recycling water

[renoir_girl]

I'm looking ahead to my summer gardening and thinking about water. Last year my irrigation efforts lacked consistency, and my plants suffered for it. This year I find myself with my income cut to about 2/3 what it was, so my dreams of a network of hoses and sprinklers are going to have to be postponned. Instead, I'm thinking about ways to save

Comments

[djinnthespazz]

If you use a gentle soap - you can also cycle your 'greywater' into the garden. For most of this this means dishwater, although there are folks who have systems that bypass the public drain and send their bathwater to the garden, too.

[renoir_girl]

Wow. I wouldn't even begin to know how to make this happen. We use a dishwasher, shower, and, well, we aren't plumbers. :) But it's something to consider. Thanks!

[djinnthespazz]

You could switch to hand washing the dishes, and capturing that water. That was the suggestion. I don't have the system bypass, either, but was sharing how far you could take the concept!

[renoir_girl]

Got it. Cool. Learning every bit helps, and even if we continue using the dishwasher to save our backs, that doesn't mean we never have 'greywater' to collect at the sink. Just have to train myself to re-think.

[djinnthespazz]

There you go. Incremental progress. I'm working on mine, too. I'm moving to Arizona. Suddenly greywater figures predominantly in my future!

[ladysaphira]

Now you've got me thinking...

Most dishwashers are plumbed into the same drainpipe as the kitchen sink. In my house if I open the cabinet I can see it right beneath the sink and it's a fairly simple setup. If someone was feeling brave and had a wrench they could probably take it off the drainpipe and put it into a large bucket. The trickiest part after that would be figuring, and finding, a bucket that will hold all the water.

I might consider doing this myself! My biggest problem last year was that we got so much rain my garden never needed watering - in fact we had standing water in new and exciting places!

[renoir_girl]

I know that in my apartment before we moved into this house, we even had PVC pipes under the sink that very easily pulled apart. If we still had that setup, it wouldn't even take a wrench!

But that's mostly irrelevant.

:)

[ladydragonflyii]

this is really interesting-however,wouldn't the water from the dishwasher be too toxic for plants(since the powders or cleaners are stronger than regular liquid dish detergent?

[kofjbirds]

Not as a personal 'attack' on you, but as a general contribution to this interesting discussion ... -> doesn't that mean that we shouldn't be using that detergent? Gardens plants aren't the only ones worth sparing...

[ladydragonflyii]

I merely -ponted out that the dishwasher liquid or crystals are a stronger detergent than regular or any other (specially formulated) Hand washing dish liquid..
I suppose it may have been clearer if I had said-
the automatic dishwashing detergent-crystal or liquids...

[ladysaphira]

As mentioned below depends entirely one what kind of soap you put in. I have a septic system and I'm currently using Planet powdered detergent which is biodegradable, has no phosphates, chlorine, fragrance, etc... And it does a fine job cleaning the dishes too! Another company I'd recommend for dishwasher soap I wouldn't be scared to put on my garden is Seventh Generation.

alternatives~

[ladydragonflyii]

I like your suggestion of bio degradable products-Seventh generation is one I have seen on the market..although honestly haven't tried as yet..
I am using more baking soda& vinegar these days for most cleanup jobs...
new dishwasher -just don't know what to use~~