From Drought to Flood: Rainwater Harvesting at Work

With rain so scarce these days, it may seem pointless do rainwater harvesting. I imagine the neighbors scratch their heads at our sign "Rainwater Harvesting Basins at Work." But through the hot summer, that basin has become a refuge for wildlife. I'm amazed how many birds gather in our yard. Sometimes as many as 30 or 40. The birds peck around and manage to find something to eat in the remaining mulch. They particularly enjoy the seeds of the purslane I planted there.  

Here it is mid-September and we finally got two good storms thanks to Hurricane Mario. Needless to say, we are overjoyed! The rain has perked up our parched plants. The birds are enjoying the evaporative cooling sitting on the mulch after the rain. That sign finally makes sense. 

Every rainstorm is an opportunity to see if anything needs adjusting in the basins. This downpour uncovered areas where the mulch has gotten too thin and where the gravel berm needs to be reshaped after some plumbing work we had done. 

The area in front of the sign needs some mulch.

One of the issues of a long time drought is that native grasses and wildflowers die leaving behind parched ground. With nothing to slow down flood waters, any remaining soil and mulch is washed away. This year I made an effort to mitigate flood damage in the main basin by planting some durable pollinator plants and purslane that I kept watered. 

I also left the dried native bunch grass and dead looking globe mallow in the jujube basin.

They slowed the stream that rushed down from the roof while holding the "mulch" and soil in place. By mulch I mean the fallen leaves and globe mallow branches I had "chopped and dropped" in the basin.

NOTE: After watching the bunnies nibbling on the dried grasses, I regret cutting off all of the seed heads - a much needed food source for bunnies and birds.  I'm happy to see those grasses finally greening up and some horse purslane popping up since it rained. 

Dan and I are blessed to have several cisterns that got us through most of the long dry spell. Now they are full again and ready to get us through the hot days ahead. One more rain should fill up our overflow tanks too.

For the tanks that aren't connected to an overflow tank,  I have the challenge of deciding what to deep water before it rains again. That's a good challenge to have.

And there is always a little maintenance after a big rain - like replacing mulch and building up leveled berms.

Yesterday I built up the berm around our volunteer fig trees in our little veggie garden and added more compost to replace some that had been washed away. (I hand water them with rainwater from a cistern, so the berm helps contain the water.)

I just love any excuse to be out in the yard listening to the happy songs of the birds after the rain.

UPDATE: Hurricane Priscilla supplied .35 inches of rain on October 12th. It filled most of the tanks but not the overflow tanks. The thirsty basins sank in the rain immediately.  

On October 13, it rained pretty heavily most of the day. We got 1.08 inches of rain. Rain from the roof rushed out of the downspout, filled the whole jujube basin and even started to flow into the street. It filled the overflow cisterns. The basins filled up several times, even pooling for a while.

Greywater basin pooling

The smaller 5 gallon water barrels were overflowing, so I caught some of the water in these barrels...

NOTE: In our neck of the woods,  our shallow basins in our front yard can handle a pretty heavy rain - with the help of a gravel and dirt berm built up by the foundation of the house. But if you are at the bottom of the floodplain or near a wash, you might need to install some deeper basins lined with rocks to prevent erosion or damage from a big storm. I've seen some excellent rock-lined basins in right of ways that prevent a big flood from getting to the foundation of the house or to cause erosion in the yard. 

#lovemyrainbasin

Basin Observations from a Would-be Citizen Scientist

The nurse tree mesquite provides shade and nitrogen for the baby saguaro and hackberry

It's been a while since I've blogged about my beloved front yard basin. But I figured this was a great time to celebrate our basin with a new sign! Thanks to Abril for making it! #lovemyrainbasin

During these trying times I have found solace in tending the new pollinators I planted, watering them daily with rainwater from our cistern. All the while I have been recording the progress with pictures. Scrolling through google photos over the past nine months, I felt like a citizen scientist observing how our unpredictable, fluctuating weather has affected the plants and soil in our basin. 

