Re-using gray water
 

We finally filled and used the spa today, and because hubby & I been working hard out in the garden, we added some Epsom Salts to ease our aches and pains.

I just can't bring myself to pull the plug out of the spa and send all that water down the drain when our lawns and gardens are crying out for water.

My question is:

Can I re-use this water on our flower or vegetable gardens?

Will the Epsom Salts harm them and if so, can I bucket it out onto the lawn?

I hate the idea of wasting water. I'm really hoping that I don't have to pull the plug in the spa and lose all that water.

Yes, I think you can. I know butterflies LOVE magnesium.
They sell "salts" for butterfly water dishes.

I've had them sit on me, and lick my skin on vacation when I took high dose magnesium!

from http://www.thebutterflysite.com/butt...behavior.shtml
http://221.135.191.194/butterfly/bgardening_faq.php

If you spread it around and not pour in one place... seems plants like it too:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/...054611573.html

If epsom salts is all you put in it, go for it!

I actually buy it just to put around my plants. Go easy, since it's in liquid form and the plants will absorb it a lot faster than if it had to *rain in*.

You may not notice that it helps, since it's late in the season. But try that next spring and summer. All my plants seemed to shrug off pests and disease better, and absorb what fertilizer they got.

IF you have chlorine or other chemicals in it, do not use on plants. A little may not hurt them, but better safe than sorry. Some places probably have rules about how to drain waste water like that (pools and spas) but I just drain the pool onto the lawn. Doesn't hurt the grass, as I only use chlorine and drain it slow, spreading it around.

Duh, what am I thinking? Our season is over, but yours is just starting.

:o

Thank you ladies! We got as much water out as we could, and it's now on the garden...... about 250 liters or 65 gallons of it.

I do hate wasting water and I just couldn't bring myself to pull the plug on it all. We'd not put anything else in besides the Epson Salts, so we'll sit back now and see if our plants thrive on it or not! :rolleyes:

Oh, I think you'll notice. Where I saw the most improvement was on my biggest problem plants - the roses, especially.

I used to have to treat them every couple weeks, and still by the end of the season they'd look pretty bad. Still blooming, but not a leaf left on them lol.

With the epsome salts, I stopped using the other stuff altogether, and the plants still looked good - leafy! - at first snow. The other plants had bigger, better blooms, less bugs.

That's a lot of water. I can see why you'd want to re-use it.

This has me wondering, what zone you are in and what kind of plants you grow. I'm moving from zone 4 to zone 9, like a whole different world. I have to learn gardening all over again, different plants, different techniques. My season will be closer to yours, as I understand, with the veggies being planted sometime in (our) fall.

Foriegn concept to me!

Hi back Brain, I thank you for your help. We have roses all across the front of our house so I'll be keeping an eye on them to see how they like the extra Magnesium or not.

Your zone 9 would translate to our zone 3, and if the climate works out about the same as here, then you'll grow just about everything. :)

Australian is much drier than North America and it's climate zones are numbered quite differently, so if you're looking at Australian zones, you would need to deduct 6 to make your USA zones roughly equivalent our's.

The zone you're moving to.... North America Zone 9 .....is roughly equal to an Australian Zone 3. We're in a zone 2-3 at the moment, and can grow almost all but the tropical plants.

We can grow a wide variety of flowers, but orchids need to be indoors unless in a very sheltered position. We can't do Hibiscus or Frangipani..... Magnolias on the other hand, are magnificent.

We can't grow avocados or mangos here because they need a zone 4, but we can grow lemon trees, where-as oranges don't do well. We can grow apples, apricots, pears and cherries, but not bananas.

Potatoes and other root veges do well, but not the melons.... watermelon, honeydew etc.

Tomatoes, lettuces, beets and just about every other vege that I can think of does well.... all except those classified exclusively in the tropical variety.

I think the thing I noticed mostly between the zones (apart from tropical) was not the variety of plants, but rather the size they grew. For example: Daphne will grow in a zone 4 but it's a small bush, in a zone 3 it's medium sized and in a zone 2 it grows huge. There are lots like that.... they'll grow in different areas, but do better in some than others.

I hope that helps and I wish you luck with your move Brain. I'm sure you'll love gardening in a new climatic zone, where almost everything will do well!

As I hear it, we won't be able to grow apples, because most of them need a harder cold then we will be getting. But we do have a magnolia - it was just starting to bloom last I saw it.

:)

There is a row of citrus trees - everything but a lemon. They all looked healthy, but some were young and not bearing yet. I tried some limes, and they are really good! Dh says the oranges are *on* and awesome. They're some navel variety.

The only other things I recognised were an agave, some aloe plants and a whole row of bromeliads in bloom. Oh yeah, and the prickly pears! Then the tress - pines, live oaks, palms and some shrub that looked like holly.

We saw bougainvilla, jasmine and hibiscus closer to the coast, but I don't know yet if that will grow by us.

I guess they grow a lot of root crops too - in OH you can't get a decent onion in the hard soil, so I look forward to trying that.

Brian,

I moved from zone 4 to 6 to (now) 9. Let me share some thoughts. Yes, the plants are different and the 'full sun' is really unrelenting. But what is really different is the timetable for herbs and veges.

You have to have your young tomatoe plants in by March 1 - 15. They're 'done' by June 1 to June 15. Once temp does not go below 80 at nite, the blossoms won't set. In very hot springs, I shade plants with cheesecloth. Replant young tomatoe plants aroung Labor Day for harvest in late Oct /Nov.

I plant marigolds, pansies, snapdragons seeds around Sept 1 right in the beds for pretty flowers by late Oct through March. Most any zone 4 spring plant is a great late Oct to March plant in zone 9!

One other thing about zone 9. Everything grows - - bumper bug crops, mold, fungus, etc. There are things here that damage plants that I have never heard of before! Oh and the soil. In Houston area it really isn't soil - it's clay. We pulled out all the soil down 2 feet in every bed we made and hauled in good quality soil that we then filled in and built up to about two feet above ground level. The bottom of the beds were spread with about 6 - 12 " of small rock - covered with sand, then quality soil with lots of sand mixed in. Drainage can be a huge problem here.

We did it all ourselves and it took about two years to get the new house landscaping done. Couple of beds each spring and fall. (It's a lotta work.) Then we experimented with different plants. At least that what we called it when we lost a plant and had to rethink the appropriateness of the location!!!

Good luck in your new home. Zone 9 is differnet - but it's lots of fun for planting. So many tropic and sub-tropics that can be incorporated.

Sue

Wow! Thanks for the insight!

I am wondering, because Koala mentioned it being drier in Austrailia, if that's the case with Houston too? In Volusia co, (in all FL, for that matter) there is a rainy season. All summer, there is a daily rain of a few inches. This time of year I think there is almost no rain


I found a great site with a forum full of fab gardeners and am already learning how to prop up banana trees and top too tall papayas, lol.

My parrot will love having his own papayas fresh from the garden!

http://www.gardenweb.com/

First, I have to figure out what is there, what should stay, what is healthy and how to take care of it.

:eek:

:D

No wait, first I gotta clean the pool and make margaritas!