Mom’s Elderberry Bush

Links to her instagram and artwork! 

While the resulting options and “maybe-solutions” were bountiful, none were perfect. All of them required some form of re-thinking, re-planning, re-designing…and overall, a reorientation of our previous expectations. 

But. Being that we cannot move forward with building this house of ours and having babies until we figure out our greywater problem…we picked an idea. If anything, we shall see where it leads, and maybe an even better solution will evolve from the process.

The solution we have decided to pursue is that of a mudroom/greenhouse addition serving as an ‘absorption field’ for all of our kitchen and laundry effluent. Those who have been paying attention to my Bilbo Baggins infatuation are already well-aware what that mudroom/greenhouse means…but for those who are just jumping in…it means I get to have a hobbit door as our front door!!!! So. Much. Magical. Excitement.  

Having a mudroom/greenhouse that is part of our home’s envelope (meaning it has to meet Passive House standards), functions as our absorption field for all of our laundry and kitchen effluent, and is overall expected to be comfortable, quaint, and functional…poses many different design considerations that are going to take a considerable amount of blogs to convey. 

This blog is Part One of that endeavor. Eventual we will *hopefully* go on to explain additional means of greywater treatment (we may be ditching the mulch basin for something else…) and the schematics of incorporating the greenhouse into our passive design while simultaneously preventing moisture problems… 

But, to begin…we shall start with plants. If plants are going to be doing the job of making our greywater disappear (through absorption, and then evapo-transpiration…in which case our robust ventilation system does that last bit of removing the water vapor from the home…), then we need to know what plants are best suited for the job. 

Plant properties to take into consideration:

~The plants we use must be able to grow year-round indoors (this typically means plants more native to tropical regions). 

~The plants must be ok with more commonly higher pH and sodium levels found in kitchen and laundry greywater (due to detergents). More acidic soils can be added of course to help maintain a balance.

~ If the plant produces edible fruits, that would be neat! And helpful in the aspect of achieving the Living Building Challenge’s requirement for self-sustaining agriculture on-site.

~ And, of course, the more water-loving the plant is, the better off we will be in getting rid of all of our greywater with little storage needed!! 

Without further ado…here are the potential plants to plant in our mudroom/greenhouse! If you have any thoughts of plants to add…or remove…do feel free to mention them!!

Some notes on pH: pH scale ranges from 0-14. 0 to 6 is considered “Acidic.” 6 to 8 is considered “Neutral.” And 8 to 14 is considered “Alkaline.” For example, a lemon has a pH of 2. A typical bar of soap has a pH of 12. Greywater typically has a higher pH (more alkaline than acidic) and high sodium (from dishwasher and laundry detergents…).

List of links to generally good greywater resources: 

https://greywateraction.org/greywater-choosing-plants-and-irrigating/

https://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/WastewaterManagement/GreywaterReuse

https://www.thegreywaterguide.com/greywater-for-the-garden.html/

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Thanks for reading! And feel free to try out those plants in your own greywater garden…and then do please let me know how it goes… 😉

Shelby Aldrich