Composting at home

I mistakenly thought that it doesn’t matter if a bit of green waste goes in the wheelie bin, because it will just make compost at the tip.

Actually, organic components of domestic refuse are a very serious problem at the tip and should be avoided.

Have you found it too hard to set up a composting system at home? I hope this article will help to make it easier…

Green waste at the tip

Green waste from household rubbish bins is the biggest single problem at council tips. The organic matter dumped in the ordinary bins becomes contaminated with toxins from the dump and renders the nutrients useless for future food chains.

When bio-degradable items go to landfill, they give off gases uselessly for the most part, or worse, they may also contribute to global warming. It’s far better that these wastes should be composted at home where the nitrogen and carbon can be safely re-used.

Australian households generate the second highest amount of waste per capita in the world. On average we throw away around 20 million tonnes of waste per year and the amount is growing. According to environmental groups, landfills are busting at the seams.

Listen to ABC RN talkback and panel show on this topic – download from this page

It is important to keep food waste out of the council tip. You can convert all your organic waste into something great for the soil, save money on garbage bills and fertilize your garden.

Bokashi composting

Please also see my pages on Composting at Home and Worm Farming

If a composting is difficult for you, then perhaps a Bokashi system will make it easier.

Bokashi is a Japanese term meaning ‘fermented organic matter’. In Bokashi composting the fermentation process is anaerobic. This means that oxygen is not required for the process. The Bokashi system has advantages in the kitchen because:

•     Smelly waste is recycled in a way that eliminates odors
•     Insects and rodents or other animals avoid fermented organic waste

All that is needed is a bucket (with lid), some special bokashi innoculant mix, and your organic kitchen waste.

A bucket with a tap at the bottom makes it easier to drain away the liquid. Improvise by using 2 stacking buckets, eg square ones, and poke holes in the bottom of the inner (upper) bucket. Then it is easy to separate the buckets and tip out the liquid collected in the bottom bucket.

Steps for the Bokashi method:

1.     Collect your food waste each day, chop up any larger pieces – easiest while it’s still on the chopping board after food preparation. Drain off any excess liquids. Place in bin and add some Bokashi bran (see explanation below) and mix it around a little.

Bokashi for Pet Droppings

Bokashi composting is an anaerobic fermenting process that is easy and non-smelly to use in the kitchen for decomposing food scraps.

Read more about it HERE

… but the big question is, can it also be used to dispose of pet poo in a way that is odour-free?

There’s a specific Bokashi product they say to buy for dealing with pet waste. It’s called Shift Bokashi. They claim that the microbes in it will destroy any pathogens so the resulting compost is safe to use anywhere.

Online some people say the ordinary Bokashi bran mix will deal with dog poo just as it works with vegie scraps. FIND BOKASHI BRAN RECIPES HERE.

To be safe they all say keep the dog poo compost bucket separate from your regular scraps and only use the resulting compost on your ornamental plants (not on the vegie garden). You should mix the faeces with plant material, leaves, or wood chips so that the Bokashi culture mix has a rich amount of material to process. Then after fermentation bury it in the ground covering it with about 20 cm of soil.

Worm Farming

Composting worms are different from earth worms, so you need to obtain your initial batch from someone with a worm farm. It’s to do with temperature – it’s too hot in the worm farm for earth worms.

METHOD

1. Assemble worm farm with the tray with a tap placed at the bottom
2. In the top tray spread worms, add kitchen scraps and cover with the fibre mat (worm blanket).
3. Sprinkle with water from time to time to keep moist. Sprinkle with lime to improve ph.
4. Keep adding scraps cut small – the smaller the pieces, the quicker the worms get through them.
5. Worms will also eat paper, cardboard, cotton t-shirts – nearly everything!
6. No onion skins or citrus (too acidic) but possibly these are ok if soaked first (?)
7. When the top tray is full, rearrange so an empty tray is on top for the scraps & transfer the fibre mat to that one.
8. Use the contents of lower trays in garden when the food scraps are all broken down and the composting worms have moved out.

• Keep the worm farm in the shade in summer, but they need warmth, so in winter put it in sun.
• Keep the tap turned on so farm doesn’t fill with rainwater and drown the worms.
• Place a bucket under the tap to collect liquid. As it fills, use it to fertilize the garden or potplants.
• Use a drip tray to prevent brown ‘worm juice’ stains on concrete.

PLEASE ALSO SEE MY PAGES ON

Composting at home,    Bokashi composting

and   Bokashi for Pet Droppings

Henna eyebrows

Hair loss after chemotherapy means not merely a bald scalp. For example, it is a very strange sensation to be without eyelashes and nostril hairs. After gritty eyes and a sticky itchy nose, now I really appreciate these uncelebrated hairs. I miss my eyebrows too.
I was inspired to create henna eyebrows after having fun in the henna tent at the Woodford Folk Festival.
I have only painted eyebrows, so obviously I’m no expert, but I want to share this helpful hint.

Why?

Perhaps it is just vanity to want eyebrows like everyone else, and blend into the crowd, but I’ve also had feedback that eyebrows make all the difference for certain facial expressions.
Eyebrow pencil works well, or my cousin’s excellent tip is to use dark eyeshadow and a little brush. However, it takes time and a steady hand to achieve a serious pair of unremarkable eyebrows. Not being a make-up person, I find this daily procedure tedious, whereas henna can last a week.

