Adapting a Soaker Hose to a Water Catchment System - Our Experiment

We have well water and we also have gardens that are not within 100 ft of our outdoor faucet or hose. One of my permaculture goals for this year, as inspired by my sea monkeys (yes sea monkeys) was to make a water catchment system that would water these gardens.
There aren't any buildings by these gardens, so a rain barrel would have to work independently. So can you use a rain barrel without it being hooked up to a gutter?
So far yes.
I chose this rain barrel because it has a large empty space on top that I could use to catch more water.

We drilled holes into the place where you would typically have a plant. We also plopped a mosquito dunk here. Side tangent, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to find out only last year that mosquito dunks are not poisonous! I handled these things with gloves and trying not to breath when I held them for years. Last year I happened upon an article that referred to them as organic. I did further research and read confirmation that these can be used in ponds that animals drink from! What??? So I use them in my rain barrel. Many people recommended gold fish to prevent mosquitoes in the barrel.
I thought it was mean to put them in a dark and probably super-warm-from-the-sun tank. I also think that the fish poo and stuff would clog up my faucet or drip hose. So we went with the dunks.

Back to the barrel without a gutter, so far so good. I did fill it up orignally with a hose because my plants were in danger of really drying out and I didn't have time to wait for rain. 
Rain, though, has been keeping this pretty well topped off.
Back to the soaker hose, which is what this is supposed to be about, I chose this soaker hose because I could turn it on and wander off to do work and not have flooded my garden within an hour. 
This post is just for those of you that want a drip/soaker hose but have found what I did. There isn't enough water pressure from the gravity in a rain barrel to make the drip hose work.
Darn it!
So after much pontificating, I chose to amend my soaker hose to see if I could make it work anyway. 
Here's what I did. This is the link to the drip hose that I have. 
A soaker hose is basically a plastic tube with many tiny whole that let water out into a cloth sleeve that covers the plastic tube for the length of the hose. The holes must be tiny because I didn't really see them and the lack of pressure from the barrel faucet made them not work. 

So I removed the little green "hose repair" cap on one end of my 25ft soaker hose and slid the cloth material down. Please note, sliding the cloth down and then getting it back on will be the longest part of this project. Sometimes it feels like you won't get it back. You will if you keep working it.

After I had it halfway down, I used scissors to clip a tiny slot in the hose, starting about 18" from the end of the hose and made a slit every 15-18 inches right to about half of the hose. Remember, you're cutting the plastic hose inside, not the cloth cover. This is as long as I cut it. That was the whole snip, not the beginning.

I then slid the cloth back, replaced the green repair thing with its 2 screws. I removed the green thing on the other end, slid the cloth half way down and made a few more slits on this end. BUT I probably only made about 4-5 on this side. 
The reason for this is, once I cut the first half and re-assembled... I was super happy to see that it was working the way I wanted it to, but there still isn't enough pressure to get to the other end of the hose. So you need to have an end with very few slits so that some water is forced to the second half of the hose. 
I know, I know, 25 feet is not very long. I don't have all of the answers to this yet.
Yet we did get water dripping from the hose where it was just dry before!

I DO want to share this experience so that you guys can take this info and run with it and hopefully share your own ideas. What do you use on your rain barrels to take advantage of the water?

Sea Monkeys (yes, sea monkeys) as a muse for Permaculture Gardening

Even auto correct is concerned that I am typing about the right thing and is trying to auto correct the capitalization of Sea Monkeys as we speak.

These are such a fun throw back to child hood for me. They make a fun little smile gift for people and I have some that I care for in my office. No one at work is allergic to Sea Monkeys : )

You can buy them here.

The real reason that I am writing about them beyond their cuteness and the affinity I have for my little guys after having received them as a gift from Emily, is that they are a little microcosm that has me reflecting on permaculture gardening. #Permaculture gardening is developing a space until it meets all the needs of its inhabitants, from food and shelter to fuel and entertainment. 

When you first get your sea monkeys, they come with the shelter (the container) and food, the starter stuff for the water and also a little turkey baster type thing to aerate the water. 
They are not self sustaining. You need to add food regularly and also aerate the water just about every day for them to grow and live in your office as pets. 
Eventually, how-ever, you can foster an environment where algae starts to grow in the little tank. I was super excited the first time I saw that the algae was growing and there were little tiny air bubbles coming up from it. My monkeys were on their was to a self sustaining permaculture environment! It takes a lot of pressure off of 3 day weekends : )
Permaculture emphasizes the use of native plants or those that are well adapted to your locale. The goal here is to plant things you like, while making sure they have a purpose and benefit the landscape in some way. 
The algea in the tank acts as a food source for the monkeys and also by aerating the water, they are no longer dependent on my to sustain life! 
I want to take this premise and move forward for the planning of my permaculture garden and land for 2016. How can our land better sustain itself and us? What steps should I take first. What needs will be met? 
I'll post more on this in future blogs as I move along in the process. 
I'd love to hear your ideas and see what you have done if you have a permaculture set up in place. 
In the mean time... here are sea monkey tips for newbies who plan on getting these cute little guys (Sea Monkeys)

:
1. Follow the directions clearly for setting up your tank. 
2. If you can't do a north facing window, just leave the side of the box up during the super sunny days.
3. Feed them on Tuesdays and Fridays and only use the small side of the scoop. Feed them even when they have algae. It's a treat.
4. Be super happy if algea starts to grow for you, too. It takes a few months.
5. Aerate the tank every day until you get algea. (they will make it over the weekend)
6. If you cycle through and don't get babies to keep your tank full, you can buy regular brine shrimp. Only use the little scoop side to pour a tiny amount in your tank. You get TONS!