5 fruit trees that thrive on greywater

Ever since our very first system at Greywater Corps HQ, fruit trees have been one of our favorite things to irrigate with greywater. A greywater orchard is a beautiful thing, giving food yet costing nothing to water. Organic material in greywater also serves as fertilizer (permaculture double-whammy!).

Some of these trees require a lot of water, others not so much, so it’s important to design the system around the needs of the trees, and adjust it as they grow over the years. As always, biodegradable, low-sodium soaps are a must.

1. Avocado

The cash cow of backyard fruit trees, a single one can provide several families worth of Omega-3 oils. This one at GWC HQ has given us a lot. They love abundant water, drinking about 2 inches per week in the summer months.

2. Mandarin

Don’t call it an orange! Or do. All types of citrus do wonders on greywater, but it’s the mandarin tree at GWC HQ that has our hearts with it’s juicy, easy to peel fruit. They like moderate, semi-frequent waterings, so you’ll likely never have to supplement these with fresh water.

3) Lemon

This lemon tree is also at Greywater Corps home base. Lemon trees are a common pairing with our systems, and they seem to do great almost everywhere around here. They don’t need very much water and they don’t like “wet feet”, so we set the irrigation basins further back from the tree and often pair them with graywater systems with relatively low flow or where the graywater is spread over a larger area.

4 ) Loquat

Many of us never knew loquats existed until we started working at Greywater Corps and were confronted with this one. In the right chef’s hands these can be a real delicacy. They don’t like wet feet but need consistent watering 3-4 times a week, especially in the first year.

5. Peach

Who doesn’t love a juicy peach in the summer? These are from a client’s home and they look delicious. You can see a greyater emitter with a purple lid under the peaches. These bad boys need a lot of water, so they work great with high output graywater situations or with a bit of supplemental water at the height of summer.

These are only a handful of the myriad fruit trees we’ve encountered around Los Angeles working in our garden, with clients and with amazing, fruit orchard-oriented organizations like Fruitstitute, LA Fruit Share and Food Forward. Drop us a line if you’re dreaming about setting up a fully autonomous greywater orchard of your own!