The time saving is brilliant, although the rather orange tone of a henna tattoo probably suits some other people better than me.

I had a fantasy of painting decorative eyebrows
LIKE THESE
but I found it too difficult.
I hope you will try some patterns
and have more success than me

How?

My friend gave me some ready-to-use henna paste in an easy applicator tube and also some in a cone. My best success has been with the cone.

Buy henna cones online or in an Indian grocery shop (about $1.50). Keep the paste in the fridge and it will last a while. However, after opening I found it necessary to squeeze out and discard about 1/2 teaspoon of paste. This much was inactive, but deeper in the tube was still good.

After painting on my eyebrows I left the paste to dry and kept it on for 12 hours, then peeled it off and smeared on some oil. Apply more oil daily, especially before showering or swimming.

My henna eyebrows lasted 7 days before needing a touch-up.

Here is a very useful site with recipes and instructions.

Henna design on my head with paste still adhering

In this picture you can see the full design on my head from the festival, showing dark henna paste still adhering. When the paste comes off, the final henna tattoo is a brown stain, as you can see in the “after” eyebrow illustration above.

Solar Hot Water – a hint

Solar hot water systems usually have an electric back-up heater on a thermostat, for times of prolonged overcast weather. How crazy if this is set to default, heating your water every night so you hardly need to use solar!

This is a bit of a bug-bear I have. When we were deciding which system to buy, we walked around our local area asking neighbours about their solar hot water and whether they were happy with their choice. We also got quotes from all the distributors and heard their ‘spiel’. It was a bit of a shock to realise that many people are underutilizing their solar collectors and quite unaware.
Some systems don’t even have a manual switch, so the booster is always ready to kick in automatically. In my opinion, these are the brands to avoid.
Where there is a switch, I gather many people follow the seller’s advice. The sales reps recommend to leave the booster heater on and forget about it. Of course, then they have happy customers who report, “We never run out of hot water!”
However, if your peak demand for hot water is in the evening, for washing up and showers, the thermostat in the hot water system will register a drop in temperature and trigger the booster heater to come on and  heat the water overnight. When the sun comes out next morning the water is still hot so the solar collectors are hardly used!
Instead it is more efficient to leave the booster off and switch it on manually only on grey days if required. When it has been raining all day and you run the tap and find the water isn’t very hot, then turn on the switch. Ours takes about half an hour to heat enough.

Ovarian Cancer

- a summary of my experience

In the second half of 2009 I grew a bit pudgy, but I didn’t think it was strange. I just put it down to broadband, since fast internet compelled me to spend more time sitting down. It seemed many friends my age were similarly spreading in the middle. In December I was very fit and dancing every day, preparing to teach “aerobic folkdance” at the Woodford Folk Festival. Then at yoga, touching my toes, I was surprised to see one ankle was swollen. A few days’ later it hadn’t gone down and my belly seemed bigger than ever, so I went to the doctor. Here is a picture of me at yoga that same day. Note the tummy!

I am describing my symptoms in detail, hoping readers will be warned. I had advanced ovarian cancer and my experience is typical – I was fit and healthy and unsuspecting. Currently there is no screening test for this disease, and the symptoms, if any, are unremarkable. I gather most women at some time get a feeling of being bloated, and many of us put on weight around the middle after age 50.

For the latest guidelines for when to be alert but not alarmed please click here and scroll down to 2nd August 2011.

ARTLANDERS EXHIBITION – PROTECT / PROTEST

The annual Artlanders exhibition is on in Atherton this month and I have created something for it. Please go for a look in the Old Post Office Gallery if you’re local, and let me know what you think. I will also post it here when I can, but it needs modification for digital viewing.

Artlanders is a growing collective of artists from the Atherton Tablelands, including amateurs and professionals, adults and children, coordinated by the amazing Lyndel Turpin. Every year they each contribute one work on a set theme. It is always a most entertaining show because of the wonderful variety of interpretations of the theme and also very diverse media. Works range from 2D pictures to sculptures, installations, digital art, and there’s always a dramatic performance and live original music.

CONSCIOUS FASHION CHOICES

Every season vast resources and energy are wasted when fashion dictates a change of wardrobe.

How does it feel to know that powerful business people control our fashion choices? Think of an out-moded style that you once admired but now it seems hideous or ridiculous! We might think we have personal taste but actually we are often manipulated by advertising psychology.
We can change our attitudes.

PEAK FISH

New research on fishing and catch rates has shown we may have reached Peak Fish. We have removed 90% of the larger predator fish from the oceans, according to results presented at the AAAS meeting in February 2011. Future fish populations will be dominated by small fish. This affects economies and diets worldwide.
It has even caused an increased prevalence of pirates in the vicinity of certain countries whose fishing industry has collapsed.
More information on the ABC Science Show

OVERFISHING is catching too many fish (or prawns etc.) so these animals cannot sustain their population. The fish get fewer and fewer, until finally there are none to catch.
Overfishing is a threat to marine biodiversity, and it is changing evolution.

If you eat seafood, make sure you know what you eat and try to pick the ones with the lowest impact.