Grey Water And Garden

What do those two things have in common? Everything. I was getting into a good groove of using my grey water to flush my toilets. But then I began slacking off a bit. Then South Florida got hit with a drought and I was trying to grow a lush vegetable garden along with an herb garden. But with the water restrictions that have been placed upon us that was about to get difficult, unless I wanted to stand out there all day and water by hand, which is still allowable. Not in this Florida heat.

Enter grey water. I have a bucket I acquired from my local grocery store. I believe it is a 3 gallon bucket. All you do is go to your bakery department and see if they will let you have a frosting bucket. It is not a big as a wheat bucket (which is 5 gallons) and it fits right in my shower. Plus, the quicker you use your grey water the better. Usually a 24 hour turn around is best advised. But my garden needed more water, so I finally convinced my children to put a 2 gallon cleaning bucket in their shower. Viola! I have lots of water now. I am nearly collecting 5 plus gallons a day just in grey shower water. And my plants are loving me for it.

I still utilize the watering restrictions, but this grey water has its definite perks. It is water you would be wasting all the same, and now it is going for a worthy cause...my stomach, eventually that is. My son drags the heavy buckets outside and pours them into our watering can and I take over the rest. What a team. I almost call us the dynamic duo...almost. So let me show you some pictures of my efforts.

This first picture is of our cucumbers, and they are finally latching on to the fence. No need for steaks and string here.

This second one is of tomato plants that are finally starting to bear fruit. I wanted most of my plants to either be heirloom or organic, and most of them are. Next year I will do both.

This next one is of all my tomato plants. Last count I had 24 and that was not the row that has multiple baby plants. I will be taking many of them an making my own Topsy Turvy plant hangers. Check them out here.

This next one is of my fledgling curly parsley. I use this way more than flat, due to how much Tabbouleh we like to eat. And there are 2 sprigs of dill that in there as well so I am seeing homemade dill pickles in my future.

This is my daughters okra. WE LOVE OKRA. It does help that we are form the south. Yummo.

This is all thee okra plants. and they are doing wonderfully. I will soon need to add steaks and string so they can begin to climb.

I planted tons of cilantro seeds and the ones in the front of the garden came up wonderfully, but the seeds in the back piddled out. Fear not, I planted more seeds and guess what? I have tons of cilantro now. Then it hit me as I was weeding one day...these have multiple root systems. dag-nab-it, I had cilantro to uproot and replant. I now have about 8-10 cilantro plants all thriving.

This is my basil plant/bush and that puppy is doing great. Remember, that with basil you cannot pluck off a leaf, you have to take thee entire stem. This one we have had the longest.

This is our oregano. My son loves this on his homemade sub sandwiches. So when we run out he panics. Today I will be dehydrating more. Just chop it down and it grows right back.

This is my mint. There is no other way to describe this plant. IT GROWS WILD, and that my friends is no joke. Unless you want it to overtake your garden, I am suggesting a huge, not big, planter to house this is so it will not interfere with your other plants. I chopped this down to the ground a month ago and it is ready to be pruned again.

This is my flat leaf parsley. When I purchased this in its planter, the label stated that it was curly parsley, but it never got curly. We have adjusted and use it in many a things. But my preference is still to curly.

Way in the back you can barely see what looks like wild grass. No, that is garlic. We just popped off a few cloves form what we had in the house and here we go. But it did take a very long time for it to come up. So we thought we had lost it and planted over it. So now we have 2 things growing in the same place...oh well.


And these are our sweet peppers. the little ones that come in yellow, green and red and you can just pop them in your mouth. These are the same. I am so excited to start eating from our garden. Well worth the time and effort we have put into this.