The first thing I noticed was that through the extreme heat and long periods without rain our native trees (mesquite, acacia, and hackberry) thrived - even as our prickly pear cactus shriveled and drooped.

Our jujube trees did incredibly well too with just the rainwater from the roof that sunk into their basin. Rainwater flowed off of one side of the roof into the gutters and downspout then into the long basin. The trees grew 3 feet and produced an abundance of fruit. The waxy leaves stayed green until recently. Now they are showing their fall colors - which is kinda nice. 

You might be wondering about the dead "weeds" in the basin. But the reason the jujubes did so well was that I kept the native plants and grasses in the basin long after they turned golden brown to retain the moisture longer and to provide nutrients to the soil.

The dry grass and globe mallow slow down the rainwater so it can sink in rather than leave the basin.

I planted a desert senna plant in the basin last January. It struggled in the freeze, but the mulch helped keep its roots warm. 

It came back in August along with horse purslane that acted as living mulch to nourish the soil.

Look at that senna now! It seems confused by the warm weather and recent rain. It is starting to bloom!

When we first put in our basin, we filled it with mesquite chip mulch. But as that has been breaking down into soil, we allowed the basin to be covered with a living horse purslane mulch. 

As the horse purslane died, I broke it down into straw-like mulch. Here I am showing some to my son's girlfriend. She looked a little concerned about the dry grasses, but I reassured her that native bunch grass was a part of a working basin.

We were delighted when Arizona poppies popped up in that same area in March. 

When those poppies died, I also broke their stems into a straw-like mulch. I even gathered some extra from a neighbor and spread them in the basin. I saved 6 buckets full from the landfill! 

Check out how the poppy stems floated when the basin filled with the June rain...

When the water sunk into the basin, the poppy stems settled back down and the doves enjoyed evaporative cooling!

All that mulch created richer soil...

So I could plant more pollinators in the basin... And the cycle goes on.

Have I mentioned lately that I love my rain basin? 

How about you? Share the love by posting pics of your basins on your social media pages with the hashtag: #lovemyrainbasin.  

Read more about the campaign here: 

Love my rain basin campaign

More stories about our front yard basin here: 

Our Yard the Bird Feeder

Create your own Sonoran Desert Food Forest

Surviving the "Nonsoon"

Tucsonans have developed many theories on how to bring forth the monsoon rain. Some claim washing their car will do the trick. Others swear it's deep watering their trees. A Facebook friend urged me to use the last bit of water in my rain tank that I reserved for my veggie garden. (I had already gone through most of the water in four cisterns and two fifty-five gallon rain barrels.)  So...despite proclaiming that I don't use any city water for my landscaping on the six o'clock news last spring, I finally broke down and deep watered my jujube trees. It stormed that very afternoon... 

You're welcome!

Gardening in this extreme weather has been very humbling. I have struggled to balance conserving water during our current water crisis and keeping my poor plants alive in this unrelenting heat.

I've lived in Tucson nearly 30 years and I have never experienced anything like this. (The drought the year before last came the closest.)  I try to get up early enough to water my little veggie garden before it reaches 80 degrees (the temperature when evapotranspiration stops on some plants), but most days the temperature never dips below 80 degrees - even at night! Some evenings it has gotten as high as 90 degrees! That's bad news for people and plants. And it's NOT normal. In the old days, Tucsonans slept on the roof after the house got too hot. When we first moved to Tucson it stormed every afternoon during monsoon season. 

Nonsoon? I don't know. We finally got a couple of monsoon storms, but by mid-morning the ground is bone dry. My poor plants! Unfortunately, we had to take out our pest-infested eucalyptus tree, so our "desert adapted" heritage fruit trees have no protection from the scorching sun. I finally put a shade contraption over our little fig tree.

But despite getting up at 5:30 am and cooling it off with a can of water (not to mention regular deep watering), it just withered away. Keep in mind that it also gets greywater from our outdoor washing machine. But we had the dilemma of when to wash our cloths - since it never got below 80 degrees while we were still awake. We finally started the laundry just before bed anyway. (We were out of underwear...) 

