Sustainability

Worms don't like the cold. I made a new video for my worm bins and left the worms in the car port. I went to feed them and realized they were not in the office. Hunted them down out there and the contents were frozen solid. Not a great way to die. Poor little guys. I'll have to get some new ones now, because I only have the one bin

The second installment of the Kitty Litter Bucket Worm Bin series is out. In this installment I will tell you about harvesting the castings from an established bin.

Finally got around to making a new video. This one is on making a kitty litter bucket work bin. These allow you to get rid of your waste fruit and veggie scraps while getting great compost in return. Using kitty litter buckets makes since to me, since there are always so many of them around the house with nothing to do.

I've been wanting to put in a rain barrel. I found a barrel that had been used for compost at a garage sale. I paid $2 for it and a bunch of other stuff that they had in the free pile, like a bag a steer manure, another of lime and a couple other fertilizers. I made off pretty good. I didn't get it hooked up right away because I did not have a lot of time and never made it to the hardware store for a spigot.

I finally got the spigot. And now, guess what... It is raining. And I still can't install it. When I put the putty on around the spigot, it needs to cure for 24 hours, and I need to patch a small hole in the bottom. The silicone also needs to cure for 24 hours. By the time I get it all done, the rain will be gone and I'll be wishing I had it set up. Oh well. I have a couple of buckets out there, so I'll get a little rain water to hold. And then I'll get the whole thing properly set up and I'll tell you guys all about how to do it.

Rain barrels really are a great addition to your garden. Rain water is so much better for your friendly fauna than the chemical laden hose water that we normally put on them and it is also better for the environment. It can also save you some money, be a conversation piece, and if set up properly, add beauty to your home. I hope you get one too!

Mulch on your garden beds helps to cut down on weeds, makes the weeds that do come up easier to pull up, and helps to keep moisture in the soil. It can also make the beds look a lot nicer. When you have a lot of beds to mulch, it can be very expensive to buy a big bunch of bark mulch. By the bag is really expensive. If you have a truck, you can get it by the yard for around $30 in my area. Or if you need more, you have to pay someone to deliver it. I need about 4 yards for my flower beds, plus I need something to mulch my veggies as well, probably 2 or 3 yards for that. I have a lot of garden beds, so I need a lot of mulch.

What is a guy with no discretionary income to do? I had an extra $30 a while ago, so I got some bark mulch in a borrowed truck and put it on my rose bushes. Now funds have gotten tighter as I look at the budget till I finish school and wonder how I'll make it, but I still need to mulch the beds or I'll be spending too much time and money watering and pulling weeds. What choices do I have. I came up with some and thought I'd share.

Steal It

I don't recommend this method. By the dog park we go to the city has piled up lots of mulch and I could just go and grab buckets full. I could not get a truck up close to it, as they have it gated, but I would not do that any way.

Grass Mulch

I've heard of a lot of people that would put their grass clipping on as mulch. This works well if you have a good grass lawn to do it with. My grass is mostly dead right now and when it is not, it is mostly weeds. I think I'd get too many weed seeds in it this way.

Newspaper

Newspaper works as a mulch, but you really should put something over it, because it will blow away otherwise. Besides, it is kind ugly. I use this method in the beds that don't have bulbs because it helps more with the weeds, just like the fabric you can buy.

Yard Chippings

If you have a chipper/mulcher, you can take any brush you have, run it through the chipper/mulcher and viola, you have a good mulch. I looked for one new, and saw that they cost $500-$600. I almost choked on my tounge. I had talked to my wife and said "if we can get one for around $100 it will be worth it, because it will cost more than that to haul off all this debris, and we will get mulch. I was disappointed, I wanted the mulch.

Then I went on CriagsList. I found one listed for $125. Went over, checked it out, and brought it home. It claims to do 3 inch peices, but it bogs down so much, if they are still green, that I would not do anything near that. When they are dry, if runs them much easier. It is not as pretty has the bark mulch, but it works well.

