Hi, I'm Heidi Rader here in the Alaska Garden.
I'm with UAF Cooperative Extension Service and Tanana Chiefs Conference.
I'm here in Homer, Alaska checking out all the cool things farmers are doing here
to extend the season like high tunnels, hoop houses, low tunnels and also the
other cool tools they're using as small-scale farmers.
I'm here at Cynergy Gardens with Lori Jenkins and she's got a bunch of high tunnels here.
These are Oregon Valley high tunnels.
Lori: Yes, they are.
Heidi: And she's got a really nice innovative rain catchment system here.
So, Lori, can you tell us a little bit about this rain catchment system?
Lori: Well, even though we thought our tunnels would be on a nice, flat slope, there is a little bit of a gradient.
And we know that there's no water that gets inside our tunnels.
We wanted to maximize the natural rain that we get in here in Alaska.
So we installed some gutters and we have it attached and a
tank inside for a reservoir to catch all the rain. And you would be amazed how
much rain this roof surface captures. You know, we have a house with rain catchment
and 550 gallon tanks. We have a shop with rain catchment and a 1,500 gallon tank.
But this roof surface is the largest roof surface on the farm and so we
installed the gutters and we catch the rain and then I put in a pump and
irrigate all the crops inside. And it's low tech and these are reusable.
We take them down every winter because of the weight of a snow load and
we store them inside the tunnel actually. And we wait for you know, that marginal
April weather where we don't think a heavy snow dump is gonna fall and we'll
reinstall it because we're down here in Homer and we will get rains in April.
And rains even in March. And where my irrigation ponds are still rock solid ice.
So this is going to give me the earliest water source that I can get. And the least expensive.
Heidi: Great. And you have a slight slope here. It's about 2 degrees?
Lori: 2 to 4, give or take.
Heidi: So that helps funnel the water down into the tank too.
Lori: Mm-Hmm. That's why we have the tank on the south side of the tunnels.
It's just the way the slope falls. And then in August when
the rain start coming heavy, we will take this C bracket out and run it into a
bucket and we hooked - we outfitted the bucket to work on a water hose so I'll
catch this and I'll drain it to an irrigation pond or wherever I need that
water to go because my tank is full and there's excess.
Heidi: Nice. Well, let's go see the tank inside.
Lori: Awesome.
Heidi: So this is your tank that you catch the water in?
Lori:Mm-Hmm. Our reservoir.
Heidi: And it looks like you built it from some sturdy wood here, and...
Lori: Well, we wanted to take up as least tunnel space as possible and so the
gutter flows in. We have it coming in. We actually created some filters for it
because there's a lot of stuff that comes down off the roof and... So the rain
comes in, we have it filtered and it fills this reservoir.
And to use it as irrigation, we have one of these submersible pumps which you hook your
water hose to and you know, I just lay it in.
Heidi: That looks pretty simple.
Lori: Oh it is. And I make sure - You know it's one of those pumps without an on/off switch, so the
only way it goes on is you plug it into a power source and then I have it
hooked up to my overhead hoses which these are my favorite and then I can
just water overhead. Or I can connect this water to my drip system with this.
Just use that same outflow into this and I can turn on a drip zone.
But you know, it starts with good water.
Heidi: And so you take up a little less space with this design of a tank in your greenhouse?
Lori: Um hum. We thought this would be very cost-effective, so we - you know, being do-it-yourselfers
and we found a good water quality liner and we built this
real sturdy and we tried to level it up as good as possible and it's worked for
several years. And it holds a good 700 plus gallons of water, which is a lot of water.
It takes about 300 gallons, maybe, to water a zone at a time. And so I can
fill it, do a zone, do another zone and and I feel good about it.
Heidi: Good. And your overhead hose there - it just slides right along those cables up there?
Lori: Yes. It's awesome.You know, I'll hook it up with a wand you
know, a nice gentle spray and it just slides and I get to do a whole zone like
that and and it's easy and out of the way. I'm not what I call hose wrestling
all over the the ground and knocking plants over.
Heidi: Yeah, that looks great.
Lori: And it's convenient and it's easy to drain and it's one of the best investments we made.
Water is critical, especially in these tunnels where no rain gets in.
But, again, I have the largest roof surface anywhere to catch all the rainwater.
Heidi: Well, great. Well it sounds like you have a really efficient and smart watering system for your tunnels.
Lori: We did a little research. Thought about it. You know, if I were to do it again
I might purchase a tank instead of building my own, but this was a great project.
It was good research. I got more water than if I purchased a 300 gallon tank.
And what I was looking for was something 600 to 800 gallons and
so this - this size didn't block too much south-facing light, this was the solution
we came up with.
Heidi: Great. Well, thanks for sharing your your watering system for your high tunnel.
Lori: Oh, Thank you, Heidi for your interest.