You'll be happy to hear we had better luck in our front yard. We've been fortunate to go as long we did without using city water. Our rain basins had sunk in enough water to keep them going.

The jujubes are thriving in their basin. Apparently jujubes are very drought tolerant. Perhaps it's their shiny leaves. I just wanted to make sure they had plenty of water to promote fruit growth.

Sadly, I waited too long to deep water the moringa in our right-of-way basin. They are tropical plants that should take the heat, but without enough moisture they were really suffering. The recent monsoon rain (and some deep-watering) has done wonders. They are coming back with some new sprouts. 

Most of our desert plants are hanging in there. I finally had to give a little water to the pricky pear and agave. All of the desert trees (mesquite, sweet acacia, and hackberry) fared well on the high end of the shallow basin. Since the two monsoon storms they are really flourishing. Have I mentioned I #lovemyrainbasin yet? 

The mesquite tree acted as a nurse plant protecting the hackberry and saguaro cactus from the sun as well as providing nitrogen to the soil. I went ahead and picked some volunteer mesquites that were sprouting under it.  

And after two storms and some sprinkles, life is springing up in the basins! I found tepary beans (from last year) sprouting under the jujube tree. It is odiously tepary bean season, so I went ahead and planted more for ground cover in the garden.

Horse purslane is starting to pop up too - a welcome sign that monsoon season is here. It will act as living mulch and add much needed organic matter to the basin!  

We are enjoying the common purslane that I propagated in our yard! (That cage kept the critters out long enough for the purslane to spread and grow).

Celebrating the (late) start of monsoon season with a purslane scramble breakfast burrito. I think we deserve it for surviving the nonsoon!  (So far.)  I think we will be O.K. That big storm pretty much filled up our rain barrels. Hopefully there will be enough water to get us through the rest of the nonsoon. 

Reporter shares my passion for rainwater basins

Anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows how passionate I am about our rainwater harvesting catchment basins. I've been known to share the benefits with anyone who strolls by our yard. I even started a #lovemyrainbasin campaign to promote them. 

If you're looking for a way to conserve water, putting in catchment basins to water native plants is one of the most effective and affordable things you can do. Sure, covering your yard with gravel and drought tolerant cactus and agaves saves water, too. But there are more productive uses for that space that actually enhance our desert environment. With a little love and care, you can create a shady habitat to enjoy the frolicking birds or glean delicious food from your own edible forest.

I recently had the opportunity to share my basins with Clara Migoya, a reporter with the Arizona Republic, who had read about our campaign. 

Spurred on by the water crisis, a few reporters have done mini-stories on our rainwater harvesting features. While I excitedly pointed out the benefits of our basins, they inevitably zoomed in on our rain tanks. So it was refreshing chatting with an environmental reporter who seemed genuinely interested. 

After the usual interview questions, I showed off how our gutters and downspout direct rain into the long basin that nourishes our three jujube trees (Chinese fruit trees). I explained how Dan had to remove a hedge of ugly, aging oleanders before digging the basin and planting the saplings. The tree on the far end grew four times faster than the two that were planted where the oleander had poisoned the soil. Clara snapped pictures as I pointed out how the native grasses slowed down the water, keeping it from washing away the mulch and organic matter. The roots of those grasses also allowed the water to sink in and helped build healthy soil. The basins soaked in so much rainwater, that I haven't had to water the jujube trees this spring. And the two smaller trees have grown nearly as big as the tallest tree! 

The next stop was the right of way basin. Dan rooted out the bermuda grass that had taken over the area, and dug basins around higher mounds where we planted moringa seeds and a wolfberry plant. He filled the basin with woodchip mulch (that has since broken down into soil). And we planted native bunch grass to help the water infiltrate and prevent erosion. Along with the mulch and other organic matter, it creates a sponge to hold the moisture longer.

