Water charges, water saving, and water use.

tippben

Given the advent of the dreaded water charges, I expect we're all thinking of how to minimize water use in the garden. I live in a semi-detached bungalow, and have room for two large water butts and two small ones. We can leave empty vessels lying around to catch extra rain. I tend to favour "no-dig" approaches, so there's generally mulch on my raised beds, and I also incorporated silica granules.

Our drains are soakaways, so our washing machine runoff ends up in the herb bed. We use Ecover powder, so I'm not worried about that. Does anyone know if "grey water" from the shower and the sink (containing shampoo, soap, and toothpaste) would cause significant problems for vegetables? I have no qualms about using it on the perennial borders.

Does anyone have any other cunning ideas?

medieval knievel · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:45 am Post subject:

i frequently urinate in the garden - direct irrigation and fertilisation, plus the added benefit of not having to flush the loo.

My Potatoes · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:18 pm Post subject:

Drill a well if you have room for it. There is advertising everywhere for this at the moment.
Install a grey water tank, to collect rainwater from the roof. These would normally be build under a house at construction time, but I'm sure there's a retro-fit alternative.

Geranimojess · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 3:00 pm Post subject:

My Potatoes · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 9:47 am Post subject:

Another thing, if you could be bothered, is an irrigation system on a timer.
I saw these advertised for Lidl/Aldi today. Not sure if they have them now or coming soon.

kindredspirit · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 11:12 am Post subject:

We might have to brush up on our rain dance techniques to water the garden on demand!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2e1515l7Tc