Green waste recycling in a suburban backyard

One of the open gardens we went to recently advertised that they recycled all green waste onsite. I think Howard said something like: "So what!" The point is: we have been doing this for years.

Its not really that hard. It does take a little space but I think everyone with a yard could do it. It would be much trickier for apartment dwellers but if the body corporate got together they could do it too. Whether tree prunings, vegetable scraps, chicken coop scrapings or paper we recycle it all back into the garden. Maybe my system will give you a few ideas that you can try for yourself. My advice, pick one new thing, try it until it works for you and then add another. Overwhelming yourself by doing everything at once can lead to giving up.

When we prune trees, hedges or anything woody we chop up the leftovers and mulch as much as we can. For this we have a beast of a petrol mulcher. This was the pile we had from the waratah we had to prune heavily.

The mulch turns out really fine. We spread it under the waratah and a tree fern to make a nice new garden bed.

The thicker, woodier parts we chop up and dry for future firewood. The ash from the fire eventually ends up in the compost.

Food scraps have a few options depending on what they are: they can go to the worm farm, chickens or straight to the compost bin. Egg shells either end up ground up for the chooks or put on plants to fertilise them and keep slugs away.

Paper such as bills or thin cardboard gets shredded and either put into the chickens' nesting box or into the fire if we need kindling. I also bring shredded paper home from work, as well as old newspapers for mulching the garden. We have two plastic compost bins. Just keep layering and stirring.  See my previous post on composting here.

Chicken droppings go into the compost too.  The compost and worm castings go into the garden to produce vegies for the kitchen and chickens.

Round and round it goes.  But none of it goes into the garbage bin or leaves our yard. Sound doable? This isn't a complex system but I'm a bit proud that it works.

Homespun propagation or seed-raising mix

Today I made my own homespun seed raising mix. I was given the recipe a few years ago at a permaculture course but only got around to using it today.

Its simple enough. I can't testify to the results yet but have faith in the person who showed me.

1. Buy a coir block from the hardware or garden centre. Be aware that some contain fertiliser.

2. Soak the coir according to the instructions. Essentially soak in a wheelbarrow of water. My wheelbarrow has a crack in it so I divided the block between two buckets.

3. One fully crumbled add coarse sand for drainage. I used about half a bucket. Add too much and it won't hold water at all.  Add the same amount of compost or soil.

4. Throw in some worm castings. To find out more about worm farms please check out my earlier post.

5. Mix it all together and you're done.

I have set my mini greenhouse up on my back verandah in a sunny spot. I have peat and plastic pots filled with my new seed raising mix waiting to give birth to lots of wonderful vegetables.

So why go to all this trouble??

• Its a cost effective way to buy seed raising mix - the coir blocks are really cheap. I am lucky to have a bug pile of landscaping sand all ready, otherwise you'd have to buy some.
• There are lots of natural nutrients in the mix from soil, compost and worm castings.
• You can mix it up whenever you want it.
• You can control the level of pesticides/fertilisers.
• According to the packaging coir holds water and heat well.

Happy homepun gardening!

Making compost the homespun way

Since we brought chickens to live with us we've created quite a system for dealing with organic waste. I thought I'd share some notes on my system and how it all is working.

Chickens eat kitchen scraps, scratch around in straw and mulch and sleep and lay in waste paper. Chook poo is very high in ammonia which is too strong to go straight into the garden so I process it through the compost. My vegie garden has been a bit neglected of late and is in desperate need of compost so I'm eagerly anticipating the next batch. This production line seems a little complicated but is turning into wonderful, life giving rich compost quicker than usual.

The experts talk about carbon to nitrogen ratios of 30:1 for perfect compost. Carbon is supplied from sawdust, straw, paper, ash, wood chips = brown materials. Nitrogen comes from kitchen scraps, weeds and manures = greens. I have always been low on the carbon but the paper, straw and mulch now being pushed through the system has changed the balance for the better.

1.  Our garden waste, hedge and tree prunings, leaves and twigs are turned into mulch by "the beast", a large petrol run shredder.  Some of this goes straight onto the garden (flower and fern beds not vegies) but we have kept a large bag aside.

 This forms a scratch layer in the bottom of the coop.

 

 2. All of our paid bills, receipts etc are shredded. We've started to bring shredded paper home from work as well as we can't keep up with demand. This paper becomes a dry, springy bed for our chooks and prevents eggs from getting cracked.

 3. I scrape up both the bedding paper and floor mulch once a week and layer into my compost bin.

4. I keep kitchen scraps in a cute little bucket in the kitchen. I put things like egg shells, tea bags and gross things from the fridge into this. Peelings and green scraps I throw into a stainless steel bowl and feed to the chooks fresh. Fruit scraps tend to go to the worm farm as that is their favourite.  See my earlier post about the worms.

I add the scraps and other green material including cut green grass and weed clippings to the compost.

The scraps that I givet to the chooks contribute to what I scrape up each week ;)

5. Maintaining the compost.  It is important to turn and aerate your compost regularly to prevent it compacting and becoming inactive. As you can see the compost is full of worms.

 I keep a garden fork and bag of horse manure handy to add to the mix. When we empty the wood burning combustion stove I keep the ashes in a bucket near by to the compost. Sometimes you don't have quite the right materials on hand to add when needed. Turning can help with this. I have two bins (although only one lid sadly). Sometimes I tip the whole lot out and re-layer.

Tip: Here's a free tip to give your compost a boost.  Add a drink of molasses once in a while.  As you know molasses is very sticky and stiff. Mix with a little bit of hot water until runny and then top up with cold water. You don't want to scold the worms.

 Make sure its cool and then pour into your compost. This keeps the mix moist and attracts all those little micro-organisms who make your compost. They seem to have sweet tooths!

Benny and Harry watched the whole operation from the verandah.

I'll let you know when I start to spread the compost.

Worm farming

We have had a worm farm for quite a lot of years now.  Kitchen scraps are divided between the chickens, the worms and the compost bins. Luckily they have different tastes, and different outputs.

Today I fed my worms and collected the liquid castings that are known as black gold, the best natural fertiliser for your plants.

The farm doesn't take up much space, doesn't smell and needs very little attention. The rewards however are huge. As the worms process the scraps you feed them, they produce castings. The solid castings remain in the farm until you separate them from the worms. The finest castings form a liquid, like a thin mud, and fall through to the bottom layer of the farm. I used to have a lot of problems with forms falling into the liquid and drowning but have solved the problem by placing a piece of fine mesh flyscreen at the bottom of the box they live in.

Today I collected the liquid castings, or as a friend calls them, wiggle juice. This I keep in a plastic container for future use. This wonderful fertiliser is very strong so needs to be diluted to a weak tea before use.

I noticed that the worms had been eating the hessian sack that keeps the farm moist but hadn't eaten all the vegie and fruit peelings. This usually means the farm needs more carbon matter which is easily fixed by adding some shredded paper.

I gently folded the paper in and added some fresh food in the form of mango skins and some left-over cooked rhubarb. My worms have a sweet tooth. My husband thinks I'm mad but I bring banana skins home from work lunches for them.

Now I have plenty of fertiliser for my fragile vegie seedlings and the worms won't need food for some weeks. Happy worms and a happy garden. A win win situation!