Sustain Myself

I was watching a show on Discovery last night about how they make Apache attack helicopters (or as I like to call them ‘Stupidly overpriced death machines’.) I was stunned to learn that the machine gun under the helicopter will point where ever the pilot looks! That means that all he has to do is look at something, pull the trigger and its dead. Whatever it was. This is 2009 technology.

On my new iPhone, I can let it read stories to my daughter. I can let it automatically update the world with my precise location. I can connect to my servers from anywhere I have phone service and check that everything is ok. I can take a photo, upload it to Evernote and have it create tags for that photo based on the text within the photo! The iPhone is incredible. This is 2009 technology.

Today, I received two highly glossy, 50+ page ‘adazines’ from a company called Kids Central. At first I thought one must have been for my wife and one for the previous owners (we still get lots of their mail, 1 year after moving in). I was horrified to see that BOTH the adazines were addressed to the same person! On one, it is addressed to ‘Dominique Lastname’ and on the other, to ‘D Lastname’. Not only do they send two identical adazines to the same residential address, but they send them both to the same person. These are not small, insignificant brochures or pamphlets, they are huge, heavy, paper and plastic filled picturezines wanting you to rediscover your love of kids clothes. How is it that a company is unable to detect not one, but two identical records (last name, and address) in a system? I could write a program to pick up such duplicate records in about 10 mins. Shame on you Kids Central, the environment and sustainability is not on your priority list and my family will not be buying from your stores. Ever. This is not 2009 technology.

Excuse my iPhone pic.

A lot has been going on in my garden recently and as it all surrounds my efforts of making myself more sustainable, I thought I would update you all on it.

I never used to consider myself a green thumb until I got my own garden. I used to enjoy the idea of gardening but couldn’t see myself really taking it seriously. Now, I love every moment I can get in my garden, I love my compost, my worm farms, my citrus tree’s, my lawn and everything else out there. It’s something that a lot of people take for granted but its all so beautiful.

My Compost

Initially I had just a single Tumbleweed compost bin, I wrote about my initial composting experiences in a post back in October 2008. Well, that bin got full very quickly once I started putting my lawn clippings in and if I wanted it to break down, I had to stop adding to it.

The compost in there is looking great but because the bin is in a shady spot, its not happening quite as quickly as it could if it had full sun. So, because it was full and because I continued to get about 150L of grass clippings every 4 weeks from my lawns, I went and bought a second ‘cheapie’ 240L compost bin from Bunnings (for only $40! Bargain!). This is taking a little bit of our food waste, but mainly the grass clippings which I am turning every few days.

I am also reading Tim Marshall’s “Composting: The ultimate guide to recycling your garden” to help me make my compost as best I can.

My Worms

My worms. I love my worms. These little blighters are so fantastic. We feed them all sorts of stuff, they just keep on chewing and reproducing and giving in return nothing but fantastic nutrient-rich castings. What amazing little creatures they are. When I first started my worm farm, I got a little discouraged as it seemed like the worms were staying down below the food and not coming up very often. I think its because they weren’t too strong in numbers (although, I did introduce 2000 of them). These days they are covering the food in there, they never stop! We are putting more and more in at a time (over-feeding can be very bad for a worm farm) and they continually keep up with the demand. I am going to grab a few and pop them in each of my compost bins to help with the breakdown process.

Because of our worms and compost bins, we don’t throw out anything organic. They are all working a bit much at the moment, so once the chook’s arrive, they can have a breather. I am reading David Murphy’s “Organic Growing with worms” to better educate myself on these little fella’s.

My Plants

Our garden here was beautifully landscaped when we bought the place. Lots of palms, ferns, a pond, teirs, steps, paths, everything. We loved it, but now I am starting to think that while all these plants are beautiful, they don’t produce anything except shade and privacy. So I need to start introducing food producing species’ to our garden. The whole garden is hooked up to a drip irrigation system too, but I don’t like turning it on as its still on town water. Need to wait for my water tanks (post on that coming soon). So far, we have a Cumquat tree, its beautiful except my bloody naughty dog pulled the biggest branch off it last night (with the most mature cumquat on it too) – so cranky!

But how can you get angry at her?

We also have a nice little lemon tree that I got for my birthday last year. Its been planted in full sun on our fence so it will eventually provide yummy lemons as well as some privacy (not that Harold and his wife are intruding…). See the 2nd pic in this post for the lemon tree.

We also have some potted herbs that we brought from our unit. They now get very little wind and a lot more sun so they are growing extremely fast. We have mint, parsley, Shallots and Chives.

Anyway, that’s my garden. I am getting my water tanks soon and will need to plumb in my down pipes etc, will post about that soon. Also, I have built a chook coop and will write how I did it soon.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE! She is my sister and turns 23 (give or take a decade or so) today. Go and check out her blog at herheartmyhands.com NOW!

So its been a long time since I updated this blog. The main reason for that is that I was made redundant in December from my job at realestate.com.au and have been working on some personal projects with my friend Michael Little in our new joint prospect Fliquid Studios.

Anyway, enough plugging…

I am currently reading about my new solar prospects, I have just built a chicken coop (details in next post) and am planning my Vegie garden and rain water drip irrigation system. Details on all of these will be coming soon. Today’s post is about a big decision I made recently. To give up coffee.

The reasons behind me giving up coffee are vast and include health, environmental and social problems. As I am not one to put my health before a good cup of joe, I’ll stick to the environmental and social issues that made this decision easy for me.

