Rue Barbie
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Using grey water in a drought

So how do you collect your shower and laundry water? Is it stored or moved directly to the garden?

I am really interested in how this is done. thanks!
I was asked the above in another thread but will answer here to prevent too much thread drift. :)

We have friends who have a crawl space beneath their house and they hired a plumber to divert both shower water and laundry water into their garden - which was fortunately on a slope. Easy-peasy. Works well. But I don't have that good fortune so I go more primitive.

The system has evolved but seems fairly easy now, though it does take some work. In the shower stall, I keep a large plastic box. When I shower, I stand in that so the water is kept contained. I use as little soap as possible to get clean. That water I dip out and put into a heavy-duty, no leak 32 gallon trash can. I wait till that is fullish, then I use a submersible pond pump (plugged into gfi outlet for safety. If your house is old as ours is, you can purchase these separately on Amazon.) onto which I've put a non-leaking hose, and drain it out the closest window into the yard. I will either water plants directly, or direct the water into another trash outdoors can to be bucketed out later.

For laundry water, the procedure is similar (I direct the outflow into a trash can and then into the garden), but you need to know how much water your machine uses lest there be an over-flow. And use very little (if any) soap/detergent or only 'green' stuff. Or only direct the rinse cycle outside and the wash cycle down the drain. You can ruin your soil with 'product'.

I never direct this 'used' water on to any plants that are eaten raw, only things that will be cooked, or onto trees so they don't die.

Check to see if diverting grew water is legal in your area. Locally we are encouraged to do it since water is so very scarce.

I would prefer to only use fresh water in the garden, but in our severe drought, extensive gardening would not be possible without using every available drop of water. The 'ick' factor quickly falls away.

The negative impacts of droughts (and ever-increasing California population) are only going to get worse as the climate continues to change.


Oooooh... it's raining right now. Gotta go check the rain collection set up. We do that too. :mrgreen:

imafan26
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Laundry water, I don't divert anymore after I got the soap scum crust. I do reuse shower and basin water for use flushing the toilet. I tried to save the initial clean water that is wasted waiting for the shower to come to temperature, but it was too much for me to bring the bucket downstairs without spilling it.

Water from the kitchen I collect in a five gallon bucket and move that out to the garden. I also try to conserve water and soap by changing my washing habits. I soak the dishes in the sink for the day and do them all at once instead of one at a time. It saves water and soap that way.

I do have rain barrels and mine have overflowed but never gone empty yet.

In the yard, I have had to cut back drastically on watering. I just cannot afford the sewer charges for water that goes into the yard. I water deeply and infrequently. So my community garden gets watered twice a week at most. If it rains, it doesn't get any. At home I still have to water potted plants and the vegetable garden daily but they are grouped together to make it easier. Orchids only need to be watered a couple of times a week a few like the vandas prefer every day so they are also grouped to make that easier. I save water and fertilizer mixing up the water soluble fertizer in a 5 gallon bucket and dipping the smaller orchid pots rather than use the hose end feeder. I can fertilize a bench with 10 gallons of water

To conserve water in the soil, I am changing my potting mix to 2 parts peat moss and 1 part perlite for the summer.

I add compost and mulch to the garden to help conserve more water. I interplant to conserve space and the leaves actually shade the ground to conserve water. However, close planting means a lot of roots in a small space, so they need to be watered daily. I am contemplating water polymers again, but they have always caused issues when the rainy season starts.

I have lost some plants since I have cut the watering down, so I am replacing them with plants that can live on less water.

HoneyBerry
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I have never re-used gray water. But this year I am gearing up to do something like that. I have a free-standing utility sink that I picked up at a garage sale. I am going to connect a garden hose to the drain outlet. I am going to use that sink for non-soap washing such as rinsing produce. I will use that sink for rinsing anything that does not require soap. Sometimes I wash my hands without soap. The water will be garden-hosed to my plants. My arborvitaes are close to where the utility sink will be, so they will benefit. I am thinking about using Bon Ami instead of soap to pre-wash crusty dishes and I might use that sink to do that. Bon Ami is made from natural biodegradable ingredients -limestone, Feldspar, coconut oil & corn oil surfactant, soda ash, baking soda. I don't know what Feldspar is. I need to look that up. I don't think that Bon Ami would be bad for the environment or plants, but I need to do a little reasearch first. It might even be beneficial for the plants. I am trying to change how I do things. Soap isn't always necessary. Sometime rinsjng with water is good enough for some things. Anyway, this is my plan.

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rainbowgardener
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Thanks for the ideas! I've been wanting an outdoors stationery tub anyway, partly to have a place to wash out paint brushes and such. But it wouldn't be too hard to have a hose system that could go down to a drain for the paint stuff, but could just go into a bucket or whatever for saving water. Rinsing produce before it comes into the kitchen is a good idea and that is water that could be saved. Also rinsing the dirt off garden tools, etc.

imafan26
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Feldspar is a type of quartz that is a common substance in soils. I did not know that about Bon Ami. I should switch to that too. I have seen the product here in some stores.

At the garden we have a sink that is not connected to the sewer. It is connected to pvc pipe that drains out behind the greenhouse. We can wash tools and produce there but not use soap. It would work if the pvc pipe went further out to the hedges.

I read somewhere, I think in Sunset magazine about grey water. Some plants are good for cleaning grey water. It talked about recycling water from the house to the garden, but it recommended grey water be used only on ornamentals and not on edibles.

