Yep I’ve been mooching about on Yahoo Answers again and I’m glad I did because someone wanted to know about the limits to solar passive design.
What a lovely rich little field of research and writing that turned out to be!
Here is a little video to give you the heads up on what’s coming up around this topic in the next little while.
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We’ve had a bit of a look at the various ways this Yahoo Answers request could be answered. We took a look at worm farms and there was a great YouTube family video from the UK!
Then we looked at compost and how relatively simple that process is. With composting of course it can be grand or simple, huge or small, round or square… the great thing about making compost is that once you discover what works for you it is like having the secret of spinning straw into gold!
Another wonderful way to recycle your food scraps is by keeping chooks. Hens, chickens or chooks – whatever you call them are very efficient cleaners of waste food. They just gobble it all up and you can feed them almost everything. Mine are not particularly fond of citrus skins but just about everything else just disappears.
Of course, if you live in a flat or unit then chooks are not an options for you. However, if you have even a little bit of room there is a chicken breed for you. You don’t need a rooster (who give keeping hens a bad name) and if you love to garden then the bantam varieties are the least likely to cause widespread damage if you allow them to free range.
If you have a small garden you can keep your hens in a small run with a coop attached and then let them out during the day. If you have the space you can purchase or build a more permanent run for your girls and then let them out occasionally. If you have lots of room like me… you can just let the chooks rule the whole place! My girls (and my roster and my ducks) free range across our entire property all day and then just before sunset they come back to their pen, I feed them, collect the eggs, check their water, have a little cuddle with them if they are in the mood and then lock them away so they are safe from dogs or foxes.
Keeping poultry is fantastic on so many fronts. You get to recycle your food waste, eat wonderful fresh eggs any time you want to, have some great gardening companions (free fertilizer distributed in your garden automatically) and great pets if you spend enough time with them. Check with your local authority about what they require of you to be able to keep them at home and just go for it!
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Here is a little video about the series of posts which answer the question “How Can I Recycle My Fruit and Vegetable Scraps in my Yard? You can catch the answer Part 1, and if that is not your perfect solution you can check out the answer Part 2 and if you are still looking for your perfect answer Part 3 is coming soon!
How Do I Recycle My Fruit and Vegetable Scraps In My Yard? Part 2 – Making Compost
As with most things in life there is usually more than one correct answer for any question you might like to pose. This is certainly the case with the question recently asked on Yahoo Answers, about how to recycle fruit and vegetable scraps in your yard.
In Part 1, the option of the worm farm was explored and now we move onto what is probably one of the oldest and surest methods, composting.
Now composting, as with worm farming has many faces. There is the compost heap, the compost tumbler, the compost bin, the compost pile, the compost hole in the ground and they all work very, very well depending on your circumstances. If you have loads of space (as I do) you can build yourself a triple bay composting system that will keep you in compost for ever and a day. If you have a large garden you can simply wrap your vegetable waste in a few layers of newspaper and dig a nice deep hole somewhere and bury them. If you prefer a bin to a pile or heap then there are always an interesting assortment available for purchase, or you can construct your own from discarded materials or most simply, chicken wire and star pickets (steel posts).
As with everything, each successful composter has their own secrets to successful compost creating but there are a few well acknowledged hints, tips and rules:
Four main components are – wet (vegetables and fruit, fresh grass etc.), dry (fallen leaves, dry weeds, straw, shredded office paper, torn up newsprint etc.), water - enough to keep the pile nice and moist and air. Air is vital or your heap will rot rather than compost, so regular poking or turning is recommended and a nice layer of sticks right at the bottom will help keep it flowing.
My secret ingredient is to put in a couple of handfuls of soil when I’m adding new ingredients and giving the pile a turn or a drink. This soil is full of life – just the kind of life that will love turning your waste into useful, healthy compost.
I had a lot of fun watching video’s on how to compost and I wanted to find one that was suitable for many people no matter how big their yard was. I hope you enjoy it and it helps you get started in the wonderful art of creating your own fertile soil.
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Someone named GreEntHinKer on Yahoo Answers recently asked the following question:
What is meant by eco-friendly houses?
Eco-friendly houses come in many shapes and sizes and that is a very good thing.
Most people think of an eco-friendly house as being a new structure and one that incorporates things like orientation to the sun so that it minimizes sun entry in the summer and maximizes it in the winter, perhaps rainwater harvesting, on-site treatment of waste by using Grey and black water treatment and recycling systems, energy efficiency systems for lighting and often utilizing passive design to achieve cooler and warmer homes without the need for extra heating or cooling. They may incorporate new building materials that offer a lower environmental impact in their sourcing, manufacture or installation. They may have a lower toxicity rating for the end user.
You can also take steps to ‘retro-fit’ existing dwellings to make them more eco-friendly, during renovations, extensions or just a face lift for a single room, people can choose renewable materials, low toxicity paints, finishes and glues, add insulation, orient their windows to give them better performance, choose double glazing or solar hot water.
Any or all of these options can lead to a more eco-friendly house – one that took fewer resources to create and one that certainly takes a lot less energy and resources to live in and maintain. I hope that helps.
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Recently I was asked the following question: I was wondering about recycling fruit and vegetable scraps in my yard?
More and more people are wanting to recycle their food waste, grow their own organic fruits and vegetables and live a more sustainable life. Reducing your waste is a great step towards doing all those things and recycling the bulk of your ‘green waste’ on site is the most sustainable option of all.
Now, where was I? Oh, yes what to do with the fruit and vegetable scraps and left-overs. I figured there is more than one answer to that question and really it depends on who you are and where you live and what kind of lifestyle you have. Having said all of that though, there are lots of different things you can do. Most of them are really simple and anyone – even the kids – can do it. Lets begin with a simple commercial worm farm you can get from any hardware store or maybe even your garden centre.
I did a bit of research and came across a lot of information on this topic and so I thought I’d begin with this great video from the UK, includes Dad and his three sons putting a commercial worm farm into their very small garden. So if this option looks like it would suit your lifestyle go get yourself a worm farm. There are many other worm farm options available but this is a great one to get you started. Happy Composting.
