ahhhh .... compost

i am utterly convinced that making compost is good for the soul.

ha!  you don't believe me.  composting is about building up soil, replenishing and returning fabulous nutrients to the soil and using them time and time again.  and well, all i can say is that i am one happy camper as i return to compost making!

when we lived in the grand suburbia of the blue mountains west of Sydney we have a great little composting system ... using all our brown waste and splitting our food scraps between the chooks and the compost.  our garbage / waste collection each week was minimal and we truly knew that we were starting to close the loop and making much more of what we did sustainable.

we started really well when we moved bush.  trying to lay down some brown waste in plant beds and put food scraps on that and then covering with straw and planting in that.... knowing that it would all break down and make a great space for growing things.  and we've had some success with that.

but we live in a rental, and honestly, it's hard to get motivated to care for and build up soil in a place that you know you are gonna leave.  and we went off composting.  putting our food scraps and brown waste in the garbage bins .... and it felt ......

WRONG

so now that JustEarth is starting to become a reality, we know that there is a lot to be done to build up the soil. the motivation has returned and we have come back to our roots.

building earth for JustEarth.

so it is with great delight that we have returned to composting .... with a new little u-beaut system.  we had to take certain things into consideration .... keeping the size of containers small so that kids can handle them as well as the stability of these containers because in the short term, we will be transporting waste from our rental out to the property (about 10 minutes out of town) is really paramount.

so i found these great food grade buckets .... woohoo!  composting has returned to the Walters household!  these are great!  and as you can see we have one that is the plastics bucket .... these go into the recycle bin. a second is paper waste .... which will get mixed with leaf litter, and the third is our food.  the blue lid is fabulous .... goes on nice and snug and comes off smoothly.

this waste will be used as part of our no back ache ruth stout system of growing (see this great article for more information.)  post on this will be forthcomng ....

and .... it feels so right to be doing this.... like i said .... good for the soul.  i know i am doing the right thing by the land, by our family .... and for JustEarth.  

P is for .... pallets

so ... hubby has a new fetish ... he is a pallet freak.

in the ethos of trying to recycle and re-use rather than buying new, we have found an endless source of pallets. and of course ...

• pallets = timber
• timber = building projects
• building projects = a happy "permie" family!

so we have our pallets .... what are we gonna do with them????

the great part is that we were able to get good wood ones. a pity that so many these days are built with cork or ply ... which means that using them for any outside projects are an absolute waste.

but these.... these are good! hubby starts imaging how to use them ... what we've discussed as a priority. the cool thing is that intact .... they are free standing walls .... which is really great. so .... first project is .... drum roll ...... a new compost bin! yeah!

way too simple to put together. a back wall made out of corrugated iron that we had, sides out of pallets and the front out of two solids bits of pallets that we managed to get. knock up a simple door frame and voila! you have a compost bin with two stalls! the two stalls allow for easy turning of the compost matter which will help get the decomposition going quickly. note that the two bay doors open out which allows for easy access. i'm going to use the Berkley Method of composting .... which should give me my first batch of good compost in about 3 weeks (i'll report back on that later!).

we are really proud of this project. the only cost to us has been about $5 at the local hardware store for the hinges. and it only took about an hour to put together! can't ask for better than that!

project for next weekend? new chicken coop -- or chicken hilton as it has been code named. come spring i am expecting to at least double my number of chooks ..... let's see how much stuff we'll be able to recycle then!