One part of my adventure this year is getting to grips with gardening. Admittedly the side of the property is currently in a mess because of the building work, but I have done a few things in the back garden and tidied up the plants at the front.
I've also started a proper compost bin. I found this useful infographic recently.
I don't think this is 100% correct. I don't think it would be wise to put towels and tampons in a compost bin. I now keep my loo-roll-cores for potting up seedlings. And I learned last week that it is not good to put citrus peels in your compost because it can make it too acidic for some of the creatures who live in the compost and break it down. Also cooked food scraps are and animal bones are not a good addition to a domestic bin.
But with those caveats, it is a helpful list for a novice like me. I wish Norfolk County Council had a food waste collection [as they did in Dorset and Leicestershire] Those bins took every food scrap, cooked, meats, fats etc for their municipal bio mass generator. But a compost bin helps to turn food waste and more into useful material for the garden.I am learning about green and brown compost too. Green is plant material, veg peelings , 'fresh' stuff - and brown is unbleached paper, card etc. You need a good mixture of both if your final compost is to be rich and most useful. Some of the paper goods I used to put in the recycling wheelie bin now get shredded for the compost bin.
Other Zero Waste activities in my garden include
- repurposing the spare slabs for the new garden path [project currently on hold - I will report on that soon]
- using the collected rainwater in the water butt to water things
- saving the lavender prunings, and drying the buds to make fragranced sachets [excellent moth repellants]
- keeping little ice cream tubs for seedlings
- repurposing the fabric from a damaged gazebo to make covers for garden furniture.
- saving all sorts of containers for plants rather than buying new - eg small houseplants are going into my Coronation mugs. They are old, have dodgy handles and they're not dishwasher safe- but look great with a little plant inside.
- collecting the timber used by the builders to support the concrete, in order to build a raised veg bed for next year [we fished the wood out of their skip, along with ¼ bag of sand!]
- saving the bricks from the garden wall knocked down in July [in the way of the Lathe Palace] to repurpose them elsewhere.
Any useful ZW tips regarding actually growing the plants would be greatly appreciated!
REpurposing is a huge part of zerowaste. I'm v excited about your compost adventures. Banana skins make a very useful fertiliser particularly for tomatoes- you leave the skins in water for a few days and that makes a concentrated plant feed, particularly for tomatoes. I also cut up the skins to put round my tomatoes. Coffee grounds make a useful snail/slug deterrant- I throw them round the base of vulnerable plants like I do with baked egg shells. I have a ready meal thick foil oven tin which I put egg shells straight into and then they get baked when I'm using the oven for something else- I then crushed them and stored them in an old M&S snack tub and when it was the growing season, I had a whole winter's worth of eggshells to replenish the protection layer around my plants whilst nourishing the plants at the same time!
ReplyDeleteI throw tealeaves straight onto my raised bed rather than composting them so I'm always adding organic matter to the ground-breaking not sure if I'm supposed to or not but I do!
Thank you Kezzie- I knew you would have some excellent suggestions
DeleteIt's generally considered better to put only unprinted paper/cardboard into the compost because some ink contains undesirable chemicals (unless you know it is printed in safe ink). Vacuum cleaner dust is another tricky substance - it has a lot of our skin cells in it, but unless all your carpets are made of natural fibres (wool/cotton etc) it will also be largely full of synthetic fibres that may release undesirable chemicals.
ReplyDeleteA 'Hot Box' type of composter can be used for food scraps from the plate & bones etc, but I have no experience of using one so unfortunately don't know how well they work.
I make a lot of compost on my allotment & have found that it is best to shred/break up all the waste as small as possible & layer it with paper or chipped woody plants (it balances out the carbon & nitrogen for composting to happen by the microbes). This avoids creating sludge or lumps instead of crumbly compost. From experience, I know that cobs & stems can lurk for several years in the base of a compost bin :)
Hope this of some help. Composting is a great way to reduce waste.
Thank you S&D this is really informative. I had not really considered the problems with ink on the paper. We are fortunate to have a shredder, so I shall make sure that garden waste is ch0pped small. I get your point about clumpy versus crumbly compost!
DeleteYou are doing great with your ZW gardening!
ReplyDeletethank you Bless
DeleteI keep coffee grounds to spread on the ground to deter the local cats. I haven't got room for a compost bin at the moment but keep wondering about a wormery.
ReplyDeleteWe have LOADS of coffee grounds, good to know they are a slug, snail, cat deterrent!
DeleteI wouldn't include dryer lint either, unless you know that there are no nylon fibres in the load.
ReplyDeleteIt all needs to be in proportion, and depends on the amount of grass and shrubs/spent flowers you have. If you don't have that much, then I'd go lightly on too much card etc. We have a large lawn (2hrs+ mowing) and only put cardboard at the base of the bins when we turn them over (it helps to keep the weeds from growing through), although we do use loo rolls at the base of the bucket we keep for transporting the waste down to the compost!
Good luck - it's very satisfying when you start to see your own compost improving the soil!
Thank you - I think I need to think hard about proportions of green/brown compost.
DeleteI’ve never had a problem putting citrus peel in the compost. Good waste is a definite no unless you are fond of rats.
ReplyDeleteI am lucky enough to have three bins which I turn from one to another until the third bin gives me beautiful rich black compost.
In my small suburban garden, I stand my plastic compost bin on a surface made up from bits of paving slabs. This prevents the rats (that live under nextdoors decking) from tunnelling up into the bin, & being made up of pieces of slab allows the composting juices to drain away. Special mesh bases are available for some brands of compost bins, but I read about using the slabs which is an easy way to do the same thing.
DeleteThank you, but as we have hens we will always be a target for rats and I take care to do nothing to encourage them into the area.
DeleteAlso Dorset has a weekly food waste collection for things I don’t compost.
Jane - I really miss the efficiency of the food waste collection in Dorset (and Leicester before that) I hope Norfolk catches up soon!
DeleteIt's good to have an infographic but it's wise to check some of the things as you are doing. It's not all good. If you want to put eggshells in make sure you break them up first, or they will take twice as long to break down.
ReplyDeleteWe have just about got used to the different things to put in the recycling bins here at our new place too. Every county is different!
Thank you for the eggshell tip - I like Kezzie idea
DeleteGreat post with great comments! I'm learning a lot. I love to compost because we get rid of so much veggie matter instead of putting it in the bin. I am not a good composter, though! I tend to throw stuff in and leave it for the resident vole to sort through, usually leaving a peanut on top of the dry stuff as his payment. I sometimes find a wolf spider in there as well. I have two compost bins and I have actually made compost in one. Of course I have to turn my compost carefully because of the critters. At our old house, 30 years ago, we had a homemade compost barrel near a small rock pile and when I took off the lid I would find small snakes enjoying the warmth. I'll never be a really good gardener, I just love nature too much!
ReplyDeleteYes, the comments have been extremely helpful. I would never keep a compost bin if I thought there might be snakes or wolf spiders therein!!
ReplyDelete