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Loralynn Kadell and her dog, Bean, spend a lot of time herding sheep at Learning Tree Farm in Dayton.
As Director of Farm Operations, Kadell has plenty of animals to tend to.
“We have sheep, goats, ponies, donkeys, cows, chickens, ducks, cats, dogs...” she said.
Many of those animals live in what used to be a tobacco barn, decades ago, before this became an educational farm. Now, Learning Tree Farm gets about 20,000 visitors a year. Most of those are small children who come to learn about farming.
And the tobacco barn is also where Learning Tree gets its water for farming. They have gigantic cisterns to catch all the rainwater runoff.
“We have three,” Kadell said. “I think they each hold about 1,500 gallons of water. And all the water just comes right off the tobacco barn. And that’s what we use to water our entire garden.”
It's a serious garden, too. There are 25 raised beds and a hoop house, so they can grow year round, from crops like lettuce and radishes in the spring to broccoli and cauliflower in the fall.
Learning Tree Farm has always run on well water and water harvesting. They did get city water back in 2020, but that wasn’t for farming. That was because of COVID—so kids could wash their hands and keep coming to learn about regenerative farming.
“We’re pretty much au naturale here,” Kadell said. “If we don't have the water, then we just don't water. And we just hope that the plants will grow. That's something that you show the kids: that there's a cycle to everything, and when you don't have the water, the plants aren't going to grow. So, we have some dead plants.”
Across the globe, about 70% of freshwater is used for agriculture. So systems like this one, that collect and store rainwater, can help manage water better as the planet heats up.
Just down the road, at the Montgomery Soil & Water Conservation District, Michael Mullen is hoping to get folks across the county to buy inexpensive rain barrels and start harvesting water.
“We are a government agency,” Mulled said. “We’re doing this as a storm water control. So, we’re not in the business to make money. We’re just passing it along pretty much at cost.
“When we started to look at this, we found that the average home, in a year's time, just off the roof, loses about 1,300 gallons of water. That water picks up lawn fertilizers, lawn chemicals, oil and antifreeze that get in the driveway, and that goes into our storm sewer system. And storm sewer water is not treated. It just enters that pipe and goes right to the local waterway.”
In addition to stopping pollution, rainwater harvesting can help sustain water resources, especially when there’s a drought. Mullen says that when rainwater runs off, it doesn’t have time to “recharge the groundwater system,” which is important in this part of the Midwest, where most water is drawn from the aquifer.
There are a lot of individual advantages too, like lowering one’s carbon footprint, and paying less for water and sewage. It also means having better water and soil for gardening, as rainwater isn’t treated with chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals that most municipalities use.
There are other ways to manage rainwater, too. At the Conservation District, water from the roof runs off into a sunken rain garden.
“Our water comes off the downspout and goes into a depression that we've created, and it's stocked with plants that love that water: Wildflowers, sedges, beautiful blooms. So, rain gardens are another way that municipalities and individuals can control the storm water, and you get the added beauty of the plants along with it,” Mulled said.
If you want to learn more about creative water conservation, the Montgomery Soil & Water Conservation District is hosting a fall fest this weekend.
And Learning Tree Farm is open year-round for kids of all ages.
