compost: DIY recycling

Compost is one of my favourite garden activities and topics of discussion. I’ve been composting for years and my kitchen scraps and garden waste all go into the mix which is home to many of the animals in my life – of the invertebrate persuasion.

My local council is in the process of changing their Waste Collection and Recycling Services and as far as I can make out composting isn’t a part of the new strategy. Composting was undertaken in the previous Single Bin Recycling system, but I’d like to see the City of Stirling encourage composting on an individual basis. South Australia is recognised for its progressive waste management and recycling. Local councils promote composting of food scraps, both at a household level with a kitchen bench-top system for composting kitchen waste and at a municipal level with a green organics bin for garden and kitchen waste.

farming earthworms

All my garden waste and kitchen scraps go into my worm farm or compost bins. These provide nutrients for my garden beds so I can grow vegies which I then eat – recycling at its best.

Eating the Garden

Every home needs a garden especially a kitchen garden

– Nada at Grandiflora

I’ve been having so much fun in my garden preparing the winter planting.

Over summer I didn’t have as much success with my vegies as I’d hoped. I planted tomatoes too late (November) and although the bushes grew big and lush, the tomato crop was in short supply and there were quite a few caterpillars in the fruit. I didn’t have enough to cook with, but it was nice picking a tomato when in the garden and eating it on the spot. I did have to have a knife with me to cut out the part with a caterpillar, which most of them had. I’ve learnt for next summer to plant seeds when I’m meant to ie. early spring and use Dipel (Bt) and/or wormwood (soak the leaves in water and then spray on the plants) to kill the caterpillars.

The beans were producing well in December. I’d pick a nice pile every evening to snack on in the garden or cook for dinner. Then the heatwave at Christmas killed the plants and a second lot of bean seeds never did well because of the continuing summer heat. The cucumbers never grew well because of too much direct and very hot sun.

Too hot for beans

In November I planted Romano beans which are a dwarf bush bean. They’re an heirloom variety I got from The Diggers Club. I had a bumper crop of tasty green beans for a week or so in December and then extremely hot weather hit during the Christmas week and my bean plants didn’t make it. The weekend before Christmas there were lots of small beans on the plants and I was looking forward to continuing the harvest every day. It was 40ºC on Christmas Day and 44ºC on Boxing Day. In the days following a few of the bean bushes died. Of the bushes that didn’t, the beans never grew large enough for picking. Most of the plants are now dead and the living plants have no beans.

Saving seeds

This summer I’m going to make sure I collect seed from all the vegetables I grow so I can do it all again next year. I’ve just got to remember to save them from the vegetables I eat in their entirety, like tomatoes and beans. I’ve always collected seed from marigolds, sunflowers, parsley and basil for subsequent seasons (the originals came from my dad’s garden). These plants also self-seed, along with lettuce and “compost tomatoes” which pop up all over my garden (including where I don’t want them).

How does my garden grow?

In time for this spring’s planting of summer vegetables I increased my growing space by converting some of the lawn, bought heirloom and organic seeds from The Diggers Club and planned out my beds in advance. The planning was a novelty and some of the plans got changed along the way, but the planning is paying off and this summer’s crop should be more bountiful and varied than last summer.

The majority of the fruit and vegetables we eat are not endemic to Australia (except macadamia nuts). One edible endemic plant I grow is New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides). I think the New Zealand part of Tetragonia’s name comes from the fact that it also grows in NZ. It’s cooked like English spinach or silverbeet, thus it’s a good addition to quiche. There are a few other bush tucker plants local to the Swan Coastal Plain that I know of, but they’re not in my garden.

2 Fruit and 5 Veg

Although I have a vegetable garden, I only have a small area. Apart from herbs, I buy most of what I eat. The growing area is getting larger and I just got lots of seeds from the The Diggers Club. This summer my garden should go crazy.

Until recently I bought all my fruit and vegies from the supermarket. I never bought organic produce because it was always packaged in plastic and everything else is loose. Being lazyst, I liked the convenience of doing all my shopping in one place. Since I’ve been trying to live more sustainably I wanted to buy organic produce. There’s an organic shop nearby and I’ve started getting many of my fruit and vegies there. I also buy things like cereal makings and honey from Absolutely Organics.

Birthdays and Earthworms

In my family, August is the birthday month. My mum, my two brothers and I all have our birthdays in August. This means I’ve recently been trying to figure out presents that aren’t a waste of money or resources. I used to buy “gift shop” presents for my friends and family. Fortunately I realised a present that just sits there and doesn’t get used is a waste of money and resources.

These days I’m more careful with my present choices. I make sure I think about what the person would like, and more importantly, make use of. Often I resort to chocolate or plants (or variations on these). I grow a lot of succulents in my garden and they easily strike roots from broken off parts. Sometimes a nicely potted succulent makes a very pretty (and long lasting – no watering needed) present.

I like baking cakes and a birthday cake always goes down well. Most people I know like cake, even if only one slice. Last year I baked a birthday cake for my friend Geoff. I hadn’t known him very long and just assumed it would make a good present. He was very happy that I’d baked him a cake, even though he didn’t like eating cake. His housemate does like cake and was also very pleased I’d baked it. This made me happy because his housemate was Michael, my boyfriend. The real reason I baked Geoff a cake was so I could see Mike, who wasn’t my boyfriend back then.

Compost Snob No More

I really can’t be a compost snob anymore because I now have a worm farm, complete with wiggly earthworms. They look just like the earthworms in my compost bin, but I’m assured they’re not. My dad informed me that I couldn’t just leave them; I had to look after them. Does he think I would neglect members of my family? He knows me too well.

Before I started feeding the newcomers the all new dog poo diet, my dad told me that if I wormed Sheeba the dog this would kill the worms. There goes my pet-poo processing plans. Sheeba gets a tablet every month that kills heartworm, fleas and some intestinal worms. I’m glad my dad shattered my dreams before I found a pile of dead worms in their new (pre-loved) home. This means I still have to bury Sheeba’s poo and some of the scraps destined for the compost bin are going in the worm farm.

Correcting Earthworms and more Composting tips

After writing about earthworms and composting the other week, I read Composting: from organic waste to black gold by Victoria Heywood (Penguin, 2005) and found out I got some things wrong. I thought I’d better correct my mistakes.

I’ve always thought that composting and vermiculture were completely different. I knew in the back of my mind they were both recycling organic matter and thus both composting, but I still thought worm farming was somehow lower on the composting ladder. It may have to do with reading books about composting in a heap, in which earthworms were only one aspect of the process. I’ve now realised they are both equally composting, just different methods to come to the same conclusion. This view may have coloured my statement,

Although Vanessa at Green as a Thistle blogged about making a composting unit, it’s actually a worm farm.

Vanessa probably doesn’t even know my blog exists, but if you happen to read her thoughts as well as mine, I am trying not to be a compost snob. If you read further you will discover I’m not even doing my composting right. I probably should just bury myself in the compost heap right now!