Veriance asked:


Such as a tupperware or rubbermaid container. The scraps would be kept there 2-3 days, tops.

By: Paul Hata

Is this going to be your first time to try your hand and luck in composting? This should not be that hard. But it isn’t that easy either. The sure thing about this is that it is going to take a lot of your time. But the end result will all be wroth it, especially if the next thing that you want to try your hand on is organic gardening.

The two actually go together. You will be able to utilize to its full potential your compost on your organic garden. If you think that you have a knack and you have the talent for it, you should really try gardening. It is not all work but no play. This can actually be just a hobby that you can use to relax while flexing those muscles out for a much needed exercise.

The main reason for gardening may be for beautification. But when you go the organic route, the reason behind this will be much bigger and much in tuned with nature. By making compost, you are also being one with nature. You are doing your part in preserving its beauty by gathering the waste elements that can be recycled to act as fertilizers to your garden.

For starters, it is only natural to worry if your project will be a success or not. But why worry if you can take the necessary actions for it to actually succeed. Here are some tips that you can follow.

1. Manage the stink. You don’t want to get into trouble with your neighbors for the sake of nature. To achieve this, you must keep the pile oxygenated. You can turn the materials periodically to gain such effect. This way, the materials on your pile will decompose regularly.

2. Decide if you are going to do it hot or cold. If you’ve decided on cold, you just have to pile all the organic materials and let nature takes its course over them. But this will take months to even years for all the materials to be good enough for compost.

If you will choose hot, this is a more detailed process and more effort is required on your part. You have to place your materials on a compost bag. Place the leaves first then put soil into it. Add other kitchen wastes like scraps from vegetables and fruits. You must remember to moist this pile periodically for the bacteria to grow so they can aid in decomposing the materials faster.

3. Watch out for the unnecessary visitors. You must be vigilant in a sense that if you are seeing flies and other pests inhabiting on your pile, take the proper actions to get rid of them. You want the pile to rot but not in a way that it won’t be useful in the end.

4. Place the compost, whether it is being done through hot or cold way, a good distance from the household and nearby neighbors. This way, you can proceed with the steps without the probable intrusion and questioning by the people nearby who don’t get what is that all about.

Composting can really eat up a lot of your time. So do it methodically. Make sure that you’ll devote ample amount of time into the process if you really are serious about gaining positive results from this.

By: Vicki Duong

Who would’ve thought that other than singing and conversing with your plants that composting would be another great way to solidify that wonderful human-plant relationship? Not only is composting a terrific way to add needed nutrients to prolong the life of your plants and garden, it’s also a fun way to bond with and get involved with your plants.

Like feeding and caring for your child or pet, composting for your plants is an ideal process to jumpstart your plant’s life. Composting is much easier than you think as long as you’re committed to the process. Even if you’re the type of person who’s always on the go and doesn’t really have a lot of time, all you really need is just food scraps to add to your plants’ soil. Granted that this is a simple premise, not every single food waste can be composted. No-no’s like dairy products, bones, meats and fats can’t be composted. Not only that, they won’t decompose properly, smell real icky after a day and attract unwanted visitors like rodents.

Scraps like fruit rinds, vegetables, crushed eggshells, and even coffee grounds are terrific for composting. Coffee grounds especially act as activators (they generate heat) because of the high amount of nitrogen that they turn up. The aforementioned goodies act as a buffet for itty bitty microbes, making the composting process quick, easy and effortless. (Disclaimer: by quick I mean anywhere from three to eight months).

After you’ve gathered up your food scraps and have placed them in your compost bin or directly into your soil and burying them (the latter method is probably best for composting in the garden), we play the waiting game. Yes, it takes a while, but patience is a virtue. After a few months, you’ll have a wonderful pile of rich compost ready to add to your garden or house plants. Simply mix in your newly made batch of compost to your soil and your plants and garden will thank you with wonderfully blooming flowers, healthy and deliciously yummy fruits and vegetables, and a long lifespan that both you and your plants will truly appreciate.

By: James Todman

Last year an EU Landfill Directive banned the disposal of almost all tyres in landfill sites. So what can you do with old car tyres?

Car Tyre specialists like Merityre pay over a £1 to ensure every used tyre is disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner. And when they have over 200,000 to get rid off each year the money really starts to add up.

Nationally, tyre retailers, garages and vehicle dismantlers collect over 40 million tyres a year. 12% of these are reused after having a new tread applied. More innovative uses include creating flood defences. Others are recycled and used for products such as carpet underlay or road surfaces. An emerging market is energy recovery. It is hoped that tyres could partly replace coal as fuel source for many industries.

