In Victoria, our storage levels are really low. The state government have urged all households to be under 155l per person per day. I imagine, without some grey water use, gardening would be a whole heap more difficult.
Here at our place, we haven't used tap water to water our plants in 18 months or so. When the stage 3 restrictions came in, my darling husband rigged up a grey water catchment for our washing machine water, bath & shower water.
Here's how.
The 240l bin catches all the grey water and stores it for whenever we need to use it. Usually, I do one load every 2 days or so - that, plus any other water generally fills the bin to 3/4 full. Having it stored means I don't have to use it straight away (although, you should use it within 24 hours to prevent ickies); but most importantly - I can use the water wherever I want.
Submersed in the bottom of the bin is a submersible pump. Not a powerful pump by any means, but enough that it can pump the water out of the small distance hose G has attached. I can either water the entire backyard via the hose; or I can bucket it up to the front.
This morning, I bucketed all the water up to the front yard; and watered it more than sufficiently. So, one load of washing = my front yard watered for 2-3 days.
Many gardeners are complaining about the restrictions - 'it's not fair we can't water' and 'our house price will drop because of our foul yards'. Now. I'll happily admit our front lawn is buggered. When we moved here, it was a well looked after, Don Burke style lawn. Now, it's a dustbowl. But, rather than fight a losing battle; we will eventually just get rid of the lawn in it's entirety and plant native, drought tollerant plants there instead.
Obviously there are always improvements to be made in the water saving area. And, really, it doesn't matter how we got here; whose fault it is, who didn't / did what the day before. What are any of these excuses / blaming games going to do when we run out completely?
As an aside - I made some washing powder the other day too. Rhonda from Down to earth has some excellent home made cleaners here - I used the heavy duty powder.
Works a treat!!
2 comments:
Off to check out those cleaners, might give them a try. I have a husband who works hard and two boys, clearly, it's the heavy duty stuff here too. ;)
Don't you just love her site????
You sound like me - we haven't used tap water on the garden for about 12months, and we're doing ok ( who can be bothered watering at 6am ?! )
We also use grey water, but have an odd laundry, with no external window or door, and no under house access. SO I just ensure all washes are done when i'm at home, and i've always got 4 buckets at the ready to catch overflow and then use it straight away.
It's not hard, and it's not an effort. I can't imagine ever NOT doing this now ( and when we had those so-long-ago rains and I DID let it go down the drain .. well .. I almost had guilt puppies :p )
I wrote an angry missive to the guvmint last night - like they'll care .. but hey, it made me feel better - they need to reduce that 155lt per person !! :)
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