Grey Water and Sustainable Organic Gardening

Organic gardening is a holistic approach to growing plants that takes all aspects of the ecosystem into consideration. Though the phenomenon of using grey water is just starting to catch on with organic gardeners, it use can create even more sustainability through its implementation and regular use.

Organic gardening is an activity that more and more people are getting involved in each year. For some gardeners it is a passion that stretches far beyond just growing fruits and vegetables. Imagine being able to get more out of the water that you use on a daily basis in your kitchen, for instance, and being able to use that water to support your organic growing.

This kind of sustainability is at the core level of the rationale behind organic gardening, so it behooves organic gardeners and growers to consider using gray water in the irrigation of organic gardens.

What is grey water?

Grey water is water that is used in sinks and showers that does not contain solid waste. Although the water has been used once, collection of grey water can be very beneficial and helps to ensure that water is not being wasted. If collected and used properly, grey water can help to conserve water and save money for the organic gardener.

Is it safe for plants?

Grey water can be very beneficial to plants, as long as there are no harsh soaps or chemicals being used in the sinks or bathtubs where the water is being collected. Using natural, biodegradable and organic soaps and cleaners will ensure that you don’t contaminate your produce.

The use of grey water in gardens can be great for plants, as many of the body’s natural oils and dead skin cells help to add more organic material to the water itself, helping to provide additional benefits to the plants without additional work.

How is grey water collected?

Collecting grey water can be done with some minor adjustments to your current plumbing. The water that drains from your sinks or bathtubs is rerouted to a collection tank outside of your home. Generally speaking, sinks are the easiest sources from which you can collect grey water; rerouting the plumbing is far easier from sinks than bath tubs and showers.

The water is moved through pipes to a collection tank, from which you can use the water in your gardening applications. Over time, you will collect a good amount of water that’s full of extra organic material that will benefit your produce and help contribute to the sustainability of your gardening in general.

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This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of Customized Girl discount coupons. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com

The Organic Gardening Guru is Taking Questions

My friend Mort Mather is taking organic gardening questions, at least for the winter, over at his Happy Blog. Mort was president of the Maine Organic Gardening Association, and grows an awesome garden that supplies his son's southern Maine restaurant.

A Foot of Snow in One Day!

What the hell was that? A little "welcome to upstate New York" snowstorm caught all but the old-timers off guard up here in the "snow pocket" as I now hear it's called. I was out there in the pouring snow, the wettest snow I ever saw, building a make-shift cold frame around half the garden with what I had laying around (green maple branches are very flexible).

And everything lived! Seriously, this cold frame gardening is a great way to extend the season! I couldn't believe it got down to 22 degrees, stayed below freezing for hours, and yet the spinach, arugula, lettuce, collards, miner's lettuce, and even a few of the peas are still showing signs of life. And it's all so delicious. Obviously, when I've read that cold weather makes these vegies taste better, they weren't kidding!

We went three days with no power. The first night we could sure tell why, when we first thought we heard gun shots in the woods, and we realized it was limbs breaking under the weight of all that snow. I don't envy those power workers out there clearing all those miles of electric lines.

Now that the snow has mostly melted, even the late planted side with only baby kale, spinach and collards still shows signs of life, albeit stunted.

28 Degrees and There's Still Lettuce

All you old snowbirds will have to forgive my wonder at growing food through frost. We felt a little like we were stealing from mother nature, planting a fall garden on Aug. 15 in zone five. We started having light frosts in September, with each frost getting a little worse. We'd just stretch plastic over the garden as they started to get heavier and lasting longer.

Last night it dropped below freezing before midnight, and it was below freezing until 9 am. We covered, but when I uncovered just before 9, everything was pretty crispy under there.

And yet, here it is at 2 pm, 64 degrees out there, and even a few of the peas (which dont get covered) are hanging in there, though none are showing signs of blooming, and their growth is obviously stunted.

But the lettuce (black seeded simpson) is going crazy, as is the spinach, collards (which could probably live through a blizzard), miner's lettuce, and a few other cold hardy greens. I don't even see many locals with anything growing now, although I'm sure you're out there, sneaking in those last few treats before the tundra takes over!

4 frosts now and everything's fine!

This morning was the fourth frost we had up here (zone 5, near Cooperstown NY), and all of these cold weather vegies did just fine. The low was 29 degrees, so it wasn't really a hard freeze. Looks like it was only below freezing for a few hours.

