Greywater, Ponds, Constructed Wetlands and Water Catchment

In the desert, water is scarce and expensive, and California is now experiencing water shortages on a consistent basis. We've learned that one third of the drinking-quality water that enters most homes is used to flush the toilet. And close to half of all drinking water is used to water the lawn and garden. At the same time, in Permaculture, water features and ponds are very important for attracting wildlife that will do pest control for us. So how can we make the most use of our water? Where and how can we plant different kinds of plants together that will feed off of each other and therefore conserve water and soil as well?

Greywater

Greywater is "waste" water that has been used in the kitchen and bathroom sinks and/or shower, and is one way to save a great deal on water usage. We use a lot of greywater in watering our heavily-mulched garden beds.

Switching to all-natural, biodegradable soaps whose ingredients do not harm plants and animals means you can easily reuse this water in the garden. Water can directly be poured onto heavily-mulched garden beds (not on the plants themselves), or poured into a simple filtration system to remove larger particulate matter. Though it can be used directly on vegetables as long as it doesn't touch edible parts of the plants, we prefer to let the greywater break down a bit in a bucket with woodchips before watering these types of plants. We keep a bucket in our kitchen sink to catch all dishwater, and we have dismantled the pipe in one of the bathroom sinks to catch the water directly into a bucket underneath.

Ponds and Wetlands

Nature doesn't need sewage treatment plants. Wetlands are nature's own water purification systems and can be used to clean greywater. In a proper wetland system, a diversity of plants and micro-organisms all work together. Aquatic plants take up bacteria as nutrients and use them to grow.

Last Summer we had a small pond with Pickerel Weed, Water Lilies, Sweetflag, Watercress and Water Hyacinth along with oxygenating plants. With such diversity, there was no need for filters. We had goldfish enjoying the pond (who also ate mosquito larvae), though before the first frost, we gave our little fish away as the pond was too shallow to survive the Winter. This pond is now being reconfigured for a 'tire pond' - see Future Projects.

Constructed Wetlands

You would not want to pour greywater directly into a pond with fish, but it can be the final step after a constructed wetland has filtered the impurties out. That is our goal.

This Summer, we will be building a proper Constructed Wetland and Pond system.

Rainwater Catchment

This year Southern California has already had 8 inches of rain. Instead of watching it running down hillsides charred by recent fires and causing further erosion of the landscape, or running down gutters polluted with toxic surface run-off into storm drains (which feed back into our oceans, rivers and streams), imagine instead if houses were equipped with proper rainwater catchment systems. Our goal for the homestead is install a full rooftop rainwater catchment system that will drain into a cistern to supply the house. Until then, we have a simple rainwater barrel, and a bucket systerm on the porch poured into large trashcans as they fill up. From the latest storms, we could have easily filled a large cistern.

We use our rainwater anywhere in the garden. Below, Geoff pours rainwater from a large bin into the can for smaller plants.

Though the house is equipped with a sprinkler system, a great deal of water gets wasted in the walkways of the garden. We plan to install drip line irrigation for our gardens this year.