It’s a common lament. You water, water, and water fruit trees like the pomegranate shown above. But they just aren’t thriving.
Happened at my place, and it was one of my worst water harvesting failures. Here’s the story:
In 2017, I had a laundry-to-landscape greywater harvesting system installed.
Instead of sending my laundry water down the drain, it would be diverted to my fruit forest.
Said forest consists of two pomegranates, a Meyer lemon, and a fig tree.
So far, so good, but there’s a tree-harming culprit in this story.
Hint: The culprit came in a gallon jug. It was my laundry soap.
After several years of living with trees that appeared as lackluster as their fruit production, I decided to read the ingredients.
There I was, using a soap that was promoted as being biodegradable, but the ingredient list included not one, but three sodium compounds.
Sodium is toxic to plants. Time to switch soaps.
Nowadays, I use the Oasis brand for washing my clothes and the dishes, and it works great.
Even better, it’s sodium-free and formulated to be greywater harvesting-friendly.
But, alas, the company doesn’t list a retail network on its website .
Not to worry, your friendly neighborhood water harvester has you covered.
Here in Tucson, Oasis is available at the Food Conspiracy Co-op and The Rain Store . Ask them about shipping to your location.
Greywater emitter. Copyright © Martha Retallick. All rights reserved.
Moral of the story: Don’t be like Martha. Use a greywater harvesting-friendly soap like Oasis from the from the beginning.
On wash day, your emitters (like the one shown above) will be helping your plants, not harming them.
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Thunder Rumbles, We Grumble
What’s the source of this unhappiness?
It’s when thunder’s rumbling, but nary a drop of rain is falling here.
That’s just how things are during Tucson’s summer monsoon season. While the east side is getting drenched, we Midtowners are high and dry.
Then there are times when the rain deejay smiles upon us. The result: Summer monsoon scenes like this:
Meyer lemon tree. Copyright © Martha Retallick. All rights reserved.
The Meyer lemon’s primary water source is greywater from the washing machine. But it will never refuse a drink from the Great Watering Can in the Sky.
And pardon me for bragging, but the Meyer lemon is having an excellent year. Here’s one of its many ripening fruits...
Ripening Meyer lemon. Copyright © Martha Retallick. All rights reserved.
I’ll keep the Meyer lemons on the tree until winter. But, if we get an early frost, it’s harvest time. They can finish ripening in the house.
Now, let’s get back to that summer monsoon season.
This is one of my favorite photos of the summer, not just for the rainbow, but for the raindrops dripping out of the downspout and into my cistern’s rainhead.
Rainbow and rainhead. Copyright © Martha Retallick. All rights reserved.
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Cistern Logistics
Through above- and below-ground plumbing lines, rainwater ends up in my 1,500-gallon cistern. Right now, the cistern’s holding around 1,100 gallons.
The cistern water is for my garden, and here’s why:
Our municipal water supply has a higher sodium salt content than rainwater. As mentioned above, sodium can be toxic to plants.
That's why I had a cistern installed – as much as possible, I want to keep my garden off city water so I can help it thrive.
Now, you may be asking: How does the cistern water go from the tank to the plants?
Well, it exits via this hose bibb...
My cistern's hose bibb. Copyright © Martha Retallick. All rights reserved.
Note that the ball valve handle is in the off position. Before I rotate that handle 90 degrees toward the front of the photo, I attach a 4-foot hose to the bibb.
The cistern water flows into the rusty watering can that I show on the covers of Water Harvesting 101 Getting Started with Water Harvesting .
When the watering can is full, I close the cistern valve and carry the can to garden plants that need a drink.
And that's how it's done! Now, I'm going to wrap things up for this issue of The Latest Newsletter.
Questions? Comments? Hit reply and let's talk!
