Water butts

[Val]

 8) Hubby has just connected the water butts to the down pipe from the shower. I am fed up seeing the plants wilting, we're on a meter so can't just hose away. Now perhaps we'll have sweet smelling soil and flowers. Has anyone done this and is it okay for the plants?

[Val]

[derbex]

Val,

I haven't tried it, except on an ad-hoc basis with bowls of washing up water, but I have been thinking of it when we get some new pipes -I don't fancy drilling the cast iron :)

Having a look around it seems that it's ok on ornamentals -but maybe not so good on veg. Try doing searches on 'grey water' or greywater.

Jeremy.

[Val]

Thanks Jeremy , it isn't on veg I want it for, so hopefully it should be okay. I'll look up the grey water though cheers.

[derbex]

I've been looking some more and it seems that if you're going to do it then bath & shower water is the stuff to use. The consensus is that it shouldn't be stored, untreated, for more than a day though.

You could always build a reed bed as a feature :)

Jeremy

[Jesse]

Bath water should be fine (I have used it, carrying buckets to and fro) provided as Jeremy says you use it and not leave it for days on end. I would not use anything from the kitchen sink as some brands of washing liquid if concentrated too strongly can damage plants, I learned that the hard way.

You may need to be cautious if your water butt is permanently connected to your bath. What do you use to clean your bath, would the chemicals in bath cleaners cause damage to your plants? Perhaps test on a "not so favorite" plant first or have some way of disconnecting the water butt supply when rinsing out the bath after using cleaning products. Perhaps the dilution would be okay, I don't know.

[Val]

Thanks for the advice, I think it'll have to be an experimental exercise, I wouldn't use it all in one day, it depends on the weather really, so I'll take the advice and use it on annuals they only last the season anyway, I just hope there won't be a build up of anything in the soil.