Clothes Washer Greywater

I met "L" at the dump the other day and she asked me how I get my clothes washer water to my gardens. She was tired of carrying buckets and was envisioning an underground irrigation system. That surely would work, but I haven't yet gotten to that point. Considering that my gardens are scattered about an area of 6 acres, an irrigation system would have to be pretty extensive.....and expensive. So I have other ways of utilizing my washer water. 

First let me say that the past 3 years have been "wet years", thus irrigation water isn't a high priority. But I still tend to utilize greywater because I believe it's a good habit to be in. During drought years, I become fanatical about using every drop. 

Our wash machine is located in an outdoor shed between the house and driveway. This is Hawaii, so I don't need to have the laundry area inside my living quarters. The water discharge runs out via a long 1 1/2" diameter hose (a swimming pool vacuuming hose) which I can move about the yard. When I don't need irrigation water, I simply let the washing machine discharge directly around some trees, moving the hose so that one spot doesn't get overly saturated. But when I need the water, I either discharge right into a nearby garden or I do something different. 

1- (an old method I no longer use) I run the hose into a large trashcan, then use a bucket to hand dip that water and carry it to a garden spot to water individual plants. Time consuming. Labor intensive. Once upon a time it seemed a fine solution, but my shoulder joints are wearing out so it was time to come up with a less painful method. 

2- Run the hose into the trashcan, BUT rather than hand dip the water, I use a sump pump and a garden hose. The trashcan can hold both the wash and rinse water from one load of laundry, so I don't have to be right there to use the water between wash and rinse cycles. The sump pump (with its dedicated hose) lives in the trashcan, so I don't have to set it up each and every time I need it. Yes, that's a lazy approach, but it's a time saver too. Far, far quicker to just turn on the pump compared to the alternative. 

Now for more distant gardens. I tend to produce more greywater around the house than I need for the house gardens. So I need to get that water to more distant spots. The method I'm currently using involves a trashcan in the back of the pickup truck, a sump pump & garden hose, and my portable generator to run the pump. This means owning two sump pumps and two hoses. Sump pump #1 was given to me by a person who was moving away. I actually broke down and spent money for pump #2 because it made my life easier. (Gosh, I can be such a cheapskate sometimes!) 

Above, here's my set up. Trashcan, pump with hose, generator, truck. I transfer the laundry water into the trashcan, and put a lid on it to keep most of the water in while I drive to the distant location. Pump goes into the water, generator runs pump, garden gets watered. 

Above, the pump actually goes all the way in and sits in the bottom. 

With this system, I can add fertilizer teas to the water before pumping. An added gallon of manure tea or urine will give the soil a bit of a nutrient boost while it's being irrigated. Or I can use fresh compost tea as a foliar treatment to apply microbes and foliar nutrients. 

Oh my......I can hear the screams and warning even now. Egads girl, that's WASTE water. It's "toxic". You're gonna die a thousand deaths from every bizarre disease imaginable. First if all, I don't use toxic chemicals so they are not going to magically appear in my laundry greywater. Yes, there will be some micro cloth particles and biodegradable detergent in the water, and some human skin cells and skin bacteria, a minute amount of residual leftover textile chemicals, but good lordy, that's really not a problem. My soil is teeming with micro organisms who deal with much of it. What they might not deal with will be far less dangerous than wearing the new clothes in the first place, since the cloth is coated with textile chemicals which we tend to absorb into our bodies via skin contact. Yes folks, modern industry poisons us and our world at the request of its customers. Nothing I can do about that, except apologize the earth for our species fouling its own home.  

I'm sure someone out there will warn me about rain splash, but since I wash all my vegetables before eating/selling/trading them, I don't see a problem here. My veggies are far cleaner than the ones you are buying in your supermarket. 

Someone else will tell me that's it's illegal. Yes, it most likely is. (I've become a bit of an outlaw in my old age.) But since it's not a constructed system, I don't think the health department is going to arrest me, nor the hundreds of other gardeners in Ka'u who also do this. 

Urban people especially seem to have a phobia against using greywayer of any quality. While I agree that some types of greywater is not suitable for garden irrigation, I don't have a problem with using my own laundry water. And besides, here's something to think about as you go to sleep at night. Where does your municipal drinking water come from? What's in it? It's not pure H2O. Many urban areas are now utilizing heavily polluted ground water, recycling their greywayer, and (gasp) eyeing up their blackwater! No, it's simply not feasible to remove all the toxic waste from that water you're now drinking. (It can be done on a small scale, but not for a giant population.) Your own bodies become the final filter to remove trace amounts of a vast assortment of every sort of chemical that goes down the drain into the sewer system, including industrial chemicals, medications, animal poop, etc. Yikes. Yes, I conclude that my washing machine water isn't an issue considering the scope of things. 

