Collecting Water from the Sky
If you have ever eaten loose olives before, there is a good chance that it was imported from Greece in one of these barrels. At approximately 200 litres, or 50 gallons, they are made from food grade plastic and have a sealed removable lid.
They should also have a plastic grille inside which I presume was for pulling the olives up through the liquid, and this is handy for lifting out any loose leaves or twigs.
And like how using coffee grounds in the garden leaves a lovely smell around the place, these barrels have a good coating of olive oil that seems to come through when full of water.
The final benefit is perhaps the best one, these cost me $10 dollars each.
It turns out that there are not too many things a business can do with an empty olive barrel, so they end up being shredded for cat litter or some other less than ideal ending.
The water barrel on the right below is a commercial rain collector that I paid $100 for, and the one next to it is a used olive barrel. Same thing for a tenth of the cost.
This was the sight after a good rain, all full and ready to store. I have a shed in the back where I collect the rainwater from, actually only one of the shed gutters is being used, so I could probably get another 10 or so of these and have more than enough for a long dry summer.
So if you see one of these old olive barrels, make sure you find a way to get it home and hooked up to a source of rainwater. They can also be used as a rolling compost bin and worm farm, and there will be a future post all about that.
How do you collect and store rainwater?
Ground to Ground 
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