Coffee Grounds

You can go to coffee shops and they will give you their old grounds. While you probably would not want to use solely coffee grounds as that might make the soil a little too acidic and might make your worms a little too hyper. Adding it to the mulch will help with color and give it a little fertalizer for you roses and other coffee drinking flora.

Leaves

Not as easy this time of year, but come fall when the leaves are all over the yard, you can pick them up and put them on your beds. This works great for garden beds as in the spring you can then turn the rotten mess of leaves into the beds for extra organic matter.

I want to make Emma a tire swing. I've been seeing these swings on various sites around the web that are tires cut into the shape of a horse, a dragon, or a motorcycle. They come in many shapes. I found these basic instructions for a horse. Or you can click on the image to the right to be able to purchase the dragon from Shop.com. Buying them is of course the easy way. And might be safer, as cutting tires is not an easy business and that knife can slip. I've cut many and may use the plans to make my own, but if I had the money, I'd much rather buy it. It is not easy to manipulate the tires.

I think Emma would really get a kick out of having her own horse in the yard. This also is an easy way to make use of a garbage item that we have far too much of in the land fills. There are a lot of ways to turn your tires into something useful. But most of them work better with non-steel belted tires. Most tires these days have steel in them, so that makes these kinds of projects much harder to work with.

Here are a few of my favorite projects for making things from tires:

• Sandals last a really long time when made out of tires. In some countries, these are very common shoes. I think I'd want to wear socks or moccasins with them, but they will last forever.
• Flowering Tire Pot - This flower pot looks like a flower too. I've seen them nicely painted and can be quite nice.
• Hanging Bird Flower Pot - I thought I'd found plans for this at one time, but now all I can find it this place selling the pot. It is cool though.

Stumble Upon has started a campaign to plant trees for Earth Day. All you have to do is go to this page and Stumble it and they will plant a tree for you.

It costs you nothing and it gets a tree planted. By stumbling the page, you will get others to see it as well and get more trees planted. Go now and get your tree planted!

There were 66,163 trees getting planted when I stumbled it. How many were there for you?

I've been wanting to add chickens to my family for a while. I'd love to have fresh eggs every day and one of the best pest controls around. I want to see the slugs tremble with fear as those hungry ladies come marching through.

I've convinced Elizabeth to let me. She has, however, requested that I don't get the chicks until I have their permanent home built. As chicks, they will not be spending a whole lot of time in their new home until they get larger, but it is still a good idea.

I'm in the process now. I've cleaned up the area along where I'm going to build the fence and I've drawn some plans. I'm going to fence in the west side of our lot, which I call the orchard. It includes three apple trees, a large shed, another tree that has never fruited, but I'm told is some sort of fruit tree, and a whole bunch of arborvitae. There is other stuff there that is getting removed, such as blackberry that I used an chemical spray in order to kill (shame on me).

I hope that the fence will go up this weekend, so that the free range area will be ready. I'm then going to clear about 8 square feet in the shed and build the coop right into it. I think this will be the safest place for them as the shed already has a good floor and the raccoons will not easily get at them. In the front I'm going to put a run made out of 1/2 inch metal netting that will have a bottom I'll bury a few inches down. This way they will be able to come out and play before I get up in the morning. I'm usually up around the same time as the sun, but this way I don't have to be.

The front and top of the run will open. So I can open the front, let the ladies free range, open the top and clean it out. Then close it all up again when they are safely inside. Since the run is extra, I'm going to do it last. I can get the ladies without it, I would just need to be up early to let them loose, and I'd be worried about their safety, perhaps.

Why you ask? Why not? They lay eggs, which give me extra food. They eat bugs, which reduces the work I need to do. They poop like mad, which fertilizes my yard. Yes, it is work to scoop up the droppings and compost it. They will eat just about anything, so feeding them is easy. And, if you get the right breed and spend time with them, they can be wonderfully social pets.