I know the keyhole gardens in Africa used grey water for the gardens and the compost pile was used to clean the water of impurities. I did not find any other references to how the compost pile did that if soapy water was excluded. All they said was that they used water after washing up and the thatch in the compost basket cleaned the water for the plants.

https://bakerinstitute.org/files/3871/

Actually having a keyhole garden would not be a bad idea. You can run your outdoor sink directly to the composting basket. Well, maybe not, the sink would have to be higher than the outlet to the basket but it would work if the key hole garden was downslope or you use a sump pump to pump the water from the resevoir to the garden. Not a totally green alternative but it beats having to haul the bucket to the garden and having to watch to make sure the bucket is changed before it overflows.

Asica
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I am not doing grey water. However, I have two keyhole gardens. The space takes very little water for how much plants I was able to put. I just got rain barrels that will be connected to the keyhole garden for over flow. On the side of the house, where I have more room, I was planing to have two rain barrels connected for overflow. I also use Olla pots that have worked very well. I have also heavily mulched the soil and seen drastic changes. I cannot believe, I have not always mulched! (Is this a word?). My flowers are all succulents and natives so there is little or no watering. I am hoping that with rain barrels, I would be able to really cut on using water for the garden. I have not used sprinklers since summer. With the rain that we got in Cali, it seems like my new system maybe working. I am just not sure how much rain barrels, I should have? For now, I got four.

imafan26
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I have never tried olla pots. How do you use them?

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rainbowgardener
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RE: I am just not sure how much rain barrels, I should have? For now, I got four.

There's no real answer to that, because it depends on how big your garden is and how much water it uses and the size of your barrels. For you with drought tolerant natives and succulents and a well mulched (definitely a word! :) ) garden you may not be using so much water. Los Angeles is near the coast, so temps are moderate, not so hot as inland. But with no appreciable rain fall from May through Sept, the water in your barrels has to last a long time. So you just have to see how it all works for you.

I used to live in humid, rainy Cincinnati and had two 75 gallon rain barrels, so 150 gallons of water storage. That was fine most of the time, but one year when we actually had a drought, the barrels sat empty for a couple months when I most needed water. Marlingardener, a moderator here, lives in hot, dry TX and has about 900 gallons of water storage. A community garden I visited in hot, dry Mexico had what I take to be maybe 1200 gallons:
DPT community garden.jpg
DPT community garden.jpg (42.75 KiB) Viewed 958 times
That is the two black cisterns visible in the background.

Now I live in excessively rainy Chattanooga TN and didn't bother with rain barrels.

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Gary350
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Many years ago at a different house I got under the house and disconnected all the 1.5" sink and laundry PVC drain pipes from the 3" PVC toilet drain pipes. All the drains from the sinks, showers, dish washer, laundry, were connected to 1 drain pipe that ran to the garden. I dug a tiny 2 ft diameter holding pond that had all the irrigation ditches running from it to all the rows in the garden. A big rush of water from the house would go into the tiny holding pond just long enough for it to have time to run out into the garden. It worked very well for a few rows but there was not enough water for my 40x80 garden. I had a big garden then and a family of 4 to feed. I decided to use the water for the plants that needed it the most.

In the fall when the garden was gone I had to make sure there were several rows in the garden so the water had a place to go. If we had freezing weather for several weeks water would freeze and had no place to go so I had no choice but to add a drain valve under the house so all the water could go down the other 3" PVC drain pipe to city sewer. We lived in that house from 1977 to 1991.

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rainbowgardener
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I think those 250 gallon cubes are sometimes available. My Quaker Meeting (church) in Cincinnati, got one for free from some company that uses them. I don't know the details, but maybe someone can research it....

Mr green
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imafan26 wrote:I have never tried olla pots. How do you use them?
Its a clay pot with a narrow opening at the top, you dig it down in the garden leaving a bit of the top sticking up. As you fill this with water it will slowly leak out, and the plants may decide how much is drained with how much they drink. I find them interesting, but I live in such moist place they aint needed most of the time.

Rue Barbie
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Marlingardener said:
I fear that in the near future, with the unrestricted growth allowed here in Texas, there will be a lot of contention over water. Some towns ran out of water during the drought a few years ago, and some regularly go on water restrictions each summer. Conserving and saving is certainly the way to go!
Same here in my part of the world - so cal. I don't think anyone ran out of water, but with more and more people wanting less and less water, it's going to be a long-lasting problem for gardeners in particular. (Ag is on their own.)

Not only will there be on-going water shortages, but water sources are going to get more expensive. More desal plants will be built over time, and the cost of that water is much greater than captured water.

So I both conserve, use grey water, and catch rain. And mulch, mulch, mulch.

The amount of rain to catch in Socal depends on what you are going to be using it for. As mentioned above, there are many months here where there simply is no rain. My rainwater was collected with the blueberries in mind. They are water guzzlers and are unforgiving if they get dry - they will die. Figuring I need to water them about every other day, that is about 100 watering days during the long dry summers. Each watering takes about 40 gallons (I've got too many of them, all in pots), so that means to water the berries, I need to catch and store 4,000 gallons of rain water. :eek:

Collecting the rain isn't the problem. If you have a 1,500 sq ft roof, you can theoretically harvest about 1,000 gallons for each inch of rain that falls. The problem is storing it. High quality rain storage is expensive. I figure about $1/gallon locally for good storage containers, delivered. It's also harder to find the more reasonable storage items mentioned above. The cubes with the metal sides are now hard to find. The blue 55 gal barrels are now triple the price than they used to be. I ended up buying above ground, 'cheapo' swimming pools from Amazon. But they take up space and are prone to evaporation even if covered. So this summer we'll see how long the collected rain lasts.



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