Begin Washing Your Veggies With This DIY Outdoor Sink

You might've seen people on TikTok soak their vegetables in a bowl of water with apple cider vinegar to clean off the residue. Sure, it's vital to wash them to ensure they're free from dirt and small bugs, but constantly using and throwing out water can be wasteful, even for a reasonable cause. Instead of wasting water, consider building an outdoor DIY sink — this can help conserve water in your home and can be reused for gardens, other veggies, or the lawn. 

Blogger Banyan's End created the perfect outdoor sink that catches the water and trimmings from veggie prep used as compost. You can keep your indoor kitchen clean by prepping your veggies outside, where you'll have a place to use all of the leftover scraps as compost. Luckily, if you're thinking of cutting down on your water waste, this is a fairly simple project. Here's how to build your own DIY outdoor sink.

Growing a vegetable garden provides you and your family with an abundance of healthy ingredients for your weekly meals. However, when you pick your veggies, you have to carry them inside to wash them, creating a dirt trail leading into the kitchen. Instead of lugging your veggies inside, using an outdoor sink cleans them so that they're ready to be prepped and cooked. If they're built to have extra surface space, use that area to prep your food instead of prepping it inside, which helps those who live on a larger piece of land and grow their garden far away from their home.

On the other hand, we mentioned how you can reuse the water you used to wash your veggies. Since the water falls into the bucket below one of the drains, it can be used to water your vegetable garden, lawn, or other plants. Connect the faucet to your waterline or a garden hose. You won't have to worry about wasting water; you'll be using the same amount of water you would if you washed your veggies indoors.

You can DIY an outdoor sink over a weekend; it requires a higher skill level, so it's ideal for intermediate or expert DIYers. Banyan End blogger Saskia and her husband built their outdoor sink together. Saskia's husband built the sink holder, which is the trickiest part of building the sink. Our featured image is from a similar DIY outdoor sink from YouTube; they used a faucet splitter for the water. You'll need a thrifted sink basin, a 4-foot-long water hose, a white PVC elbow, a spigot, two buckets, and a watering can.

You'll want to situate your outdoor sink close to your garden hose to connect the faucet and water hose to your waterline. You won't need hot water when washing your vegetables, so you can alter the sink to only use cold water. There are a couple of ways to catch the extra water and trimmings underneath your sink. The water drain often has a pipe. which is where you'll attach the PVC elbow for it to fall directly into the bucket, or you can remove the pipe and leave the drain open for the water to fall right through. Attach the spigot to the water bucket to release the water into the watering can so you can water your plants. The other drain should be left entirely open for the second bucket to catch the trimmings.