WORKSHOPS - Rainwater Harvest & Storage

Learn how to capture and store rainwater for later use during dry periods.

As local rainfall patterns become more erratic and unreliable, crop irrigation for the farmer or homesteader is becoming a necessity. Unless you are fortunate enough to live alongside a river or large creek, or have an everlasting spring gushing forth on your land, then rainwater collection is your only economically viable option. We have long-term experience in building and using rainwater collection systems to suppoprt our agricultural endeavors. The following workshops are designed to make you proficient in this timeless art.

Rainwater Harvesting & Storage Basic Course 101 (One drop at a time )

This daylong workshop is a primer course on rainwater collection techniques and fabrication of collection systems.

It covers the following topics:
• A basic discussion on the history, collection and uses of captured rainwater. Includes recycling household gray and black water.

• Water storage principles-Includes resource allocation, maintaining water quality, evaporation rates, and mosquito control.

• Calculating rain volume yields from roof areas.

• Using and fabricating gravity-fed water transfer systems (gutters, pipes & hoses) for storage and end use.

• The ethical considerations toward other water users competing for the same rain runoff.

• Cistern placement and the different types of cistern materials in use (steel, polyethelyne, stone and ferro-cement.)

• Mapping the watershed- This involves a walk-about explanatory tour of our farm watershed and storage ponds.

• Pond and reservoir placement and construction. Includes siting, useable soil types, pond liners, constructing swales and berms and other land shaping with dredged soil placement.

• And much, much more!

"I think I knew that it was necessary to prioritize how one uses collected rainwater, but I had not previously considered the concept of budgeting for this. It frames the idea much differently for me and causes me to be even more deliberate in my stewardship. I came away with a greater sense of responsibility involved in collecting and then re-distributing rainwater."
Rachel Swinney, Knoxville, TN (March-2008) workshop participant

For more information or to register for this workshop, please go to the Workshop Schedule page.

Rainwater Harvesting & Storage – Advanced Course

• This two-day workshop is a hands-on experience of actually creating a small rainwater-fed pond.

• Participants will work through the actual steps of siting, soil sampling, and hand carving a 300-500 gallon storage pond. Also includes landscaping techniques to appropriately deal with the dugout soils.

• The workshop is designed to give participants the confidence to either hand or machine dig a larger storage pond on their own farm or homestead.

• Includes an early morning lesson / trip on the dam impounded Tennessee River (Watts Bar Reservoir) aboard the Emma Bell and Betty L Martin hand crafted - hand powered, pontoon "teaching raft."

• Rainwater Collection 101 is a prerequisite for this advanced course.

For more information or to register for this workshop, please go to the Workshop Schedule page.