Author: Mr. Homegrown

Chicago’s Urban Bees

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Animals, Bees


Founded in 2004, the Chicago Honey Co-op tends over a hundred hives on a former Sears and Roebucks site. The Co-op provides job training to under-employed folks and sells a variety of products. I didn’t get a chance to visit it on my trip to Chicago, but hope to the next time I’m there.

In other Chicago bee news, the Green Roof Growers just got a hive. Urban rooftops and abandoned industrial sites make a lot of sense for beekeeping, as many agricultural areas are contaminated with pesticides. Keeping bees in cities might be an important strategy towards bringing back healthy hives. So best of luck to the GRGers and their new hive! And make sure to sign up for their May 30th self irrigating planter workshop.

Washing Machine Greywater Resources

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Water and Power, Water Conservation
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Pantyhose filter

For those of you attending our Wednesday night greywater workshop at Good and for those of you who can’t, here’s a list of resources for using your washing machine as a irrigation source:

The New Create an Oasis with Greywater: Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systemsby Art Ludwig. This is the bible of greywater. Follow Ludwig’s instructions and you can’t go wrong. Buy a copy via the link, and you’ll help support Homegrown Evolution.

Ludwig’s open source Laundry to Landscape system.

1″ polyethylene tubing–an alternative to PVC pipe.

Oasis Biocompatible detergent, the only laundry detergent we can find that’s appropriate for greywater use. It works great and, again, click through the link and we get a little support.

A selection of three way diverter valves. Note the 1″ brass model for laundry systems. Use these diverters to shift between sending your greywater outside or back to the sewer. Great if you have to do a load of diapers. We don’t have one, but we’re both cheap and kinda extreme.

A local Los Angeles source for drums, the Apex Drum Company: www.apexdrum.com. Phone number: (323) 721-8994. Located at 6226 Ferguson Drive in the picturesque city of Commerce. You can also scavange drums, but make sure they didn’t have nasty chemicals in them. See our greywater surge tank post for what kind of barrel we like to use. Note that you can also turn a surge tank into a rain barrel.

A description of our greywater fruit mini-orchard.

Our greywater surge tank version 1.0. We’ve since added a pantyhose filter as seen above to catch lint that can clog the tank and garden hose. It’s just some threaded ABS waste pipe fittings screwed together with used pantyhose.

A liquid fertilizer of the type that you could add to your greywater surge tank during a wash cycle to fertilize your garden. You could also get a fish emulsion or sea kelp based liquid fertilizer from your local nursery.

Oaktown’s Greywater Guerrillas, another source for inspiration.

Greywater Workshop at Good Magazine

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Events, Water and Power, Water Conservation
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We’ll be doing a greywater workshop at Good Magazine this Wednesday May 27th from 7 to 9 p.m. Directions and RSVP info are here.

We’re going to focus on what I consider to be the easiest way to reuse your greywater: hacking your washing machine. We’ll take a look at a couple of approaches including our surge tank, pictured above, which we just got around to elevating with scrap lumber to get a gravity assist. We’ll also look at Art Ludwig’s direct “laundry to landscape” system.

Topics will also include:

  • Greywater compatible detergents
  • Choosing the best plants for greywater
  • Creating mulch basins
  • Greywater dos and don’ts
  • Plumbing parts
  • Water conservation and efficiency
  • Greywater cocktails (just kidding)

Hope to see you all tomorrow!