Easiest way to slow-irrigate with gray water
Recently I wrote about my totally basic technique to collect laundry water for irrigation. Now for Phase Two of the not-handy homeowner...
Photo by flickr user Scott Robinson
Recently I wrote about my totally basic technique to collect laundry water for irrigation. Now for Phase Two of the not-handy homeowner’s gray water system: a slow-release drip bucket.
I’m not ambitious about undertaking home projects. But I am feverish about not wasting water—or specifically, about not investing fresh water in garden irrigation.
My low-tech laundry-water collection system calls for buckets (and buckets and buckets). But I’ve found that dousing a plant with that 2-gallon bucketful isn’t a great plan. Not only does much of the deluge run off, but the heavy slosh makes divots in the soil or even washes soil away, exposing roots.
New plan: I found this 5-gallon plastic food bucket and drilled 3 very small holes in the bottom. Now I pour the big slosh of gray water into the bucket and watch it percolate slowly down into the soil. No tidal waves, no craters.
There are more fashionable slow-water delivery systems of course. Take this pretty pottery olla for example. And here’s more info about the basics of a real gray watsunseer system. But for cheapskates like me, a bucket with holes will do the trick.
