Grow Your Own Magazine

Kayt · #**4026** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 09:45 AM

Squashman - how did you convert the bin into a composter? Are we talking about a black dustbin? We have about a dozen of those doing nothing at our flats now we have the new wheelie bins.

zazen999 · #**4027** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 11:02 AM

Brought in 5 cukes, and about 10 courgettes, pending frost which hasn't come yet.

Sowed kale, spinach, red chicory, garlic chives, chives, and some peas. Also Echinacea from seed head harvested last week.

Harvested beans mainly, weighting up leaving them on for as long as possible without getting them frosted. Not that it matters I suppose, they are only going into the freezer.

Got some wood from a chappie on his way to the tip [yes, I followed him].
Took a load of compost to the lottie, bagged up in old bags for life and compost bags.
Bought some tanalised wood to make pegs for the above wood for raised beds, and made the pegs.
Got a bin bag of coffee grounds from a large international coffee shop.

Kayt, to convert a bin into a composter, you can just make some big holes in the bottom for the worms to get in and out. We put all our kitchen veg etc into a plastic bin, not converted; and once it's been in there a while and rotted down, it gets tipped into the dalek. Once it's been in the dalek for a while, it gets shovelled into a wooden composter for the final breaking down process. You can do the same using 3 bins, as long as you have one that just has the 'final' stage, which is broken down but not yet 100% smell free - you should be ok. you can use that for mulching, we use ours this time of year to protect for the winter and, for this year, to condition the lottie soil.

We do have 3 rotating 'fresh' ones though, so that we have minimal tipping to do - as it breaks down into about 1/4 of it's volume after a few weeks.

Kayt · #**4028** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 11:13 AM

Thanks zazen. I've just moved plots - long story!! But the new one doesn't have any compost bins. Using old dustbins will serve the purpose for the time being and we were wondering what to do with all these old bins.

pigletwillie · #**4029** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 11:24 AM

Last night we made 12 litres of passata and roasted loads of red peppers to make 2 jars of roasted red peppers. More bean seeds were brought in to dry and a load of penstemon cuttings were taken to give new plants for next year.

squashman · #**4030** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kayt

Squashman - how did you convert the bin into a composter? Are we talking about a black dustbin? We have about a dozen of those doing nothing at our flats now we have the new wheelie bins.

zazen999 has gone for the scientific and probably superior method.

I am however a lazy sod, so all I did was cut the bottom off it so the worms could work their magic cut a hatch near the bottom to retrieve the compost and fill it gradually.

You have to turn it occasionally but it will eventually all rot down, it will take longer than zazen's set up though which is admittedly more elegant.

sewer rat · #**4031** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 06:56 PM

Today I went see the gardens that I will be looking after during the next 5 months or so.
Start at Mounteagle on 20th October and start at Morangie House at Cadboll tomorrow.
Need to change my forum name to Rat 4 jobs !!
Anyway came home and have just made and potted up 15 x 12oz jars of picallilli.
Tomorrow night I am going to put together a basket of fresh veggies and a selection of my preserves and then I'm off to Wick on Wednesday as the representative of our local Producers Group at the Taste of Caithness and Sutherland event.
If you're interested here are some links to whwre I'm gonna be working over the winter.
The Glenmorangie House Website
Mounteagle Holidays - 4-star Self-catering accommodation in the Scottish Highlands

BrideXIII · #**4032** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 07:07 PM

made a batch of oven dried tomatoes.
made homemade butter.

FionaH · #**4033** (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 11:17 PM

Planted solent wight in containers. Note to self: put spares in with leeks and psb. Otherwise I wont remember what they are

Kayt · #**4034** (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 10:12 AM

Thanks squashman. That's not being lazy, just conserving energy and keeping things simple

I shall certainly be taking a couple of the bins to the lottie and make some sort of composter with them.

Winged one · #**4035** (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 12:51 PM

I managed to bring a decent few cardboard boxes to the plot on Sunday, along with the toddler. She helped me to lay them over 2 beds and weigh them down with stones (OH will help me next week to dig over the ground, and we'll throw the half composted contents of the dalek under the cardboard as well).

We brough home a reasonable sized bag of goodies - a handful of brussels sprouts, 2 dinner's worth of brocolli, one dinner's worth of broad and borlotti beans, 2 toddler dinners of peas, a baby courgette, a handful of radishes and a nice handful of baby leeks.

I also managed to gather in all the remaining onions and garlic from various window ledges and the frame of the minigreenhouse over the weekend. They are all for more immediate use rather than storing, so they are in the basket in the kitchen. And then we dismantled the frame to store for the winter again. OH also painted the garden shed with preservative which is supposed to last 5 years.

And I spent a good while in the kitchen concocting various goodies (shepherd's pie - lots and lots, boiled chick (some shredded and frozen) with some soup from the accompanying veggies, more soup with stock and fresh veggies, and stock for freezer, as well as our first proper "winter" roast beef of the season, and a really lovely long cooking Indian bhuna curry with proper fresh made naans (who knew I could make bread?!

).

This weekend, OH is supposed to come with me to the plot, while my sis takes the toddler for the afternoon on Saturday. We are going to do the digging over of fallow ground for winter, chucking the part composted dalek over the ground and covering with a combination of cardboard and builder's plastic. I am going to plant one bulb of garlic (we'll keep the second for spring planting) as well as a couple of rows of broad beans and a few of peas for over wintering. We'll dig up the last of the potatoes (the Anya pots are still coming and keeping well in the ground, but I want to plant up that bed now for winter) - there should be at least another 2-3 weeks of spuds to come yet. And generally tidy up for the winter, while getting OH's opinion on the brussels sprouts etc (he's grown them before and I haven't) and the sweetcorn (they may be tiny, but I think we may get a couple of ears off them after all).