While I was aware of the claim that there are 2 ounces of carbon in every cup of coffee (due to the transportation and general manufacturing of the coffee after it has been harvested), it was this article by treehugger that pushed me over the edge.

Also, the social issues surrounding farmers who supply coffee. Most coffee growers in South America actually receive less than the cost of growing the coffee (Global Exchange Link). This includes those farmers who supply Starbucks and their shameful ‘Fair Trade’ claim (New Internationalist Article).

Lastly, and by far the biggest contributing factor for me to stop supporting the coffee industry as a whole, is the waste. The amount of cups used, daily, and then disposed of. It makes me sick. The image above is from Celina’s coffee cup project on Flickr and is worth a look. Sustainability Is Sexy has a table on the use of coffee cups daily.

Sorry for such a disjointed post. I have had a helluva night running after my almost-two-year-old while we had a ‘nice’ and ‘peaceful’ dinner for my brother-in-law’s 30th in their oh so child unfriendly house. I simply can’t stand by while the world implodes from excess waste and transportation for a stinking drink. Time for a cuppa.

Further Reading:
New Internationalist

When we decided to get a dog, my biggest concern was that I love my gardens and I didn’t want them littered with little smelly landmines. I regularly kick the rugby ball around the backyard with my brother in law and didn’t want to have to give that up because of the dogs’ business.

We are slowly training Baci to go in a particular corner of the garden where nobody goes. The problem then is, what do we do with the waste? There is much conflicting information out there about dog waste in compost or worm farms. The waste can introduce a bacteria which will throw the compost system out and worms simply to not eat it quick enough (Requiring a much larger worm farm). Then, because of the excess time to break down the waste in a worm farm, you run out of room for your vegetation waste and start seeing problems with a slow down in the cycle.

So, after some researching and a few enquiries, I decided to get a Doggie Doo Digester. There are a lot of products like this on the market now and they all seem great. The idea behind this is that the digester contains water and an enzyme which breaks the waste down into liquid, then monthly, you pull the plug out of the bottom (on a long handle so you dont get goo on your hands) and it drains into the earth. Easy, clean, safe. You can get a better idea of how it works at the digester site.

Anyway, we installed ours over the weekend. I will post pics and updated info on its ongoing use as we eliminate our waste with it.

About 4 weeks ago I put the last grass clippings into my compost and have been patiently waiting for the day that its ready to use. We have also been stuffing the worm farm over this period as you cannot add more to the compost bin or it will never compost, you need to have a ‘cutoff’ period. Unfortunately, the worms are now backlogged and that’s not a good thing. Worms should not be over fed as it can produce pests and mould, bad smells and the like. Our worms have been eating very well and I don’t think they will have a problem getting through this excess food.

But, now we have a problem. We simply cannot get through our vegetable waste any quicker. The compost is waiting to break down, so it cant go there and now the worms are full so it can’t go there. Enter the chooks!

Chickens are a mans best friend (well, besides Baci) and it surprises me that more people don’t keep them. Chickens are very self sustaining. They require very little assistance from you and will in return provide fresh eggs, chicken poop (which is fantastic fertilizer) and a way to get rid of your vege scraps. Chickens eat crap loads and will very happily take over when the compost and worm farm are full. They can even keep bugs and other critters away from your Vege patch.

Rent a chook is a great way to ‘ease’ into chicken keeping. You ‘rent’ the chooks for 10 weeks and if you dont like them then you give them back and get a refund minus fee’s and delivery charges. I have kept chooks before and I know that I’ll be keeping them but for folks who do not know what they’re doing, then what better way is there to try before you buy?

There is a lot of valuable information on the Rent a chook site and its worth reading. I think most families with the space should keep chooks. Its easy and extremely beneficial to yourselves and the environment.

I cant wait!

Welcome to the first post on Sustain Myself. While I don’t for one second consider myself an environmental or ecological expert, I am passionate about it and this blog will contain my findings on my quest for sustainability.

For my whole adult life I have lived in a unit until recently when my wife and I bought a house in Sydney’s Elanora Heights. For some reason when we were in the unit, we never bought a compost bin or worm farm. Needless to say that the second that we moved into the house, a compost bin and worm farm were almost the first things I bought.

After a bit of reading and general research, I decided on a Can-O-Worms worm farm with 2000 worms to start it, and a Tumbleweed Compost bin.

 

 

The Can-O-Worms is so great and sits under our balcony so it gets a little bit of sun, but not too much. Also, the cardboard wrapper that the Can-O-Worms comes in is what they suggest you use for the damp cover inside the worm farm to keep the farm moist and cool.

After doing a fair bit of reading on the Can-O-Worms, there was a whole bunch of reading on how these worms do not like to be over-fed. So, when we noticed the worms plateau a little with their feeding, we started putting organic waste in the bin instead. (Note that it is very evident that the worms prefer some foods over others. The love avocado and corn but not so much apples).

The trick with making a good compost is to have 25% food waste and 75% grass and thin garden waste (no bark and wood as it doesn’t break down) so we put a lot of kitchen waste in the bin and then over the weekend when I mowed the lawn, we added all the cut grass to the compost bin with half a bag of cow manure. At this stage the compost will be ready in 4 weeks. I keep turning the Tumbleweed and have been watching the compost start to sweat and its very hot in there. The problem now is that we dont have enough worms to eat all our kitchen waste and we cannot add anything to the compost for another 4 weeks so we may need to buy another bin so we can cycle them.

I am very pleased to announce that at this stage, we do not throw out any organic waste. It feels really good.

Have you had compost bins or worm farms? What are you experiences with them?