I thinnk lots of people re-use their washing machine water this way.

A friend of mine says her plants love it.

She uses a detergent with no additives, & the only fabric softener she uses are the dryer sheets.

Best luck!

I wish I could, but my house just isn't set up for it. When I think of how much water is going down the drain while the kids take their 30 minute shower, I want to scream. If you can recycle it, I think it would be great and might keep the bugs away cause of the soap.

Reviving this thread 'cause I'm starting to think about how we might recycle some of our gray water to care for the balcony garden this summer. Ours is just a rented apartment with no special system in place to "catch" the gray water, but I figure if we plug the tub before starting a shower, we can bucket the water out afterwards for the garden. Also, I'm going to keep a bucket in the kitchen for random extra water; leftover coffee & tea, the water from boiling potatoes, etc.

Since we have to water the pots by hand, that shouldn't be too overwhelming. If we were running a drip irrigation system or sprinkler in a larger garden, obviously we would need a more elaborate setup. It's definitely something to think about in the house we want to have someday -- once we're out of grad school & such.

In Edmond Oklahoma they are building new neighbor hoods that are not hooked into sewer systems. Each house has a septic system that treats the water every day and waters the lawn at night.

I just put in a new shower and I am going to use the water in my flower beds. Between my wife and I that is 40 gallons a day. That works out to about a 4 ft by 8 ft flower bed with 2 inches of water every day. I could divide that into 7 beds and have enough water left for a tiny bog garden.

I could have blooms all summer and not have an extra load on my well.

plantermunn, how are you planning to collect the water? Do you have a place to store it for a few days in case it's rainy?

Originally I emptied my tub using buckets, but I eventually bought a utility pump. It was expensive--about $50, but it drains the tub down to 1/8" of water and it eliminates the drippy walks through the house. (Getting water from the tub once the water is 6" deep and shallower is a real pain!) I also use the pump for pumping water out of rainbarrels, so it was a very good choice for me.

I'm not sure if you even have a washer/dryer in your apartment, or if reusing that water would be feasible for you. In my house I tried to pipe my laundry water directly outside, but until I find something to gasket the washer/pvc interface, it won't work. So I bought a big garbage can to pump the water into on laundry days. Then I use the utility pump to send it outside. I actually prefer it that way because I can water the garden at a time of my choosing--instead of when the washer is emptying.

If you have a double sink, you can keep a dishtub in one of them for catching rinsewater. Little bits of food are no problem for the plants. This makes it easy to collect pasta or potato water, too.

Sara

I am not going to collect the water just let it free flow into a flex pipe and move it every day.

Every thing is down hill for me so I will not need to pump water.

The last little rental house we lived in, the washer water ran out into the yard way away from the house. This year we'll figure out a way to use the shower and the washer water. I don't think I'll use the sink water because of the greasy water from the pots & pans.

I also have a couple large plastic barrels I'll use to collect rain water.

Nancy

I am hoping to be able to work it so that i can start using gray water - my house has a crawl space, so i don't THINK it would be too hard for someone (NOT ME!) to go under there and divert the water.

Would water from the washer with bleach or oxyclean in it hurt anything? I don't use bleach often and could always just not use it if necessary....

stage_rat 5--Indiana Riviera:

You say you use potatoe water for your plants?

I got the idea to use pasta water for my house plants from this board and had no problems. The extra nutrients really did seem to benefit my plants I thought.

Then one day I thought, aha! Potatoe water! I watered all my different houseplants with it and, BOOM, they *all* went dead.

I know that parts of the potatoe plants are poisonous (leaves) and I peel my potatoes before I boil them, so I just don't know what happened except that chemicals in potatoes may be poisonous to plants.

I don't boil in salt water. (A newbie mistake.)

I let the water cool. (Another newbie mistake.)

Maybe I have found a "natural" weed killer for my garden????

Anyone know anything about potatoe water on plants?

Wow! I've never heard of it harming the plants, and I just did a quick little search and didn't spot anything. I have to admit, I've only done it twice, since that's the exact number of times I've boiled potatoes in the last 10 years! But my sister has done it at least once a week. I'll ask her if she ever had a suspicious plant death, but I know her plants are pretty healthy.

We have three old cesspools / all located in the back of house and hard to get at on a old piece of land from the twenties ... creative plumbing is the only way to survive without it costing us a fortune from a cesspool company. Lucky to have a husband who knows how to do all this ... and all my plants love the gray water from washing machines and small sink.