Simple Greywater Systems Bring Laundry Water to Your Landscape
By Sustainable Solano
Participants learn how to install a laundry-to-landscape greywater system at a Vallejo home
With California in a state of severe to exceptional drought, it is a good time to think of water conservation and reuse to keep your trees and shrubs alive during the dry months.
Sustainable Solano works with our partner organization, Greywater Action, to bring hands-on workshops to Solano County where you can learn how to install a laundry-to-landscape system at your home. These simple systems reuse water from your washing machine to irrigate mulch basins, often around trees, in your yard. The systems require a few tweaks in habits – you have to use specific kinds of laundry detergents that will be kind to your plants and have to remember to switch the three-way valve to send water to the sewer when using bleach, washing diapers, etc. But it is a great way to reuse water to keep your landscape healthy.
SuSol is currently looking for Solano homeowners who are interested in hosting one of these workshops. Homes must meet certain criteria to be a good site for a workshop, for example the washing machine must be located by an exterior wall. Simpler setups are best for teaching others how to install a system at home. If you would be interested in welcoming community members to your home to get your laundry-to-landscape system going, please fill out the interest form at this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZC36ZMC.
We will review the interest form and contact those with compatible homes for a site visit.
There were familiar faces and new students. The teaching garden was quiet, shady and calm. Instructor Seth Wright of 
This garden was a front lawn conversion in 2019. It is filled with vegetables, fruits, herbs and more, building healthy soil and harvesting water from the roof.
Installed in 2017, this backyard food forest has 21 fruit trees pruned annually to 5 feet, making it easier to access the fruit. The majority of the trees are watered by rain funneled into a swale, while others are watered from the laundry-to-landscape greywater system. An automatic drip system is used during the dry periods. All the fruits are shared with neighbors, friends and family. Additional plantings of salvia and calendula draw in honey bees and hummingbirds.
This food forest garden was a front yard lawn conversion and displays what can be accomplished in less than 18 months.
This garden has eight thriving fruit trees in a small front yard, as well as a plethora of herbaceous and shrub plants. The vegetation is watered through a combination of swales that collect rainwater, greywater from the laundry, and (rarely utilized) drip irrigation. The yard has, like any good forest should, taken on a life and energy of its own, constantly changing and morphing year over year, but never failing to provide the residents, neighbors, and several local food banks with fruits and vegetables.
This three-year-old front yard garden welcomes the neighborhood to pick as they please. The yard extends to the backyard with pollinator plants intermixed with edibles, chickens, repurposed items, a native sedge field and so much more. This yard integrates systems to benefit the whole property.
This newly established front yard garden was installed in May 2021 with the focus on growing food and a desire to share with neighbors. A large swale in the front wraps around the yard and supports fruit trees and pollinators.
This small, beautiful, low maintenance front yard garden offers easy access to culinary herbs and three fruit tree guilds supported with yarrow, comfrey and borage.
Mature front yard food forest has mostly fruit trees and native plants that attract pollinators year-round. It has a laundry-to-landscape greywater system.
A 2-year-old food forest and pollinator garden installed in 2020 that includes a swale that captures roof water and mediterranean trees and plants mixed with native pollinating and nectar plants to attract bees and butterflies. This site is home to a Monarch Waystation that grows a variety of plants to support Western Monarch Butterflies. 
A 7-year-old established food forest with two swales that are dug out and refreshed every 2-3 years, laundry-to-landscape greywater to fruit trees, and chickens. The drip irrigation system was removed 2 years ago and the garden is thriving! Annual beds are hand-watered once a week during the growing season. Greyhawk Grove is a “high-traffic-survival-of-the-fittest-have-three-young-children garden”. There may be lemonade and baked goods for sale by children, as well as products from the garden to give away (dried calendula, lavender, herbs, eggs, fruit, etc.).
Food forest garden and greywater system installed as part of Sustainable Solano’s 
Southern slope food forest focused on pollinators, shrubs and native plants. It also includes fruit trees, perennial and edible plants, swales and a laundry-to-landscape greywater system. 
This garden was inspired through collaboration with Sustainable Solano. Vallejo Project youth leaders attended Sustainable Solano workshops and became an organizational partner. This is a newly established garden with the beginning of a food forest with fruiting trees, eight chickens, a worm bin and a compost system. Over the last six months the soil has been nourished with fava beans and other nitrogen-fixing plants and the garden has been a training ground for mulching. This garden is a Vallejo Project-supported venture to build youth resiliency and forge a relationship between transitional families and youth to sustain the community for years to come.