Grey Water & Rain Water

I grew up in a rural area that now  is totally suburban; the farms and dairies  I knew as a child are long gone and replaced by seemingly innumerable condos, apartments and McMansions.   But when I was growing up,  my family depended on a well for water and we always worried during summer dry spells if its supply would hold up. Our house was situated on a hillside, and there was a ditch along the up side of our lot to channel runoff away from the house. Except for the spring, this ditch was usually dry; and during these times I remember my mother frequently taking the dish water from the kitchen and pouring it into one area of the ditch.  This was done, as she said, "to feed the worms."  

Keeping this section of ditch moist seemed to work because it was where my father and I would dig for bait when we wanted to go fishing.  The dish water, however, was never used in the vegetable garden or in the several concrete and cobblestone urns that sported flowers - usually geraniums and petunias.  For the vegetable garden and those urns we used rain water collected in large wooden barrels placed under the down spouts of gutters.  One of my jobs was to use this rain water to keep the flowers   and certain vegetables, mostly tomatoes, moist.  The watering cans I used  held 3 gals (24 lbs) of water. I didn't mind lugging them around, but I did not like reaching down into those barrels when the water level got low because clouds of mosquitos seem magically to ascend from the water and chase me.

Why, you might be wondering, am I writing about this? Because recently someone asked me if they should use their dish water on their vegetable garden instead of just pouring it down the drain.  

The short answer is no.  Dish water is grey water. It is not considered sewage. It does not come from the toilet, but grey water does contain very dilute amounts of some of the same contaminants.  

Dish water can include  fats, meat scraps and other organic wastes that can feed very unfriendly bacteria or even attract larger unwanted pests.  Household grey water typically  includes waste water from kitchens, laundries, bathroom sinks and showers and/or bath tubs; and that is why household grey water  ideally requires its own filtration system if it is to be distributed to a garden.  That distribution system, however, should be  either an underground or surface soaker network to avoid the grey water from contacting the edible parts of plants.   Now,  I doubt if my mother ever thought about dish water as grey water; probably she dumped the dish water  in the ditch simply because  the ditch was close to our back door.  For a little more information about grey water and how to use it, consult the  Greywater Action Organization .  

Another way to reduce the amount of metered water you use on your garden, consider collecting rain water, but remember to keep a mosquito proof cover over the barrel.  More information about collecting rain water is available from this Cornell University link.  Also, check your city's or town's website because many of them in the Capital District are offering discounted programs for you to buy rain barrels as part of their ongoing conservation efforts.

Book Recommendation:  Seed to Seed

Spring is upon us. Probably you are now thinking about sowing seed and maybe you're also thinking about starting to saving  seed from your favorite vegetables at the end of the season. I think that probably very gardener has been tempted to save seeds from that perfect squash, pepper or tomato at some time.

Your motivation might be to enjoy that great flavor again; maybe it's economy (I can save seed money); or maybe it's "I can help preserve heirlooms for everyone in the future even in my own little plot."

For those of us with small gardens trying to produce that flavorful vegetable again next year, however, is probably the most common motivation. Seed saving sounds easy, and it might be easy assuming that you have the right kind of seed and the right conditions. However, like most things, it's worth spending some time  trying  to find out about what  you don't know before finding out that you don't know much about it.

So if you really want to try seed saving this year, the Bible on seed saving is Suzanne Ashworth's Seed to Seed (Seed Savers Exchange, 2002).  On the most elemental level you will need plants that are not hybrid varieties and your plants will need isolation. Isolation can be achieved by not having nearby gardeners or by curtaining them from other plants in your garden that might cross pollinate with your veggie favorites.  These factors and many others are covered in Ashworth's book. The book identifies some of the most popular heirloom types that you might want to try as well as enumerating the major  organizations dedicated to preserving heirloom varieties and distributing their seeds.  I am not a seed savor, but Seed to Seed now has a prominent spot on the bookshelf.

And remember:

"Rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables,

and for the animals who eat those animals." - Samuel Johnson