There are ways we can reuse car tyres at home rather than sending them to specialist disposal companies. Here are 10 great ideas:

1. Raised Beds

Car tyres are ideal for creating a raised bed for planting flowers, herbs or vegetables. A single tyre works well for lettuce and herbs. Use two or three tyres to grow potatoes.

Paint the car tyre bright colours to create a wonderful display when planting flowers.

2. Resoling Shoes

Use the rubber from the car tyre to resole shoes. It is very hard wearing.

Alternatively add a piece of leather and create a pair of sandals or flip flops.

3. Car Tyre Swing

Most people have memories of playing on a tyre swing when they were young.

Just use some strong rope and securely attach the car tyre to a sturdy tree branch for hours of fun.

4. Boat Bumper

Boat owners can attach the car tyres to the boat’s sides, to act as protective bumpers. Very useful when docking a boat.

5. Children’s Playground

Rather than spending a fortune on equipment from a garden centre, use a little imagination, some old wooden planks and a few car tyres to create a great adventure playground for the children.

6. Forcing Rhubarb

Forcing Rhubarb (growing rhubarb in dark conditions) has been practised since the early 19th century. It produces vibrant pink rhubarb that is far more delicate in flavour than the usual variety.

Place two or three car tyres around the plant just before it starts emerging from the ground. Cover the tyres with a piece of wood to create a warm, dark environment. From December to the end of March you will be enjoying succulent and sweet early rhubarb.

7. Sand Pits

Large tractor tyres are perfect for making a sandpit for the children. Just buy the special sand from a garden centre and fill the tyre.

8. Mini Greenhouse

Cover the car tyre with a piece of clear polythene to create a mini greenhouse or propagator. The thick rubber wall of the tyre is excellent insulation for creating a warm environment to germinate seeds.

9. Table

Place a flat piece of wood on top of two or three tyres for an easy to assemble table, suitable for the indoors or outside. Paint the tyres for a better effect.

10. Composter or Wormery   

Three or four tyres stacked together create a simple composter. The warm environment created by the car tyres will make short work of composting kitchen waste and grass clipping. Access the compost by removing one tyre at a time from the top.

Ask your local garage for old car tyres. Not only will you be helping them with disposal, you will reuse a non biodegradable product in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Car tyres maybe essential when driving a vehicle but they are also extremely useful around the home and garden.

By: Abhishek Agarwal

Organically grown plants have gotten quite popular in the last few years. Almost every gardening enthusiast is shifting onto the organic method due to the wide spreading awareness about the quality of flowers and vegetables that it results in. Go organic and your flowers will bloom with a new found hue and the vegetables will taste like never before!

With its rising popularity, the organic gardening tips are finding a huge market and almost every other big publishing house is banking upon to opportunity by coming up with guides to help the ever-eager gardeners. Organic gardening is a very relaxing as well as involving hobby. Just with little help, anyone can produce tasty fruits, vegetables and herbs. People can relish them with 100% assurance they are the best that nature can produce in a pesticide, chemical and herbicide free manner.

Garden pests are an inevitable reality. Organic gardening doesn’t mean that they will no longer fancy your gardens. Instead, what will happen is that you will be countering them in the same natural manner like old time farmers used to, before the invention of herbicides and pesticides.

We are outlining here a few organic gardening tips that will be priceless in your endeavor of cultivating vegetables, herbs and fruits that are full of taste, health and economic value. Moreover, you will sleep well with assurance that your children are no longer consuming chemically infected food.

Aphids, as every gardener would know, can cause a lot of damage to the garden. A very good preventive measure one can take is to plant marigolds close to the vegetable garden. This will keep aphids at bay. In case your garden is already doomed with an aphid attack, you can spray diluted soap water followed by clear water on your plants to get rid of them, organically.

Another organic gardening tip you can use is to produce your own compost naturally at home. We all are aware that the market compost contains many harmful chemicals. As an alternative, you can utilize your kitchen and garden waste to produce organic compost at home. It will normally consist of vegetables, coffee grounds, potatoes, dead weeds, rose or other plants pruning, egg shells, carrots etc. that have landed up in the trash bin. Compost enriches the soil by providing good texture, ventilation and structure. Various ingredients in organic compost help to break it down quickly. Overall, it is an excellent way to catalyze the root development process.

Before starting on with organic gardening, you must do good research and analysis to find out the best plants suited for your garden. Following is another organic gardening tip that will help you get rid of weeds quickly and make your soil dryness-free. Pine needles, old newspapers and grass clippings when mixed together, make effective mulch that is potent enough to keep the soil moist and your garden weed-free. Organic Gardening is the new age mantra to attain most optimum levels of chemical free and environment friendly gardening produce, and these organic gardening tips will make that goal much easier to achieve!