Its water keeps our strawberries (pictured above) happy throughout the dry summers.
Our system is pragmatic and started by laying necessary foundations. Six years ago we added a metal roof. From there we added one of the smaller, beige barrels. Then we added two more of those. One at a time we then added larger, black barrels. Recently we also added new gutters. Each of the barrels collect water from a gutter down spout. In addition, each of the barrels is daisy chained to its neighbor. That is, the largest barrel has a hose connecting it to the medium-sized black barrel, which in turn has a hose to the next barrel, and so on. This balances the water levels, helps with overflow, and facilitates watering the garden. Each barrel also has a watering hose attached, which we use to water the garden.