Sustainable Sonoma greywater garden at county fair

by Chris Reamer     

 Some come for the ferris wheel, the funnel cakes, and the farm animals. But this year 250,000 people also got the Sonoma County Fairs' first ever greywater irrigation demonstration garden.  The simple display shows how to properly set up a 3-way valve to divert the greywater from your laundry machine, and construct outlets in mulch shields and mulch basins around edible plants to safely and effectively reuse greywater for irrigation.
     “What about the soap?”, “You mean this is LEGAL!??”, “What is...”grey” water?” After fielding thousands of questions over the 15 days of the fair, and watching fliers literally “fly” off the table, I walk away with a great feeling of optimism for the future of greywater reuse in our community, as well as a profound respect for how much work still needs to be done to get the word out there. Fortunately, obvious logic pretty much sells itself. There is something rather poetic in that moment of simple realization when a person sees that they themselves “could grow an entire orchard- with what goes “down the drain”.
      The demonstration garden was created for Sustainable Sonoma by Organic Landscapes inc., in cooperation with the Water Conservation Department of the City of Santa Rosa. Techniques for Rainwater catchment, sheet mulching, low water/edible/useful/native planting, and permaculture were also demonstrated.  Special thanks to Greywater Action for the fliers and for teaching us how to do this stuff!