Washing machine grey water and more soil containers

Scuse the dirt, that's there because I
used the bucket to move some earth
just before. 

Currently I can't collect grey water from the showers drain pipe, as a large box is in the way for the time being. The only grey water I can collect is from the washing machine. You know that curved pipe that you sling over a sink, for the machine to pump it's water out - well, put a bucket in that sink and sling the curve over the bucket. It'll likely overflow the first bucket, but since it's in the sink that's fine. The prob is you'll probably want to fill a second bucket, so hauling them to switch positions, timing it with the wash (I set a kitchen timer for about thirty minutes to try and catch the first lot of water), isn't as convenient as the shower collection system I have.

In other news I've taken a packing box, one which relatively low and flat with a lid that fits it, and simply sat the lid down upsidedown then put the bottom in, still upright, so the lid simply braces the inner wall. Then I've filled it with alot of leaf litter and then some soil across the top. I'm trying this out because it'll sit over the ground, blocking weeds from growing below (I wasn't too happy with the number of weeds amongst the broad bean crop) and like the potato buckets, it lets you get at any underground crop. It should be easier to weed as well - weeds can't do their horizontal trick, only start with seedlings.

Hunted around for a worm to put in, but just found dry soil. Perhaps I'll have to either wait for rains or water a spot of soil in hope to raise up some earthworms?

And yup, I'll probably put some second generation small potatoes into it - the ones dug up from a plant, but were a bit green.

Again harvesting from a box should be alot easier.

Only downside is that for this advice to work out for you, you'd need a constant supply of carboard boxes like that. Might look into using cereal boxes in future, to address that.

Gathering water

At my place for some reason I was lucky enough to have one of the downpipes end before it contacted with the ground. This allowed me to cut the top of a platic container of drink and invert it, creating a syphone. Making holes in the plastic I added large size paper clips that I'd stretched out, through the holes and then bent them over to hook onto the bracket that held the pipe to the wall.

Then from the syphon I made a make shift pipe from plastic milk bottles, cutting out the platic, rolling it into a pipe and duct taping it with a cheap roll of duct tape. The pipe aims into a 45 litre platic container, one of those ones you can buy to store stuff in. Here, the stuff is water. I had stuff in it before, but didn't need to now, so it switched roles.

All my other downpipes are flush with the ground though, which makes this process not work out as it's gravity fed. If you own the house you could make a small incision at a higher level and insert a pipe - it wont gather all the water, but it'll get some. Even if you don't own the house, it might be possible to make a descrete incision on the side more toward the house and hidden away.

My own progress making money through growing suger snap peas

Currently I have a row in the ground, with lots of green shoots coming up. I actually did weed this area, as it was soil contained in a brick enclosure and the weeds weren't that deeply rooted. Also I did it over time, about 20 pea seeds a day or so, weeding roughly the right amount of ground for them and putting them in. The bricked area seems to not be visited by slugs/snails very much.

Now I've put them in, it's a good feeling as the plants are now in effect working for me, growing even if I leave them for a bit.

In terms of being even cheaper, it's also possible to harvest grey water - one simple way is to put the plug in your shower about half way through, then use empty milk containers to collect the water after your shower. Instead of the water going down the drain, it goes to your plants.