Gray Water?

I knew about saving rain water for plants but I was reading something on the web tonight regarding the reuse of water previously used in dish and clothes washing for plants. The article stated that the soap used should be low in phosphate. Could anyone recommend a way to tell if a detergent is low in phosphates? Also, is water from the shower used? What is a good soap for this purpose (reuse)? I make oatmeal soap for my husband. Would that be a good chice?
I am a new gardener with an interest in recycling. I started my first compost bin today. Actually, I had to restart it, since the one I started yesterday had weeds. THEN I read not to use weeds in the compost. And here I thought once they were composted they'd be alright.
Lots to learn, still giving it the Pat Benatar Best Shot...Misty

UH, hello is anyone home??!!??

Yeah, at home, just don't know much about the subject. The soap or detergent box will have info about phsphate content.

Frank

Me either, I know they use to.

MistyPetals, I know over on the Sustainable Alternatives forum graywater recycling is a hot topic. I don't think you need to be a subscriber to post over there, and you might have better luck with this particular question.

I don't know anything about it myself; we've talked about hooking up our washer to collect the rinse water, but it's on the list of 1001 projects that we'd like to do but will probably never happen...

Misty,

In the olden days before detergents, gray water was always reused on the lawn and plants. I think the phosphate question comes up with detergents. I just now went and looked at my box of Gain detergent. It says, "no phosphates." So, reading the labels should work for that. Your oatmeal soap should be just fine, too.

We have been talking about that same idea. It will probably be on next year's agenda.

Karen

Thanks everyone, I'm headed over to the Sustainable Alternatives forum. Speaking of water, there's an interesting discussion regarding the report on prescription drug 'residue' being found in the water, also.

Mistypetals My mother and father have gardened for over 50 years and when my father was alive my mother said he directed the washing machine water to drain in the garden ( don't remember why) and their garden grew the best then.

deanna8, your father was ahead of his time. Fifty years of gardening? Impressive!

If you have a septic, it makes more sense to have the grey water drain out into the garden, than to flood the septic with it. We found that out the hard way at the house we bought with an iffy septic. An older couple had lived there for 20 years so no really big washing was done, then the 3 of us moved in with our daily showers, dishwashing, clothes washing. Once my husbands brother joined us, it was the death knell for the septic. We had to then have a sand mound put in to the tune of $25,000.!

This message was edited Mar 13, 2008 8:21 AM

25,000 dollars?!?!? Oh, my! and Double Oh, my!

Misty, I have been running my laundry water out the back window into storage containers (large trash cans) and hand water with it. I have switched to Arm & hammer (green bottle) since it is plant based, for my laundry with out any problems. I have been doing this for the last couple of years.

We also have a small battery sunmp pump we use for draining the tub of water. We haven't use anything special in the way of body wash. Use what we normally have always used. I always use the shower water within 24 hrs though.

We have a systern and water delivery can be expensive and I feel much better making every dollar and water drop count. It also helps keep the water out of the septic.

I think we all need to get some knowledge about what we all flush down our drains and it ends up in our oceans and waterways, here in UK, we are all just wakening up to the prescription drugs and all the chemicals we throw onto our gardens, the chemicals are washed or leach out by rainfall and this also ends up in either the street drains or house drains, no matter, it all ends up in the same place, the same goes for all the household cleaning fluids we use, we have a huge rise in kids with allergies and asthma now, the Doctors are saying we are over using chemical air fresheners, either sprays or plug in types and babies are inhaling all this stuff causing later problems, so I guess we all need educated sometimes, but naturally, the companies who make all this stuff and encourage us to use them or our homes will be either full of germs or smell awful dont want us to know about it all or we would stop buying the stuff. Rain water buts are really popular here now, as are folks who reuse there bath water and washing up water etc, we've been brought up in a throw away society and now we are being told it is all our fault, our parents were the best at recycling as they could never afford to toss away anything if it could be used for something else, so we have a lot to learn eh. WeeNel.

I say go for it! Like dottnmd said - just becareful what kind of soaps you are using..
Goodluck!
~bre

I am reusing water as a part of my recycling, and learned from my 90 year old neighbor to put a bucket under an air conditioner to save the water that drips from it.
Alas, I have central, nevertheless am posting this idea here because someone might use it or find it beneficial and just never thought to do so.
Man, those older people sure are smart!
We are in the midst of spring rains here and a children's wading pool makes a great catch the water 'bucket.' Found mine at Walmart, under ten bucks.
Also, am reconsidering my practice of watering daily and instead am starting to water every 2-3 days.
WeeNel, I understand exactly what you mean and am trying to conserve water.
Georgia is having horrendous water problems currently, they are to the point of trying to borrow water from TN.
After hearing GA's problems, I became even more concerned about water conservation. See, that's the thing about natural resources, they're easy to take advantage of until they start to dwindle.
We'd better start caring. How ya gonna garden without water? Succulents only, anyone? And even they need water. I think we're hurting ourselves and in the long run we will regret it, if we're not extinct.


This message was edited Apr 9, 2008 2:09 AM

misty,

your central a/c has to drain the moisture it removes from your indoor air somewhere. Mine has a small plastic pipe that comes out of my crawl space -very low to the ground, maybe about 3" from the dirt. If I kept the a/c on all the time, it would really provide a lot of water, especially on humid days. As it is, I have a couple of splash rocks under it and planted some plants that can take the moist and dry conditions.

It's a great topic to learn for all us gardeners, especially here in UK where we pay heavily for water rates, I have heard of folks who dont flush the toilet if it has just been urine that went into the bowl, because the water used in every flush is horrendous, so I guess maybe everyone wont go to that extreme, folks are wakening up that there is a hefty price to pay eventually for all our waist, we are being advised to switch off TV and unused or unrequired lights no as when we leave the TV on stand by, we are using the same amount of electricity as we would if the TV was transmitting the program, same with our Mob phone chargers, I never gave all this a thought before, but I guess we all need to try cut back on our waste or we could be leaving real problems for our grand-kids etc, so I have made a conscious effort to try cut back, but it is a case of training the brain that everything costs something, if not money then our environment, geeeeeees I am beginning to sound like my husband already, ha, ha, ha. happy gardening and penny pinching too, WeeNel.

That's the connetion that makes me swoon, WeeNel. If you 'save the planet' youultimately save money. That's groovy, babe, plain, unadulterated groovy!
An in the affirmative, yes!
Also, you are right, there is a bit of brain retraining that has to take place before we get it right. I'm taking baby steps.
Your husband gets this? Cool! I'm still trying to explain to my husband why he cannot eat steaks, burgers and pork chops at every meal. It's been a long, hard road but we are making progress. This week he said, when we go shopping I'm going to start buying more poultry products. Yes!
I'm excited as rain is predicted tomorrow, I've got my buckets all set up outdoors. Now, if I can only remember the dance to ensure the rain. (LOL)

I read an article a few months ago about a lady that would 'strain' her wash-water through some hay or straw. Not sure how much this would help (depend on how dirty the water was I guess) but it certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

Is it really safe to put chemical detergents on vegetable plants? I use natural detergent (bio-kleen) and would be weary of putting my wash water on vegetable plants.