Monday, September 10, 2007

swap ya






Did some swapping today. Swapped my rubbish for someone else's. Actually I put some other people's rubbish into the in side of the bargain as well.

Started off at the beach, where I had two plastic bags - one for seaweed (for the garden) and the other to collect plastic. After a rather short walk along the beach I had filled both bags with plastic and other non-degradable rubbish plus I had armful of more plastic and then some seaweed hanging off one hand. Dropped that in the boot and then repeated the experience, only the second time I got a huge haul of seaweed (my biggest ever) as well. The amount of plastic in our oceans is revolting and I have to say that wandering the beach clearing it of litter is one of the loveliest enviro gesture experiences. I could happily do it every day and maybe I will.

Then we went to the dump and put the plastic where it should be (no plastic recycling facilities of any kind in our small town). And smashed beer bottles into the pit (you guessed it about the availability of glass recycling round here). My boy loves smashing glass at the dump. Not much in the way of middle class preschool pursuits round my house and garden.

Then we put five old tyres in the boot to take home and grow potatoes, beans and possibly strawberries in. Maybe I'll put flowers in them as well. We had a look around the for sale shed at the dump and noted a few things which could be useful for future garden projects.

I took many photos today, but my technical assistant appears to be on leave.

My other achievement has been to create a kind of cloche/mini tunnel house out of mostly found goods. Last year Favourite Handyman made a large chicken wire cover for the strawberry pots. Yesterday I had the idea of taping heavy duty plastic to it and hothousing the plants underneath. This is where it gets useful that I can't bring myself to throw away large pieces of strong plastic (like the wrapping when you buy a bed or dishwasher) as it meant I had just the plastic for the job. So that's on and looking good (photos not for ages on current signs). I thought about putting the part of the cylinder wrap which wouldn't fit in the cylinder cupboard underneath to warm things even further. But the fibreglass is exposed aqnd could blow round so I've left that in the shed. I reckon something large and silver-coloured would be good underneath though. Or even black to retain the heat.

I had so much seaweed that I've cut most of it up and filled two 20 litre lidded buckets and still had a huge piece left over which has been rinsed of sand/salt and is lying across the compost. The two buckets have been filled with water and are weighed down with a brick (otherwise the seaweed all floats on top and thus overflows). Tomorrow I'll drain the salty water off and refill them and start making seaweed brew, which Linda Woodrow the permaculture guru says is the best thing ever for your garden.

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