I’ve written before about how if we were to go back to building our garden from scratch we would add water to it. Since we didn’t, we’ve come up with some fairly good ways to get water out there. One is simply dragging a hose to our irrigation line and another has been a rain barrel. I’ve been a little surprised at what a game changer it has been and wish we had done it much sooner!

We chose a recycled rain barrel (in its former life it was an olive barrel!) that is 60 gallons. Honestly, at first I really wanted a steel barrel but they are cost prohibitive and expensive to ship so we went with this option and it’s been great! We use the rain coming off of the back of the garden shed as the roof is bigger on the back side. I’ve been amazed at how far the water will go, the only time I’ve used it all up was last fall during the drought.

Two things to note about me: 1. I have a thing for old sinks and seem to collect them with the intention of someday finding a spot for them. That was the case with this vintage sink, I found it for $5 at Goodwill! 2. I’m the idea person and Bryce is the implementer. Most often, I have an idea, he says it won’t really work and then a few days later he has figured a way out to make it work.

I got it in my head that I really wanted a sink in the garden for washing vegetables, washing my hands, etc. Also, the side of the shed was absolutely calling out for a sink! With the rain barrel there, I just knew we could make it work! So Bryce ran a tube from the bottom of the barrel to the sink, attached a motor to the bottom of the sink and voila, we have a perfect sink in the garden! It works wonderfully and I’m so pleased with it!

I do want to note that I seriously thought about putting a skirt around the sink to hide the drain pipe. It would probably be darling but would actually get in the way and get very dirty so I decided to stick with practical in this area. It may not be as photographable but in this case it’s much more practical! And while we are talking practical, and a bit silly, I waited a full year to take these pictures because I wanted the rose to be in all its blooming glory but wouldn’t you know that it was an off year and it wasn’t as spectacular as it usually is (probably due to my pruning, roses confound me). Go figure.