Three moringa trees, a wolfberry, Mexican honeysuckle, a volunteer desert broom and some wild flowers provide sustenance for a variety of pollinators. We harvest the moringa leaves to add nutrition to various dishes and dry them to make a healthy tea. 

The moringa trees die every winter during a hard freeze. But they come back from the roots in the spring. Native grasses really did their job here. So much water sunk in from the rainy season that we haven't had to water them so far. During a rainstorm the water will continue sinking in long after our 500 gallon cistern is full. Here I'm demonstrating how high the moringa grow during one monsoon season. That means the roots under the surface must be that long as well.   

I pointed out a good angle to shoot our mesquite guild with the slimline rain tanks in the background. Noticing the Audubon's HABITAT AT HOME sign, Clara asked what makes it a habitat. I was happy to point out the native plants in the mesquite guild that provide food and shelter for birds, pollinators, and other desert critters.  

The mesquite tree provides shade and nitrogen to the desert hackberry and our cactus garden. It acts as a "nurse plant" to protect a young saguaro cactus from the harsh desert sun.

You might be asking, "Where is the basin?" Dan built a berm to direct roof water away from the foundation of the house and into a shallow basin. The desert plants were placed on the high end of that basin. I remember when Dan brought home his scrawny "Charlie Brown mesquite tree." Now it is thriving! 

A gravel path separates the other side of the front yard basin where we have planted a native acacia and another variety of hackberry. Birds enjoy shade from these trees as they peck for seeds from volunteer wildflowers and native grasses. A sign proudly proclaims: PLANTS FOR BIRDS. 

No tour of our yard is complete without a stop at our little garden. The garden is watered with rainwater collected in our rain tanks. Yes, I appreciate them, too. The catchment basins conserve water leaving more in the rain tanks to irrigate our garden! 

What a lovely way to spend the afternoon - discussing a shared interest with an inquisitive environmental reporter (and my son Jeremy who took the pictures of us.)  

Clara and I searching for worms in the compost pit

Wanna help promote rainwater harvesting basins?  Share a pic of your favorite basin on your social media pages. Add the hashtag #lovemyrainbasin 

 If you don't have a basin, you can still help out by "liking" or commenting on other people's posts. 


READ CLARA'S ARTICLE (in the Arizona Republic): 

It's free, it's drinkable. Why don't more Arizonans harvest rainwater during a drought?

Building Community with Rainwater Harvesting Projects

Dan and I were on a mission to photograph some examples of rainwater harvesting for the new website soon to be launched: Desert Lifestyle Tucson.

During our self-guided tour of Dunbar/Spring, we captured more than rock-lined catchment basins and cisterns. There were signs of community - a community that Brad Lancaster carefully crafted along with his guerrilla curb cuts...

... including signs displaying before and after photos of the neighborhood project. It's a story I love to share - how this once stark, crime-ridden neighborhood became an example of Green Stormwater Infrastructure and community building.

The streets are now lined with large native shade trees nourished by stormwater runoff. Neighbors followed Brad's example, and installed their own curb cut basins to take advantage of the monsoon rain that had threatened to flood the foundation of some of their houses. The once illegal curb cuts are now an integral part of the city's Green Stormwater Infrastructure policy.

Evidence of community collaboration expands throughout the neighboring streets with traffic calming chicanes and medians decked with edible desert plants and cool art, a well-used bike lane and lovely, well-worn walking paths through lush canopies of full mesquite, palo verde, and ironwood trees.

Crime has actually declined as neighbors came outside to enjoy it.

We spotted another neighbor out enjoying the shade of the native vegetation in the traffic circle.

Dan and I caught some of that neighborhood spirit and gathered a few pieces of trash.

We got in one last shot of Brad's neighborhood...

... before heading across Stone for a yummy vegetarian lunch in the shade of saguaro ribs at our favorite neighborhood restaurant, La Indita.

We took with us inspiration for community building projects for our neighborhood.

More Information: 

The Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance

https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/2022/07/the-water-harvester-an-invitation-to-abundance/