If you have a garden and can afford a small corner of space, then making your own compost is one of the most environmentally sound practices you can do.
It gives you a handy way of disposing of garden and kitchen waste, provides you with nutrient-rich compost that will feed your plants and improve the soil, and also helps keep armies of worms and bugs happy as they get on with the work.
At its simplest, all you need to do is create a pile of suitable material and, with minimal effort, it’ll, eventually turn into compost if you give it a year or two.
Having a garden where you can grow your own plants, herbs, vegetables and other such things is wonderful and once you get familiar with the whole gardening concept and you understand how it all works, you can start looking for ways to improve yourself and your garden. One of the features you can add is a DIY compost bin. You can craft one yourself and there are actually a lot of different strategies you can choose from. You can check out some of them in the examples below.
Do you have an aquaponics system? Are you interested in installing one? Leave a comment!
One of the local gardens on the Sherman Oaks NC garden tour 2018. 10 homeowners open their gardens and offer advice and information on water wise gardens for the San Fernando Valley.
Want to learn more about aquaponics? Check out these books from your local library and Amazon!
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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
I love these antique doorknobs and doorplates repurposed in this way. I think you could use it in any number of ways depending on how sturdily you mounted it to the wall.
This photo has become disassociated from its original source, though. If you have any idea where it came from, let me know. — Douglas
A nice collection of recycling projects for all ages. I especially liked the birdhouse idea and hope to build one of those for my own garden. Lots a great, easy, projects for kids, too. — Douglas
I have previously written (and created videos) on my own use of ad-hoc olla (like wine bottles) in my garden. Here is a bit more information from Kitchen Plot) — Douglas
This makes me wish I had a 300 gallon water tank on a trailer — or at least a few rain barrels. This isn’t terribly convenient, but if you are looking to reduce your household water consumption — maybe for a patio or balcony garden — this could certainly help.
I would love to see this program expanded out to local neighborhoods so I could quickly swing by and fill up whenever I needed instead of having to do it on their schedule.
City of Los Angeles Offers Free Recycled Water for Irrigation
LOS ANGELES—The Honorable Councilmember David Ryu of the 4th District, along with officials from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation (LA SAN), and the Los Angeles Zoo (LA Zoo) announced the opening of the City of Los Angeles’ Recycled Water Fill Station at the LA Zoo on Friday, June 17th, 2016. Every Tuesday beginning June 21st, the fill station will be open to all eligible Los Angeles residents and business owners who want to pick up free disinfected tertiary recycled water for approved, non-drinking uses like watering trees, shrubs and lawns. The City of Los Angeles’ Recycled Water Fill Station pilot program helps “Save the Drop” by offering recycled water to offset demand for drinking water as Los Angeles continues to weather through drought.
The fill station is located on the northernmost side of the LA Zoo parking lot at 5333 Zoo Drive, Los Angeles, and will be open every Tuesday from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. starting June 21. Qualifying customers can receive up to 300 gallons of disinfected tertiary recycled water for each day that the fill station is open. To avail of the recycled water, Angelenos must present their LADWP bill and undergo a training session to learn about the approved uses and proper handling of recycled water. Program participants must bring their own water-tight containers and sign a user agreement before filling up.
Councilmember David Ryu said, “Due to existing efforts, LA is using just as much water today as we did 45 years ago, despite having a million more people. Everyone is doing their part to conserve water and our efforts are admirable, but we need to come together to do even more.” He added, “Nearly 90 percent of the city’s water is imported from hundreds of miles away. In order to lessen our reliance on imported water, the city is expanding and building its local water supply. This is being done through the expansion of stormwater capture, groundwater, and recycled water. The Recycled Water Fill Station at the Los Angeles Zoo will only help further our city’s conservation efforts.”
Garden Decor: Making a mini wildlife stack from The Guardian
Attracting beneficial insects to your garden is always a great idea and The Guardian has an article on how to build your own mini wildlife stack for your garden.
After a long pause, I have finally gotten re-started on the wine bottle edging of some of our garden beds — this time in the front garden. It is amazing how many bottles it takes to do a project like this, so friends have been kind enough to share their empties with us. The two sides of the bed pictured below took about 17 bottles per side.
You can do the math, by measuring the length of the bed edged (or the circumference, if you are doing a circular bed) and then dividing by the average diameter of a wine bottle (usually between 3”-3.5”).
These bottles have proven very resilient and we have had no problems with breakage, chipping or any other damage. They are quite well seated in the ground, too, if you bury then at least partially above the shoulder of the bottle. I hit a few roots and such that made it a bit difficult to seat some of the bottles .This led to a bit of a “bump” in one of the bed edges, but using recycled materials always requires some adjustments and compromises, so it does’t bother me that much.
In this particular bed, the extra height of the bottles will finally allow us to raise the soil level a bit, as we had originally intended. With the addition of more mulch on the path side of these bottles there shouldn’t be any problem with them tipping over and or dislodging.
What recycled materials are you using in your garden? Share your thoughts and photos! I’d love to see them.
See my original video on installing the first set of wine bottle edging
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