A Great Freebie and Why I'm Not Composting Kitchen Scraps

Strange Coincidence?
Last week as I was making my cold frames I thought - what I need is perspex to cover them. Well Derek arrived home from work that night with 6 sheets of perspex! His whole office has just moved and he has come home with a few things that were about to be thrown out.

The vege garden is full of constructions using free materials. Not pretty, but well, free.

The perspex had been covering some posters and was a bit scratched - but perfect for covering my plants. I'm saving one sheet to make a solar dehydrator like the one below for the abundant tomatoes I'm hoping to grow. 

Eschewing the compost bin with the kitchen scraps
I remember when I was young that we always dug the kitchen scraps into a trench in the garden. So when I discovered that we had rodents in our compost bins again, I decided burying it all was the way to go. Since then I have read, in "Organic NZ" magazine, that it is far better to bury scraps than to compost them. The scraps break down much quicker, and "much more fixed carbon stays fixed, incorporated directly into live cells and bodies that will become food for other life forms in the web of soil life".
The garden soil is looking great and is full of worms. I usually throw a handful of sheep pellets in with the scraps as that encourages those worms to get in there.

So here's where that compost went...

Before and after

.. because I couldn't stand the thought of using it around the food crops. It made an instant garden, along with free driftwood from the river, and free plants that I split up from the garden. 
So now I just use the compost bins for lawn clippings and garden waste and use the contents on the ornamentals.

A Seed Raising Tip and Some Upcycling in the Garden

The blog posts are a bit infrequent at the moment as I find myself settling into making the same things that I have already posted about. That's a good thing - it means that those things have become habits that I can sustain.
Last week I whipped up a batch of dog food, using up some items from the pantry and fridge that were past their best. I described my process for ecofriendly dogfood here, but I have yet to get the cat to eat anything that doesn't come with too much packaging.

Batch of dog food

but he's gorgeous, my old Cinderpuss

Acting like a kitten

I've been out in the garden too. My seedlings have just taken off - I think thanks to a tip I read from Lynda Hallinan who experimented with seed raising techniques and discovered that those that did best were the ones watered with warm water. Good enough for me, and I would have to agree - best ever growth.

Those are all recycled pots and tags -I haven't had to buy any plants this year.

In fact so good that my courgettes and cucumbers are of a size ready to plant out, but the weather is still a bit cool here. Today I fossicked around (as gardeners do) to find materials to make protective tents for those plants. I came up with these old beehive boxes, which are just perfect. One has a plastic lid that we found in the mangroves, the other I have stapled recycled plastic to.

I'm feeling more confident about the survival of my plants  - although you can spot some Quash (eco friendly) snail and slug bait in there. Quash is an iron compound, beneficial to plants but toxic to slugs and snails. However our personal tally from wandering about at night with torches and boiling water, is now over 3,000 slugs and snails. 
Lastly, a shot of our lime tree which is just thriving. It gets mulched with seaweed and lawn clippings, fed with citrus fertilizer 3 -4 times/ year.

The Tahitian lime tree - covered in blossom, little fruit and ready to pick fruit

Thanks for visiting

If You Hate to Throw Old Photos Away - Ideas.

I've just been sorting a box of old photos that I have had since the pre-digital age.
Among them were photos that were terrible - you know the ones - arty shots that didn't work, boring ones you took as a tourist, photos with your ex in them...but I have trouble throwing them out.
Yesterday I scrutinized them with an artists eye to see if there was anything I could salvage from them...and this is what I came up with....

A  mosaic of cut up photos on a theme

First up I cut several summer photos into squares (uneven of course, I don't do straight lines). They became a mosaic. What I noticed was that each little square became an artwork in itself. I have put them into the upcycled book that I nabbed to make into an art journal. Every so often it has a quote, and these blue half pages, which are a great feature.

Next I cut out anything redeemable in a photo - such as the next two pictures. 

A lizard we saw in Australia - now an interesting feature in my art journal

My daughter in a tinsel wig when she was little - released from a bad photo

Sometimes there is a feature that can be enhanced - like these belly dancers. Using a blade to scratch away the background highlights them and makes it arty.

Scrape away the distracting background

I drew on this really old, faded photo of the Sydney Opera House with a fine tip permanent ink pen, then cut it out. Now it's interesting.

Once I started I kept thinking of more things I wanted to do with the large pile of would-be rubbish photos. I'll take some before photos next time, I was just too engrossed to remember to do it this time.
Anyone else got good ideas to share for using up those photos? 

Grumpy Old Codger

Sometimes I fear that I am turning into that Grumpy Old Codger.

The more I travel down my own path of steps to be more environmentally conscious, the more annoyed I get with others and have to restrain myself from commenting. Because being all righteous doesn't help.
For example, in town the other day I watched a woman stub out her cigarette and flick it into a drain - one marked with a clear environmental message.

I wanted to bring it to her attention, a lecture on the damage from chemicals in cigarette butts to our marine life -  but didn't. Would you have?

The supermarket is another challenge. As they pack my cloth bags, I always look along the row of checkout counters to see if I can spot anyone else not using plastic bags. Sometimes there are one or two. At the moment at the supermarket that I frequent there is a promotion where they give little plastic "kitchen" treats away. When I declined them, the checkout operator asked if I would be happy to give them to someone else. I would have said "please don't, I am trying to reduce plastic waste" except right behind me was a little girl looking at me with hope, so I mumbled "sure - go ahead". 

