I could wander around in your garden all day. Beautiful!

Been eating beets, Pat?

Great job! Everything looks happy.

Question.....have long have you been using your grey water? Was it an ordeal to set up? Do you have to use certain types of detergent for it to be safe for the garden?

Thanks,
Maureen

Yes a very nice garden Pat. Liq fertilizer a personal recipee? I use mine to deter critters, it does go faster than I can make it at times so usually stock up during the winter.

Laundry water for vegetables?

What is the purple leaved plant behind the secret fertilizer ? Did you grow that from seed ?

I'm afraid I have no idea what that purple-leaved plant is, though I agree it's rather attractive. All decorative plants are in the wife's domain - I put those bottles there and took the picture while she was away from the house. She doesn't like the secret fertilizer too near things of import, IOW her area......

The greywater is quite simple, I was able to catch the kitchen waste and washing-machine lines and divert them out to the garden rather than continuing to the septic tank. At first I tried to go into hoses for more convenient distribution but soon learned that gunky water gunks up small apertures. The waste line from the house mustn't be made smaller at any point - it can be split into two pipes of the same size as the original but not forced into a decreased pipe diameter. So the pipe simply ends in a pit because it works reliably. The ground around the pit is super-saturated, of course, but certain grasses grow quite rampantly there and help move the water through transpiration. I keep sawdust and newspapers around it to get soaked and worm-logged and then periodically dig stuff up and put on the compost pile.

Nope, no beets recently, Alfie. Must just be my ruddy complexion.......

I believe the plant namfon asked about is purple Oxalis...

Hehe Pat, are you sure there are raised beds in all that green. AMAZING! Love what you've done with the place. Who knew you did that with your grey water. Very cool. I wonder if I could do that with my laundry room and the rose garden? No veggies in there but I almost never water it. Good idea, thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure!

Thank you trsinc

I looked up the Oxalis and I believe you are right.

The zuke plants have gone into monstrosity-mode since the last photo. CR gets really huge, ravaging and crippling everything around it, including in this case small celery plants that have been patiently waiting to go into the pea-rows.

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Here is giant grain amaranth starting to tassel. I don't know if there is a more spectacularly decorative food-plant in the world than amaranth (and it carries beans well, too).

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Looking good!

Great looking garden! Just spectacular....

Your giant grain amaranth, is it staked/tied to the fence, or can it stand without support? If it can stand on its own feet, that gives me ideas for growing more beans next year without having to install more fence supports.

Thanks for posting the pics

The amaranth stands fairly well on it's own feet, as you say, though in late summer when it gets really tall it starts to lean. I think a whole patch of it would support beans as well as a corn patch. Amaranth is definitely an invasive, just so you know. It's a close relative of pigweed - the young plants look fairly identical except for color. Of course the cultivated amaranth gets much bigger than pigweed - 5 or 6 feet tall.

Thanks for the warning! Better think it through before getting on that train.....

A real looker in your garden, though

Corn is doing good so far (Hickory King). The tallest is about eight feet now, no tasseling yet which I think is a good sign:

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Giant amaranth starting to flower. I've learned that amaranth doesn't compete too well with corn - the ones in the back of the corn-patch have gotten dwarfed. This one's getting full sun:

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Namfon, I am a landscape designer and the purple plant looks like Huechera 'Obsidian' to me.

OK, here's my stupid new person question. What part of the amarynth do you eat? I love the look of it, and I'm all about eating my landscaping. I may be able to container the thing at my place.
Also, you don't use special detergent or anything on that grey water?

Carolyn, it's a grain variety. That spike gets very large and eventually covered with seeds, which can be ground into flour or baked whole. The plant is extremely easy to grow, and is so far pest-free in my garden. The seed is also fairly easy to harvest, easier than wheat or rye, but it's tiny so it'll take a lot of plants to get siginificant poundage. The foliage is also used as a cooked green which is supposedly very healthy.

The purple plant is definitely Oxalis. It's a beautiful house plant here in the north.