A few of practical tips. 1. Tie an old stocking or similar fine mesh over the end of the downpipe to stop debris from the roof ending up in the barrels. 2. Get lids for the barrels to keep rubbish out. And mosquitoes. 3. Have an overflow on the last barrel in the chain so that excess goes where you want it and doesn't run down the wall of the house or create a bog. 4. Have the tap slightly up from the bottom of the barrel so any sludge which has crept in doesn't block the outlet. 5. Raise the barrels on blocks so you have sufficient fall for a hose and you can get a watering can under the tap if you need to.

Thank you Floral. The rain barrel came with a screen and a lid for the top, hopefully that will take care of the debris from the roof and the mosquitoes. There are overflow holes and they provided clear plastic connectors to connect the barrels and I imagine I have one extra for the overflow on the last one. And yes, the spigot is a little bit up from the bottom of the barrel. They are also raised up on one layer of cement blocks. I'm going to look at it today and see if I have room to add another row of cement blocks to raise it higher. Unfortunately, I've already cut the downspout and inserted the adaptor to divert the water into the barrel, so I don't remember if I have enough distance to raise it higher. If I were starting over again, I would have planned on two rows of cement blocks to get more height and more gravity to move the water through a soaker hose.

I don't really want to empty the barrel one watering can at a time. It would be much easier if I can connect a soaker hose that will water the vegetable beds. I have my doubts about whether the water will travel enough distance to water all five of my raised beds, or - actually - if it will travel any distance at all, if the barrels are not high enough. I suppose I could get a pump, but that seems more complicated than I hoped and a little more expensive.

I will add photos today, so you can see what my configuration of beds are in relation to the rainbarrel/downspout.

OK, sounds as if the manufacturers covered those points. Mine were just recycled barrels so we did the titivating ourselves. I realise you don't want to empty the butts by the canful but sometimes you just want a couple of gallons of soft water to give to a pot plant or limehating species and then the ability to manoeuvre a can easily is useful. Note I said 'if you need to'.

I think you must be handier than we are. [g]. Our town sponsored rain barrels last year, so the price was pretty good. Oh sure, we want to be able to put a watering can under the spigot, which we can, I just want to figure out how to get a hose working with it too. Thank you!

If worst comes to worst and you don't have enough incline to make your barrels work via gravity feed.... you could consider using a pump.

I use a bunch of different rain catchers, but the biggest is a 275 gallon caged tank that I can gravity feed to my smaller barrels or directly feed out of the tank using a submersible pump. Got a length of PVC pipe to shaft from the pump out of the tank, then clear hose I can fit to the pipe if/when I need to get the water flowing. I tend to fill 3 gallon jugs and take those down to the garden, but if I'm not feeling up to that I can run the hose all the way down.

bees needs - Wow - that is a lot of gallons of water! Must have been quite the project getting all that set up and running the way you wanted it. If you have any photos of your set up, I'd love to see it.

I don't have pics but... The caged tank sits on top of 2 pallets. I wrapped it in black plastic, then a heavy weather hardy fabric- blue because that's what I happened to have on hand. This is to keep the sun out and from algae growing in the tank.

I don't have a downspout where the tank is set up- it's a spot where the angles are right so it's a pour off spot. So I have a 5 gallon bucket with a spigot in the bottom and a hose to run into the tank to serve as the catcher. The black plastic and blue fabric overlaps the hole in the top of the tank to keep the skeeters out.

Then when I need water out of the big tank, I put a hose into the top , then use the pump to start up siphon action to feed into a smaller 25 gallon barrel or into 3 gallon jugs and let gravity do the rest. I like doing the filling of the 3 gallon jugs instead of just directly running a hose out to the garden because I tend to use "soaker jugs" in the garden instead of using soaker hoses. I find it a bit more precise than hose watering- if I have 2 jugs in a raised bed, I know those plants are getting 6 gallons of water per watering.

On the other side of the house I have another tank set up for the container plants in my kitchen garden. That's a stack of 30 gallon coolers. When it rains, the top lid is off, and when it overflows it runs under the lid of the cooler beneath it and fills that one. Rain stops and I pop the lid back on the top tank. Keeps the water perfectly free of skeeters. Then when I need to water, I just open the valve at the bottom of the cooler, slip on a clear hose, and water my containers using gravity.

Right now my max storage capacity is around 500 gallons, but I haven't really had the pressing need to use that much yet.

BeesNeeds - that is quite a creative setup you have. It's great to have the water you need for the garden. Thanks for the description.

Flora - I agree, here the pallets would rot quickly too. I have plenty of cement blocks that work fine.

Pallets and tank are set up on concrete by the house, not out in the garden. That would be kind of stupid to set up such things on dirt- it's almost 2,300 pounds when full. I didn't think to mention, but the pallets use are the heavy-duty industrial ones meant to support this kind of thing, not the "cheaper" lightweight ones more commonly used for standard shipping.

And yeah, kind of creative. It's what happens when you find yourself with a free tank and the need to slap it into use.

Definitely - that size tank is not cheap, so good for you to make use of it and figure it out.