Water saving question. Am pondering the use of some grey water to water plants. Are there any soaps that are effective at washing ones hands/body that would also be safe to pour on plants like strawberries.
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@Ambulocetus yeah, but use the wrong soap and you kill all the beneficial microbes.
@quixoticgeek virtually all soaps contain salts, which can be extremely harmful to plants. Soapy water is potassium rich, which strawberries love, but regularly using soapy water is not good for them as the salts will build up and kill the plant eventually.
@BigTittyBimbo potassium and magnesium too, right?
@wyatt_h_knott @quixoticgeek unsure about magnesium personally, I can imagine there are a few other nasties in there too, including chlorated chemicals. I can't imagine chlorine salts are any good for plants
@BigTittyBimbo @wyatt_h_knott @quixoticgeek From Wikipedia:
"Plants must obtain the following mineral nutrients from their growing medium:
- The macronutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), sulfur (S), magnesium (Mg), carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O)
- The micronutrients (or trace minerals): iron (Fe), boron (B), chlorine (Cl), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni)"
Magnesium: very necessary, they need quite a lot. Chlorine: also necessary, they need only a little.
You can burn a plant with too much of anything, of course, and I imagine that's more dangerous with the micronutrients ("salting the Earth" isn't a saying for nothing), but let's not go overboard.
Personally, I would perform small-scale tests. Gray water's going to be far more water than soap, and soap is far more other things than salt, so even normal soap could be fine, and there are definitely some plants that are going to be more sensitive than others.
Anecdotally, I've known people who would routinely spray their garden plants with dish soap as a pest control measure.
@quixoticgeek Soap is saponified fats and minerals. It's actually fertilizer. Avoid the stuff with perfumes and you should be fine.
@wyatt_h_knott it's not going to kill soil bacteria? Or other helpful micro fauna?
@quixoticgeek I don't think so. We have had problems in the past with gray water discharges into the lake because they actually cause algal blooms. Like I said, fertilizer. Not pesticide.