Noodles Skeleton

Been having fun with Noodles once again. This time he became a walking dog skeleton. But about half way through the dye job he lost interest and wanted to get going. So he ended up being partial skeleton, but that's ok. 

Off he went to KaLae Coffee to play with his doggy friends, in this photo -- Luna, a 5 month old puppy.

 

Feeding Pigs - Fermented Banana Stalks

Homestead pigs ---- What to feed a full time pair of pigs? That's the question I'm working on. What can the homestead farm produce? While I do get some feed given to me, I don't want to rely upon commercial feed as a permanent crutch. And while I'm not yet totally committed to keeping Lava and Shelly as full time breeding pigs, I am heavily leaning in that direction. If those two stick around, I'm going to be hard pressed to feed them (and any future babies) in a self sustainable fashion. I don't wish to get back into the rut of depending upon commercial feed. So I've been researching my options. 

1- Use a larger pasture. . I definitely plan on this. The two pigs will be moved to a larger pasture where they can graze more grasses without depleting the pasture. I'm in the process of pig-proofing (is there such a thing?) a one acre pasture that previously was used for the sheep. 

2- Grow more feed. I've already got this in the works. I'm adding more banana trees as I have extra keikis. I'm planting more sweet potatoes and taro. Propagating more sugar cane, pipinola, and chaya.  

3- Expand into new feeding options, specifically, fermented banana stalks. 

"T" mentioned to me that he had heard of someone in Hilo doing an experiment in feeding pigs fermented bananas. Doing a bit of Internet research, I came upon several mentionings of chopping up banana trunks and fermenting them.  I haven't stumbled upon specific details yet, so I'm doing my own experimenting. 

Initially I cut up a small banana tree (just the truck, not the leaves and leaf stems yet) and sent it through the garbage disposal that I use to process chicken feed. It worked but was time consuming. I put this ground up banana stuff into a 5 gallon bucket and sealed it. After 7 days, I gave it the smell test. It looked fine and smelled sweetish, banana-y. Next, the taste test....not me!!  I mixed it 50-50 with the pigs' usual slop-n-glop and the they eagerly chowed it down. Bingo. I was onto something. 

Since grinding via the garbage disposal was too time consuming, I wondered if the pigs would eat it simply chopped up into sections not more than an inch wide. I had seen examples of this on the Internet. So I hacked down my next banana tree, chopped it up, stuffed it unto 5 gallon buckets, added water (I use rainwater) to completely fill the bucket, and sealed it with a lid, excluding all air. Left for 7 days in the shade, I opened one of the buckets. Looked and smelled fine, though not as sweetish. I guess the extra water diluted it. I could add sugar cane juice if needed, but that will be a future experiment. 

Above, hand slicing a piece of banana stalk. 

Above, what a sliced banana stalk looks like. 

Above, I'm making the slices 1" to 1/2" in thickness. 

Edibility test. Again I mixed these banana slivers half n half with the normal slop-n-glop. The pigs snarfed out the slop-n-glop and left the banana slices behind. During the day they returned off and on the eat some of the banana slices, but wasted about half of them. Not the reaction I was hoping for. But I persisted, hoping they would get use to the texture. No luck. Even after a week they were wasting about half the fermented banana slices. Not good. Back to the drawing board. 

Above, a full 5 gallon bucket ready for water and sealing. 

I know that they will eat fermented banana stalks, but the texture appears to be the issue. To prove that to myself, I put the rest of the slices through the garbage disposal. The pigs ate the ground stuff with no issues. Ah-ha, so it was the texture. They preferred ground to slices. 

One thing that I discovered by doing this was that the fermented slices went through the garbage disposal far quicker than fresh slices, plus they didn't clog the disposal at all. The fresh ones would would make a clog in the outlet pipe if I went too fast. So my thoughts are that I will ferment the banana slices first, grind them, then reseal them in buckets for further fermenting and storage.  

Next issue....cut the time and labor in cutting up the banana stalks. When I was experimenting I used a knife to cut the stalks. But that's labor and time intensive. So I'm now using my trusty sawsall. It cuts through the stalks like butter. Very quick. I can wack down, chop use, and seal in buckets a whole tree in minutes rather than close to an hour. 

The sawsall makes this whole idea workable. The plan is to....

...harvest the bananas

...cut the tree down 

...using the sawsall, chop up the entire stalk 

...ferment the pieces for 7-10 days

...run it through the garbage disposal 

...repack the buckets with the ground banana stalks. 

...continue to ferment until it is needed for feeding. 

