Having never owned a house or really had a yard of my own, I got pretty excited and decided to do some ad-hoc landscaping. Built some raised beds for vegetables, and just laying in some organic shaped in-ground beds for low water decorative plants. Gonna fill the rest in with gravel. Any pointers?
Not sure on your location as from the picture it doesn't look like you're in the USA. However some places have restrictions on gathering water from your roof due to the materials used to clad the roof being poisonous. I would just double check that as I wouldn't want to consume any fruits or vegetables that have been grown in water that wasn't safe. I would also use a water butt or gatherer rather (totally covered from sun light) than hosing directly into a plant bed as if it's raining. The plants will already be getting watered from the rainwater so you want to store the rainwater for use later.
And then there are even further rules on storing water in some places - in Colorado I'm only allowed ~100 gallons of rainwater collection storage because someone else owns the water rights to the land my house is on.
This is bewildering. Are you really subject to regulations that forbid you from storing and using rain water as you see fit? Because you must buy water from a third party?
Is there a reason behind this other than capitalism?
@d2k1 @Harriet_Porber Down stream water rights.