BrideXIII · #**4036** (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 02:06 PM

popped down the co-op to ask about flower buckets. It's all TRUE!!! they just throw them away!
came away with 31 and was told to ask every week and can get about the same each time, RESULT!

bought a few seeds this morning, butternut squash, marrow and tumbling toms, so i am going to cut the bottoms of a few buckets, make some holes in the sides and build a tomatoe tower or two for the patio

Rhona · #**4037** (**permalink**) 07-10-2008, 02:07 PM

Last night picked the last of the vine leaves and stuffed them with gorgeous sweet spiced lamb and potato; served with basmati rice and a feta salad of first cherry tomatoes, my first outdoor cucumber (nice!) and some mint leaves.

wellie · #**4038** (**permalink**) 08-10-2008, 01:14 AM

I got up early this morning, and went to attend a Study Group on Steiner, and BioDynamic Culture. It was awesome, and made me think 'completely outside of the box', which I love.

What is it about learning Gardening Stuff that enables you to meet such lovely people???! and I got to wander amongst the top-banana-quality produce with a mug of coffee you could stand a spoon in, and a slice of Stollen.....

Over the last decade of my life, for whatever reason escapes me now, (she lied!) but I've been striving for 'personal bests', and whilst personal goals are truly, truly important, today cemented a more earthy desire within me, and rekindled my hunger for knowledge of what I feel I want to embrace, but don't yet understand.
Does that make sense?

I've had a Great Day Today, and Thank You for listening.
X

FionaH · #**4039** (**permalink**) 09-10-2008, 12:47 AM

Today I planted bog standard unwin garlic, too many spring bulbs to count, potted up chives and parsley, (new herb tub). Potted up blueberries and strange circular topiary thing. Must find out what its called

HotStuff · #**4040** (**permalink**) 10-10-2008, 07:28 PM

Today I planted up my first ever strawberries, 5 Elsanta and 5 Honeoye in one of those plastic tower things and also planted 7 different kinds of garlic in the raised beds, got the variety pack from TheGarlicFarm as it's my first year, will be more selective next year depending on the results. Noticed my Nantes Frubund carrots I planted three weeks ago are already showing. Picked some chillies for drying, plucked a few ripe toms to go with dinner tonight and dug up the last of the spring onions to use in a Thai meal tomorrow.

BrideXIII · #**4041** (**permalink**) 10-10-2008, 07:39 PM

sterilised all the demijohns ready for the big alcohol experiment, and made cheese, will i think its cheese and it doesn't smell aweful.

pigletwillie · #**4042** (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 07:08 PM

I cleared a raised bed of gone over spring onions and chard, topped it up with allotment compost and planted garlic.

A second raised bed was also topped up and that was planted with radar onion sets. Further beds were planted with spring cabbage, a few also went into the tunnel so thay will be ready by Christmas time.

A cabbage was cut and chanteney carrots pulled for dinner and last of all a grape vine "Cardinal" was planted outside.

mrsc2b · #**4043** (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 07:58 PM

I went to my newly acquired allotment and begin clearing, managed to cut to ground level 25' x 12' of the 85' x 25' plot in about 2 hours, back tomorrow. My Mum helped.

colser · #**4044** (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 09:03 PM

sorted out an asparagus bed, planted on a few salad plants out over winter, mulched as much as i could

zazen999 · #**4045** (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 09:56 PM

No gardening as such; went on the Grow Healthy Plants at Ryton - superb course and learnt loads.

sallym · #**4046** (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 10:15 PM

Today was the first day spent on our new Lottie.

OH and I went to have a quick look this morning and came home at around 6pm. In that time we met 2 of our plot neighbours who let us use their strimmer to clear some nettles and gave us a compost bin (quick trip to local Supermarket to get some beers in to say thanks). We had a look around the rest of the site which is being given a face lift ( unused plots very overgrown, a good few abandoned/ruined sheds) and found a hoe, spade and fork plus a huge length of water hose that looks fine.

We started to clear the plot of metal, rubble etc and thought we would try and level a hump in the corner of our plot, only to find that this must have been the local dumping site for everyone. Have decided to go back tomorrow and try to clear as much of this as we can as this is the worst spot and it will feel good to know we have conquered it.
Back protesting a little, but have enjoyed it so much. Hope I still feel this way in the morning.

sewer rat · #**4047** (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 10:54 PM

Went to one of my part time jobs today and finished weeding and tidying up the first bed along one of the walls. Started clearing, weeding and tidying the bed along the bottom wall. Was just about 5 yards into this when the Chef (who I know), came to see if I wanted a coffee - he asked if I was going to remove some of the rasps as they had too many (three rows about 40m long each, plus half that length on the bed I was working on) I gallantly accepted - guess where they will be going.

We were walking back through the veg and I commented that their brussels sprouts were looking really good - he was surprised as he didn't know they had any !! Then we looked at the strawberry beds - in need of a good tidy up - and of course I volunteered to bring on any runners etc - at a rough guess there will be about 1000 - and he agreed that I could have half !!
Had a longing look at the huge fig tree - excellent cropper apparently - then went for coffee.
So I'm okay for rasps and strawbs and currant cuttings and gooseberry layering and it's only my second day there.
Anyway, finished there at 5pm, went to my own place, watered the tunnel, weeded the lettuce and raddichio, came home and made 18 12oz jars of Apple and Mint Jelly.
Now about to leave for my doorman job !!
Oh I nearly forgot - they also have a quince tree and I have been told to help myself as there are too many for them to use - Quince Jelly coming next methinks !!