Currently I'm only harvesting one banana bunch at a time. So chopping up the stalk won't be a big deal. If it's a small banana tree, I should get 3 days of pig feed out of it. A really big tree should yield a week's worth. In the next couple of weeks I'll see how accurate that prediction is. That's just a gut guess, so I could be far off on my estimate. 

ps- Since the chopped stalks get watered down in the 5 gallon buckets, I've decided to add some fresh cane juice. I plan to start using one large cane stalk of juice to one banana stalk and see how that turns out. I'll keep you posted. 

New Deck

I'm still working in our house, though I'm almost done. Still have the bathroom to finish, but we got a bug in our butts about wanting a hot tub to soak in. So suddenly the outdoor deck became the priority job. 

A low deck is rather simplistic. Well, it feels that way after building most of a house. A few strategically placed concrete pier blocks, a few extra for supporting the weight of a full tub. Level everything up. 4x6 beams, 2x6 cross whatevers (I don't know the correct name for them), then 2x4 deck planks. Prime everything, two coats of deck paint (did the priming and first coat before the pieces were nailed together)....wallah! Deck. Oops, forgot to make a step in front of the sliding door. No problem. That's easy. Had time to prime the step, but the painting will get done later. 

The most difficult part of this job was getting the lumber here. And working with the 4x6s. They are heavy. Thankfully I have a helper to do the heavy stuff. 

Driveway Gate Maintenance

Another of those tasks I tackled during this dry spell was the main driveway gate. It's been needing painting for months now, but where could I assure two days of no rain? Fat chance of finding that! Anyway, it's finally happened. Two days ago I made my move. 

Day 1.....

...remove the "keep stray dogs out/keep my own animals in" fencing off of the gate 

...sand away any rust. Luckily there wasn't much except for the lower corner where it rubs the ground, snagging lava along the way. For some reason I can open and close the gate without it dragging on the ground, but nobody else can. Nobody = hubby, Adam, & my next door neighbor. Is it because they're not the ones who will have to fix a broken gate? Or shall I be sexist and say it's a "man thing". Ha! 

...wash off any rust and mold. Lightly sand. Apply os-pho to any rust spots and specks. 

Day 2.....

...paint the gate ........bright yellow. Bright screaming yellow gates are fun! And it makes it easy to give directions. 

Day 3....

...attach mesh to the gate for critter control. The last time I used some 3"x2" welded wire fencing, but it proved not to be the best choice because it snagged in the ground, plus it rusted. This time I'm trying plastic chicken wire. We'll see how well that holds up. Attaching it was simple. I used zip ties. Since it's not the primary fence, the zip ties work just fine. 

Done. Another long awaited task done. 

Sq Ft Totals to Date for 2018

Recently I've planted :

16 banana trees

60 sq ft of sweet potatoes

20 pineapples 

This makes the totals for the year so far..........

Single plants : 

4 moringa

24 bananas

2 citrus

121 pineapples scattered about the farm

30 pipinola scattered about the farm 

Sq ft of garden space planted : 

699 turmeric

18 yacon

45 potatoes

234 sweet potatoes

30 cholesterol spinach

66 pipinolas

30 chocolate mint

950 taro

72 peas

305 fresh green beans

396 pineapple

As you can deduce, there's not been much veggie farming this year. It's been unusually wet, so much of what I planted rotted, got mildew, or was destroyed by slugs. Thus I've done a lot more food buying than I had planned on, but still got quite a bit from the farm via what I had frozen, dried, and already growing. But things are now looking up. It's drying out. I've ordered onion plants. I'm starting seeds in the mini greenhouses. I'm an optimist. 

Making Hay While The Sun Shines

It's been another one of those stretches where things have been quiet on the blog. Again, I'm not sick or dead. I've been working getting things done while it's sunny....well at least not raining. It's been so wet the past couple years that I get into a work frenzy when it's not raining. 

Chores accomplished.....

...create spots for more crops, particularly margins along the driveway

...plant 6 banana trees

...plant 60 sq ft of sweet potatoes

...plant 20 pineapples

...pull or weedwack down ferns in the pastures. Over 2 acres cleared!!!!!

...empty and refill 2 compost bins

...mulch all the taro beds

...refurbish the small utility wagon - sand, os-pho, and paint

...fix the main driveway gate -- shore up the deteriorating corner, os-pho & paint it

...move the sheep to new pasture (believe me, it wasn't easy this time!)

...start harvesting the turmeric

...work on the new deck

...clean out my truck. If you saw the truck you'd understand it's like cleaning out your overstuffed toolshed. It was time to go through all the stuff crammed behind the seats and sort it out. 

Wish I had gotten more tasks done, but I always seem to put too much on my plate. Lofty goals, I suppose.