And Daffodil Day (NZ Cancer Society) - every donor gets a plastic/synthetic flower pin. Now for that one I will write them a little email, requesting they go back to real flowers or biodegradable stickers. Of course we can just refuse them - but most people don't.

Cancer Society's daffodil pin

Then there is wanting to correct everyone's spelling mistakes.You would think I am perfect to feel like this, but no, I make spelling mistakes myself, as some of you will probably have noticed. And there is still some plastic in my shopping trolley...

Fortunately there are enough fabulous green and creative innovations going on in the world that keep me from feeling overwhelmed and depressed. I love getting feeds of Treehugger.com, Trash is for Tossers, Global Slow Movement, Colossal (an art design and visual culture website), Make Do and Mend.org, Green Ideas.co.nz
If you are not a Facebook fan these links will take you to their homepages anyway. Go on - if there is something new to you there, go give yourself a treat with your coffee break.

In the Garden

Spring-ready

We are heading into Spring here, so in preparation for our busy garden season Derek and I have started our night time patrols. It's actually quite pleasant once we get out there - usually not too cold, and we can hear the night birds and surf breaking in the distance. The patrols have been very productive so far, with the last one netting 400 slugs and snails, which we pop into a container of boiling water with a wee squirt of detergent. It is far more effective than trying beer traps or snail bait.

Time well spent slug and snail hunting

Hopefully by the time my seedlings are ready to go in, they will stand a chance.

I prefer to grow my plants from seed to save getting a pile of plastic containers, and it's way cheaper, plus there is more choice. I just love the sense of achievement too. I have a recycled sheet of plastic that I throw over them all like a tent to get them going.
This year I'm putting a reminder on my phone to tell me when to put in more lettuce and cucumber and bean seeds, because I find that I always forget to do it and have a big gap.

Maria's Balinese Courtyard

Because I haven't been up to too much else I thought I would put in a pic of the landscaping I am doing at my daughter's place.

Early stages of the tropical courtyard, with the bamboo solar lights.

The plants are all freebies -bromeliads, banana palms, philodendron, clivea, taro, strelitzia, to name a few, either from my place or my friend Di's (thanks Di). I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can lay bark around the plants, over a layer of soaked recycled cardboard, and a path of river stones up to the bamboo screen. (We had a couple of good strong landscape men to do the hard stuff.)
I'm thinking in 12 months we will probably need a machete to keep it under control. 

Bamboo Solar Lights, A New Softie.

Don't you love it when you've got your pressing commitments out of the way and you are free to play.
Here are some of my creative projects from this week now that the tax books are with the accountant and the curtains made for the rental house.

Bamboo Solar Lights

We've had a box of solar lights sitting in the garage for a couple of years, so when my daughter said she wanted to get some for the Balinese-style courtyard that we are making for her place, I had an idea to improve them, using some bamboo that was stored under her house.

It required a little work with a handsaw to make a pointy end and using the drill to make a hole to sit the light into. In no time I had 6 whipped up.
I then made the table version, which I had originally intended as tealight holders, using some of the off-cuts and rope found on the beach. They are wired together under the rope for stability.

I have read that if solar lights stop working they are fixable, by unscrewing them and replacing the AA battery inside them.

Something for My New Great Niece
I rather love making dolls. It is a good way to use up those little pieces of material that have moved from house to house with me. 
The pattern for this one came from the More Softies book from the local library.

So here she is....

And a final happy note, I am pleased to report that there are four less possums around to eat my garden. I have taken to burying them near our citrus trees so they can give back a little of what they have taken.

Small Green Moves Every Day

Crazy Letter Writing Lady

Some posts back I wrote myself a list to help get remotivated (motivation shake up). On it I prompted myself to do something extra for the environment every day. This morning it is too chilly to leap out of bed, so instead I have been emailing people with a few suggestions.

First one was to a local cafe. While I was painting at my rental the other week I got a coffee to go in my reuseable cup, and a nice big slab of carrot cake. Before I could stop her, the girl serving me had put the cake into a styrofoam container. It's not her fault, she was only doing her job. So I've sent an email to the cafe owners suggesting some alternative actions and reminding them that their customers do care.

Similarly I have sent one to the supermarket where my 91 year old father-in-law shops to ask them to consider not put everything into plastic bags before putting them into the reuseable bags that people bring along to try to stop taking plastic bags home.

It takes time and effort and may be viewed as crazy eh, but oh well.

Boots - A Penny Spent is a Penny Saved

A visit to the Cobbler in the last few weeks left me poorer by $45 per pair of boots, but as he kindly pointed out, it was my own fault. I had let the heels wear down to the point that he had to replace the heel blocks, hence the extra expense. So I am going to save someone else the extra expense by passing on his advice.
Expensive boots are not necessarily made with quality soles. The cobbler says they put the quality into the boot upper, so we need to get along to the cobbler after just a few weeks of wearing these boots to get a good piece of rubber put on the heels to save wear and future expense. Before you wear through that thin first layer.

You can see clearly on this boot heel that it is nearly at the point of extra expense, so it will be going to be repaired before it wears into the darker coloured heel block.

I hope that saves at least one of you some money :-)