to do all of our outdoor watering from the rain barrels so far this year, because it has been like monsoon season in SE WI since spring. We use many 5 gal. buckets to store water that doesn't fit in the barrels when it rains a lot, can even plunk the pump into one of those.