Please follow the link below for more professional information since I may accidentally make this sound lame and disjointed. It's only because I am as yet uneducated. My sister with the Masters in Horticulture from NC State insists that I take Will Hooker's class. She loved it. Permaculture ("permanent" + "culture" or "permanent" + "agriculture") is a design philosophy developed by Bill Mollison in the 1970's. It basically teaches you to use nature's principles as your own as you build your home and structures, design your landscape, think about water and energy. The point is sustainability focusing on intensive small-scale food production by developing the natural relationships between plants and animals. I am really interested in the landscaping principles since I'm in The American Suburb. Right now, the land is what I can control most. Permaculture principles that I need to learn about are things like "food forests" where you layer different plants as you would find them in nature. Canopy, low tree layer (like dwarf fruits), shrubs, herbaceous plants, root crops, cover crops, and climbers/vines. I don't know yet what that means for me who lives on the edge of real woods and just figures I'll do straight-up raised beds. I want to know more. There's also a principle of "everything must have at least two uses". One example is housing your chickens in a chicken tractor so you can position them under your grape arbor. You shake down your vines, the beetles drop into the tractor. You save your grapes, you feed your chickens... Since I don't have chickens (yet!...), I want to see what else I might dual-purpose. I'm itching to build my arbor. Another observation/principle is that there is no waste in nature. Everything has a purpose and returns to the earth somehow. One man's apple core is another worm's dinner. That kind of thing. We all know composting is good, right? One of the desired results of permaculture is efficiency. There's much more that I don't know about. You might be able to tell that I haven't gotten my hands on the books yet but I do want to learn before I commit to my backyard landscape design. That's why I want cohorts in Charlotte :) This is the link to the course description at NC State. http://delta.ncsu.edu/apps/coursedetail/index.php?id=HS:590::601:FALL:2009 Here is a link that might be useful: Permaculture

One thing I'll add is you really should 'hold' that water for a short period to allow the hot water to cool. Don't want to 'cook' your plants! The easy way to do this is to take that black hose you spoke of and run it to a drain line that empties into a 55 gallon drum which is placed outdoors near where you have the washing machine, opposite the wall that the washer is placed is best so you won't be running lots of drain line. Plastic drums are easy to find and cheap ...$10 here in New Orleans ... and most are safe to use since the prior products in plastic barrels are syrup and other food stuffs but do ask what they had in 'em before purchase. Run that washer water in at the top of the drum. Then take and drill a hole at the bottom of one side of the barrel and attach a water hose end adapter or outdoor faucet inplace. Most can be screwed inplace with gaskets on either side of the barrel. Tell your hardware man what you are up too and I'm sure they will be able to fix you up. Oh and frankly a bit of leakage from the connection is no big deal. If using an outdoor faucet ..... and this is very important .... always leave the faucet turned on. Do not store grey water!!!! Never have the faucet turned 'off'. Leave it on so the water will always drain freely. Do not store grey water in the drum. Once that hose end adapter or faucet is in place attach an old garden hose and run this out to your garden. You can move the hose around to where ever you would like to water. Important ... do not store greywater! Also the barrel must be below the level of the top of the black washer hose (so ya don't burn out your washer's pump ... that level will be just below the height of the top of your washing machine) but above the level of the garden so that the drum will slowly drain by gravity. Mike

Is anyone receiving answer to that post ? I think Poinciana left that message on May 26, 2002 Maybe she's not checking back here anymore... anyone knows? Can't find her page on Gardenweb...

I think this has passed.