Friday, June 26, 2009

Composting and Compost Bins ..And Sparrows !



I've been building another compost bin ... Bin #1 was filled up to the top and left a while to compost down ...Bin #2 now built and put in place, is for turning bin # 1 into ... This ensures and even composting as the top of Bin#1 is now at the bottom of bin#2 ... It also aerates the compost pile ensuring a good bacterial attack :O)



We built both compost bins using a interlocking thingy-majig... You buy them as per the picture and nail them to the ends of the wood ... Very versatile as you can then build different sizies and shapes for all sorts of uses....And you can also deconstruct the bins as you empty them rather than bending into the bin to get spadefulls at the bottom.....







The bins are a little over a metre cubed in size which seems a good size to have in a small garden .... Certainly by we got to move the bin#1 contents it had dropped about a quarter down into the bin and was already looking like good compost should ...





I'm contemplating building a compost bin#3 as a staging bin for the final result compost.. Come September onwards, through spring and summer, the compost making rate can and will be pretty fast. .





excuse the mess in the background...One of my projects while unemployed



I'm adding much more than the usual food scraps. While perfect composting material, it would take a 'yaks age' to fill a bin up ..So we're buying bags of pea straw, and untreated sawdust and plenty of manure from the local 'lifestylers' plots..And, for this year only as I'm only doing the paths, I'm raking up mainly NZ native beech leaves from the piece of bush we own.. Only from the paths as I have no wish to interfere with the forest structure beyond that...I've not done this for about 5 years, or never further into the forest so quite a bit there to use. I have to say that with the smallness of the leaves (about a 10cent piece in size) they are the perfect composting leaf mould.....



So a rich compost to add to the veggie plots and around the garden really ... I'll also get a kit to test for acidity and add lime if necessary as compost tends to be very acid.



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We've not seen many sparrows around the house in recent years ..About 10 years ago they suffered a viral attack that was named by the press as 'bird aids' ..Anyway this year they are back in force .. It's been a good couple of years for them ...Good for all birds in the area actually as they did a poison drop on the forests and killed off the possums ...



We now have an abundence of native and introduced birdlife around the garden. A few I've never seen before and had to go to the reference books for identification .... I know many people are against the poison they use (1080) but the results really are dramatic and beneficial in the long run .....







McD started to feed the sparrows much to Pepsi Dogs' annoyance ... Bread drops are being taken away by her and dug into the garden borders ... A good composting dog is Pepsi :O) But not so good if you come across a rotting lump of it when gardening ....







Talking of which, McD and I were rescuing a tray of iceland poppy seedlings that had been knocked over in the yard (amongst the other trays and rubbish ).. Me in bare hands rummaging through the soil to get the partially burried pants .... I grabbed a pile of what I thought was soil !!! It was a dead and bloated RAT !!!!!



"EEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK" I commented in a very low and manly voice ...



Not ....



Still after about 8hrs of hand washing in dettol and other cleansing substances I think I'm safe to use the old left hand again ....



errrr - maybe just another wash to get the very thought of it away again .....





:O)_

3 comments:

Kay Cooke said...

Ugh! That rat story gives me the shivers.
Maybe I don't feel any yearnings to garden after all!
Well, when I can vicariously experience the gardening from you and McD's various twitterings and bloggings, why not just rest on my laurels and watch / read proceedings? (Plus it leaves me time to write!) I guess I have made my choice.
Great that sparrows are back - we never noticed any demise here. I like sparrows, they are the cheekiest and the ones that approach the closest to humans.

Hazel said...

Cor! I really like the look of those interlocking wot-nots! To save odd looks at the hardware store, do you know if they have a more official name...?

Yuk!! Although your rat tail made me howl with laughter, I'm afraid - I would have shrieked like a complete girl and done a great deal of running round and round...

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

What did the rat die off? You pepsi did a cat's job?

I hate rats and mice. We often had mice, but recently I trapped 2 rats, and there are some more.

I must have about fifty sparrows. I throw out my day old rice, noodles and old bread. The silver eyes and other bigger native birds come as well. They devour so much rice so quickly.

How's the holiday plans?

Your back ok?