Doing Laundry

Here is a video of a Greywater Laundry to Landscape installation in Benicia last Saturday. Thank you Constance.

Natalie and Christina in garage classroom introducing Greywater

 Natalie and Christina are members of Greywater Action and were gracious enough to provide their expertise to the 20+ participants of the event. Their fee was covered by the Benicia Sustainable Backyard project, an arm of Benicia Community Gardens making this a free workshop to attendees.

 A little rain the night before. This was one of those "I wish I had brought my other shoes" mornings.

Digging mulch basins for Avocado and Pear trees

You might recognize this 'garden in the making' from the previous post: "How did we get to this" on 4/12/2015

This is how it looked at lunch

Discerning a path for the Blu Lock high density pipe. The walls resist collapse under foot traffic more than Black Poly Vinyl 

Pipe is 'serpentined' down the slope to slow the flow

There has been a surge in interest regarding greywater this year. One of the participants travelled from San Jose! 

Christina explains how to drill through stucco. Fortunately we didn't have to because we could run the 1" sch.40 PVC pipe through the crawl space under the house and out through an air vent.

Testing. Water flowing evenly throughout the whole system.



After the workshop. Elena and Nikita planting Tomatoes

 

5pm. Greywater installed and some planting completed.

There is a wealth of information on the Greywater Action site.

On another celebratory note

 

A Permaculturist received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Cob!

http://nobelpeaceprize.org.clonezone.link/nobel

Happy Water recycling!

David
925 286 7225

Earth Day Earthworks

Before Huglekultur

 

This is a home in Benicia seeking to reclaim an overgrown area. An area covered in Ivy over Juniper with Yucca trees and Fruitless Mulberry, the odd Rose gone wild and some unkempt Phormium.

We are using a Cat 302.7 three ton mini excavator with a 24" bucket and a thumb.

The beginnings of a hole to bury green material. We first called 811 to have the services marked. It's free and it is a requirement.
The goal here was to keep all carbon on site, harvest rainwater and build soil.

We buried the green material rather than haul it away. Soil is layered with brush in a lasagna style. Ivy being positioned at the bottom, as possible.

Some sizable tree trunks were buried.

 

After Huglekultur -
This is the finished pile except for a covering of tree chips. There will not be much decomposition during the dry months, however the height will be much reduced in a years time.

At CACG 

A small but enthusiastic turn out to the monthly Crop Swap this evening.

 

 Meagan has been busy planting the raised beds.

Happy Earth Day and Happy earthworks to you all,

David
925 286 7225

 

How Did We Get To This?

"This" is the scene at the end of the day at our latest Food Forest installation in Benicia.

 

 There is a video that documents the whole day. Thanks to Constance Beutel

 

We have swales, rainwater harvesting from the roof downspouts and fruit trees planted ready to receive greywater

 

This is where we started.

At least 25 volunteers helped clear out the 1200 square foot area to begin the transformation.

Flour marks paths and swales.

 

Our trusted A frame on the birm in the middle

Keeping carbon on site by adding trimmings to bottom of swale

Plumbing class for piping downspouts to swales

 



Nikita watering a plum tree that he just planted

The thrill of testing a downspout

Happy Homeowners Heather and Frank launching an avocado tree

All this was made possible by a 2014 grant from the Benicia Sustainability Commission.

This is a TIME LAPSE video of the whole day. Thank you Steve. See if you can notice where lunch happened.

 

So that is the story of how we got to "This" but not the end of the tale!

 

The trees are ready for the Greywater Action workshop on April 25th and you might like to sign up for that one. We also will be planting the other layers of the Food Forest in the next couple of months.

 

May we all feel the abundance of Spring!

 

David

925 286 7225

Anatomy Of A Greywater Workshop

This is the overview of a greywater workshop which took place in Benicia last Saturday.

9:00am Greywater basics in the garage classroom

The leaders, Natalie and Brian, speak for half an hour on the virtues and uses of greywater. They introduce the Laundry to Landscape (L2L) system that we are about to install today.

Digging the delivery basins close to fruit trees.
 

4 inch perforated plastic drain pipe is cut to length. These will act as mulch shields to create an air gap between delivery pipe end and tree chips. The chips allow greywater to disperse into a larger below surface area.

The blue pipe is Blu-lock one inch tubing. This more robust pipe transitions into regular one inch vinyl as it snakes down the slope (cost saving). The meandering is to calm the flow and so produce a more even distribution at each port.

 

The straight drain with 'tee' end = roof water into swale

Noon, and that important part of the install called Lunch.

Brian demonstrating how to test and calibrate the system with hose

 The half inch delivery pipe tees off the one inch main and is terminated with a valve to adjust the flow into each individual mulch shield regardless of position in the system.

Needs more tree chips and a cap to complete

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the plumbing around the actual washer inside the house. A three port valve allows the option of diverting the discharge to sewer or garden. A vent is installed at the highest point to prevent water syphoning back.
Please check out Greywater action's website
You might especially like this page regarding the L2L system because this is just what we have inside the house.
The workshop was completed just after 2pm.
At an average of one load per day this family of four will be directing about 300 gallons of water to 8 young fruit trees every week.

New Website

Our longtime permaculture advocate and lifetime resident Ron Zampa has started a new website.
We send all good wishes to this useful new addition to the local media and celebrate its enormous potential to create abundance for all.
contracostapermaculture.org

Well done Ron !

Permaculture principal number 5
"Use and value renewable resources and services"

Happy gardening to you all,

David