The spinach actually seems to like the frosts. It positively glows as it melts away. The collards definitely love the cold. What's left of the peas (that the deer didn't eat) are doing well as well.

So, we're really impressed with the quality of the plants. We got the seed from Johnny's Selected Seeds, an employee owned company in Maine. They have an excellent selection of organic seeds.

I forgot how much I love fall gardens! Every frosty morning I feel like I'm stealing something from nature by not losing any of these plants!

Fall Garden Deer Delicasies

It is so nice to have a vegetable garden again. After years of living in the concrete jungle of the LA Suburbs, with very little soil, we moved to upstate NY this summer just in time to get this little fall garden in.

The snow peas are a real treat for the deer, who ate half of them before I admitted I was way out of practice on this, and asked the Wizard of Wells, organic gardening writer Mort Mather, what to do. His special deer spray recipie is one gallon of water, two tablespoons of hot sauce, and one tablespoon of biodegradeable soap. Sprayed them on the peas, lost a few more the next night, but that was it. I have a funny image of a little deer running to the nearest water hole with his stinging tongue hanging out!

I'd been sprinkling cayenne pepper on the spinach to keep the rabbits away, and as you can see from the picture, that's been working fine. Also found some stuff called liquid fence, which has petrified eggs--stinks to high heaven--and works well. A little expensive, though (the owners left a bottle), and I don't know if I want to develop a home-made recipe for that!

We also scatter our hair around the perimeter. I urinate around the yard occasionally, and I've hung chimes all around the place. Any other suggestions for keepin' the critters out?

I have ignored this poor little blog for too long! Until last year, I was working full time as a stage technician in Los Angeles, living in the suburbs with very little land for gardening, and even less time.

A diagnosis of osteoarthritis has put an end my days of heavy lifting, and so, I'm no longer a stage technician. I have to get a lot help with the gardening, but it's good easy exercise, and it helps me to get out and stretch a little.

We moved to the east coast to live more cheaply, and to be near family. I planted a fall garden in the middle of August up here in zone 5, and it's coming along nicely. We'll be eating spinach and lettuce soon, and if we don't get too hard of a frost, we'll be eating collards and snow peas in a few weeks.

My old buddy Mort Mather, an organic gardener and philosopher, has a new web site and blog. My friend Cherie Attix, owner and operator of the Hale Hookipa Inn Maui Bed and Breakfast (which features an awesome organic garden) has started writing a blog as well. She calls it Ho'okipa Aikane, or "home sharing friend." I'm looking forward to reading both of their posts!

Much more to come, including pictures!

PANNA: Pesticides Linked to Frog Mutations: Here's a big surprise. Pesticides are linked to frog mutations. Wow.

Look, my wife and I are big fans of frogs. We even have a web site with frog posters, books, toys, and other frog related stuff. We think these amphibians are our canaries in the coal mines. These mutations are proving that the pesticides we dump on our farm land and yards are running off into our water supply, which the new big-business controlled Supreme Court will soon make easier to do by changing the reach of the clean water act.

It is quickly becoming clear that the only way to combat these global corporate polluters and suburban lawn junkies is to go organic. Make your yard organic. Encourage organic agriculture by purchasing organic food and products whenever you can. Since our government and big business community care more about short term profit than the long term viability of our land and agriculture, then we have to change things from the ground up. Literally.

If I was eating dinner in a certain southern Maine restaurant right now, not only would I be eating some of the freshest, local, often organic food, I'd be talking to my good friend and organic gardening guru Mort Mather (who's son, Joshua, runs Joshua's Bar and Grill in Wells). Instead, I'll be taking my son to baseball practice this week, where I'll try to avoid the Fox News brainwash victim, who I wish would just read this. But the organic news I wanted to report is more little thing we can all do to increase awareness of, and demand for, organic food.

When you go in a restaurant, like, oh, I don't know, a certain fine dining establishment near Cooperstown New York, ask what they have that's organic or local (or both). Any food service operation should have to answer that question everyday. If you're going to be hiring, oh, just off the top of my head, say, southern California caterers or Hudson Valley caterers, you should ask them to plan your event using as much fresh, local, organic food as they possibly can. Be willing to pay extra. Make sure other dining patrons or party goers hear you when you ask if they have anything organic on the menu.

If more people did this, you'd start seeing the word "organic" on the menu, or catering choices. Even in the ritziest places in Hawaii or California.

PANNA: Share the Love with Flower Workers

I've been a big supporter of pesticide-free and organic flower production for years. One of my Search Engineering clients, Hana Flowers, an on-line florist in Hawaii, grows pesticide free in Hawaii. Each flower is hand-picked, hand-washed in a bio-degradeable solution, and hand-packed in wet paper before being shipped anywhere in the world.

If you'd like to go even further, I recommend you read this article about flower workers and what you can do to help them. The Pesticide Action Network of North America has a program to help you purchase fair trade chocolate and organically grown flowers.

Warm up any room for the holidays with a tropical bouquet of Hawaiian flowers. Hana Flowers, of Maui Hawaii, grows pesticide-free flowers which are hand-picked, hand-washed in bio-degradeable soap, and hand-packed in damp paper, then shipped directly to you from Hawaii.

Considering that flowers are usually grown in third world countries, where they - and the workers - are coated in dangerous pesticides, shopping for your holiday flowers from Hana flowers makes sense for your health, the health of floral workers, and the health of the environment. Please vote with your dollars by purchasing these high-quality, earth-friendly tropical flowers for your holiday bouquet.

If anyone would like to post here on a regular basis, contact me at ssupak at yahoo dot com. Here's an e-mail I got the other day.

Hi, I wanted to let you know about this news story for your organic blog, and how factory farming affects all of us: Fruits, Veggies Now Linked to Most Major Salmonella Cases.

And more generally I wanted to introduce The NewStandard--a national, independent, newspaper with hard news from a progressive standpoint five days a week. They're in an uphill battle for another 380 members and financial stability, so if you like it and you or anyone you know would want to become members, I'd greatly appreciate the help in keeping this important project alive.

Great sites! And happy Thanksgiving!

benjamin melançon
human being
ben at melanconent dot com

Founding Member
People Who Give a Damn

Webworker, beMWeb web site design & digital photography

Interim Co-ordinator, The Fund for Authentic Journalism , Supporting the work of the Narco News Bulletin, And its companion projects, the School of Authentic Journalism and the NarcoSphere

I often get mail from kids looking for organic farms on which they'd like to work, in order to learn more about organic agriculture. Now they can go to college, because as today's AP headline says, Students Flock to Campus Organic Farms.

Over the past few years, about 200 schools have signed up with farm-to-college programs, which match up local farmers with area universities, according to the Venice, Calif.-based Community Food Security Coalition.

It's not just fruits and vegetables, either. The University of Montana in Missoula spends $425,000 on local meat, dairy and wheat products, about 17 percent of the school's overall food budget. Some of the students are even looking into bio-diesel programs to run their tractors.

I have such hope for the next generation. At my local grocery store the other day, the stock boy, about 18 years old, was putting glass bottles of milk on the shelf. I said I was amazed that they still put milk in glass, and he said he wished they put organic milk in glass, because that's all he'll drink. Wow. I remember the days when I was explaining to everyone why they should eat, and drink, organic. Now, they're bragging about it.

For anyone who still doesn't understand why eating organic is better for you, read today's LA Times story, Dozens of Chemicals Found in Most Americans' Bodies. While your health is certainly a good reason to go organic, you should know that organic agriculture is much better for the planet's health too.

Pesticides linked to Parkinsons

As I read this story about a link between common garden pesticides and Parkinsons, I wondered why anyone would still use this crap, when organic gardening is so much easier for lazy gardeners like me, and so much better for you and the planet. Odd that the scientests who made this connection simply say to wear protective equipment when you apply pesticides (no mention of going organice), and they story doesn't mention exactly which pesticides they made the connection for.

So, I did a little digging and found the New Scientist Magazine article, where the researches admit that exactly which pesticide or pesticides were causing the Parkinsons had slipped through their regulatory net.

It would be more helpful, he adds, for studies to monitor exposure to individual pesticides as and when they are used, rather than relying on people's memories of their usage.

Just stop using the poisons!

Friends of the Earth: Press Releases: 2003: New Tax Could Cut Pesticide Use

What are the odds that the Bush Assministration will let anything like this, which would cost the billionaire executives of Monsanto and DuPont some pocket change (assuming people actually start using less of their toxic stuff), anywhere near the Governator's Pen? I can hear the phone conversaton now.

Bush: Arnold?
Gov: W?
Bush: Hey, if you want any chance to become president, you gotta stop this pesticide tax.
Gov: No problem. I promised no new taxes, and all of these kinds of things.

The proposed tax hike on pesticides would fund classes for California farmers on how to reduce the amount of toxic runoff in the state's water supply. This would be a temporary tax paid by urban buyers of all sorts of chemicals, including chlorine for pools. The current 2.1% tax would go to 10% for three years, and then revert to the 2.1%. During this time, farmers who enroll in the classes would recieve rebates, and could actually make money from the program.

You know why this won't happen? Because it makes sense. In the mean time, I encourage everyone to learn what you can online about using less, or no, synthetic chemicals on your yards and gardens. Organic gardeners have no runoff problems.

Also in organic news today (busy day):

Organic greens strengthen the immune system: Danish study. Good eatin'!

Great southern Maine restaurant serves organic food

Joshua Mather's Restaurant in Wells, southern Maine, known simply as Joshua's, offers organic food whenever possible. His priority is always freshness first, organic or natural second, and local or from Maine third. Much of the organic produce, when in season, comes from Johua's father, Mort Mather. His organic farm near Wells produces a large protion of the fresh, organic vegetables used in the restaurant.

Mort is an author and former President of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. His organic gardening web site is full of his articles on organic gardening.

Good News on the Sustainable Agriculture front from, uh, yes, I've checked it again, the Bush Agriculture Department.

Kansas is proving ground for federal conservation program

Seems in 2002, Bush signed into law the Conservation Security Program, a "voluntary program that provides financial and technical assistance to promote the conservation and improvement of soil, water, air, energy, plant and animal life, and other conservation purposes on Tribal and private working lands." My only question is, how much did Monstanto pay to have them wait this long?

Still, all my sarcasm and bitterness aside, this is apparently a good program, under which farmers who have been doing the right thing all along can be rewarded for their actions. Proof, I suppose, that even when guided by corporate schills, the beauracracy can churn out a good program every now and then. I'm sure this didn't originate in the White House, anyway.

Of particular interest is the inclusion of rewards for no-till practices, which improve soil tilth and reduce erosion. And, as anyone who has visited my organic gardening site knows, healthy soil makes healthy plants that are disease, drought, and pest resistant.

Organic Gardening Gifts

We've restocked our organic gardening supplies store with great gardening gifts for the gardener in your family. Wow. You can tell that sentence was written by a specialist in search engine optimization. We hope that on this day of sad environmental news, you'll vote with your dollars. By spending our money wisely, in ways that help the planet, we'll be telling American industry and politicians that no matter which party you're from, or which polluting industry you lobby for, a majority of Americans believe in more environmental protection, not less. By spending your money on environmentally sound products and services, like our organic gardedning products, you send a message by rewarding the companies that produce these environmental products, and punishing the ones who don't.

Perhaps most importantly is getting children involved in sustaianble spending. We recommend getting them started in organic gardening with this Whitney Farms Organic Gardening Starter Kit. Besides teaching them respect for nature and organic gardening techniques they will remember all their lives, children will eat vegetables they grow!

Anyone who wasn't paying attention to the USDA's organic standards fiasco this week wouldn't have noticed yet another Bush administration flip-flop. This time, the USDA, and Ann Veneman, Armageddon freak, tried to allow some pesticide and antibiotic use in organic food. Today, about 24 hours later, Veneman backed off those changes. It was all probably a ploy so Bush could say he protected the organic standards from attack.

One thing's for sure: John Kerry doesn't flip-flop on the environment. He gets a 92%, an A, from the League of Conservation Voters. George Bush gets an F. The first F they've ever given.

So, all you Kerry voters in California and New York (or any other solidly blue or red state) get your asses to Ohio, where you only have to be a resident for 30 days to vote there.

The Rose and Kettle Restaurant

If you're looking for a great Cooperstown restaurant to visit after you go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or on your way to the Glimmerglass Opera, stop by the Rose and Kettle in Cherry Valley. The Rose and Kettle offers fresh, organic, locally raised and grown gourmet food at reasonable prices in upstate New York.