The egg box planters have been put to good use for my seedlings again this year. Water is retaind well if the lid rests under the egg holder part and filled with homemade compost and a little sand. Seeds are then spread and covered with glass from an old window rescued from a skip (with permission). Within days they were showing through and looking healthy. I lost a few to my shed dwelling mouse but the rest are nearly ready to go out in the new raised beds.

The raised beds are another one of my salvage stories. I went to purchase wood for a few shelves for the house when I spotted, at the back of the timber yard, a number of rough-cut planks. Paying for the wood, the planks became the topic of conversation and before I could say “over there”, the owner of the yard had sold me, for a few pounds, nearly one hundred planks of oak, destined to be burnt. At the end of the weekend, I had made seven raised beds and then looked to fill them. Once organic soil was sourced, the beds were filled and manure added. Now I shall wait and see what happens in the next growing season. I may even try the half gutter-planting scheme where soil is placed almost to the top and seeds scattered on top. When the seeds are up and ready to be planted out simply just take the whole gutter planter out of the greenhouse and just slid out onto the waiting bed that has had a good water before hand. Happy gardening.

This is a subject many have walked away from and others champion.  What is it with big brand companies in that they have to, in the modern term, ‘Big up’ their products with packaging.  This is like a man using socks to big up a minor point in his trousers.  If a product is so good, does it need packaging that is three to four times larger than the product?  I watched  the television today only to see a company promoting a white tooth product packed in a box at least three times the size if the tube.  Now I am not one to look too deep into the psychology of the media but…I leave that thought with you.  What ever happened to paper wraps for food.  We either put the paper wrapped around our food on the compost pile ( yes not a new thing) or on the fire to help start a log fire.

I ramble and my thoughts go to the plastic bag.  We, as a country, have been lured into a place of decay caused by the convenient plastic bag handed out FREE to all who want it yet these bags will out last us, our children and at least 30 more generations. And for what?  Convenience.  We should all be holding our heads in shame for such destruction.  Or should we?  Did we know how long the bags would last, did we care? All very hard questions and easy to judge now so what to do?  Well, reusing bags, buying bags for life, using pockets as I do ( make sure you have the receipt) are all ways of making a difference.  Be bold, try it to make the world a safer place for the people to follow.  After all we are the custodians of this small, beautiful planet.

I have just taken delivery of my new worms for the recycled bath I have turned into a wormery. Already they have made themselves at home and enjoying the kitchen waste and some lawn clippings being stacked into the old bath.

This all started when I was pondering what to do with an old bath we had removed in order to change the lay out of the house and improve the insulation in the walls. Rather than just throw it into the skip I wandered up the garden with it with the idea it could be a water butt. Then I did some research and found that it would become a mosquito heaven and smelly, not good. Could I plant potatoes in it? or vegetables? I could but that would be a hell of a lot of compost and the ground under is good for both potatoes and vegetables.

After a few restless nights trying to work out what I could do with the bath, my brother mentioned that he had a wormery. Ping…the light went on. I searched the internet and found that many types of vessels can be used as a wormery as long as there is room for the worms to eat and meet as well as a drainage hole at the bottom to stop the worms drowning.

We spent an interesting half-day building the base for the bath with a gentle incline to the plughole where the fluid will trickle out. This is caught by a recycled pot placed under the plughole of the bath. The liquid is mixed 20 – 1 water to the liquid in a watering can. A faint earthy smell is all that my brother’s wormery had so I hope for the same.

The worms came from www.wormsdirect.co.uk and are a mix of Tiger worms that arrived a little sleepy but soon made good and were in the compost very quickly. Occasionally it is good to remove all the spent compost carefully with gloved hands to avoid damaging the worms. Place in the sun on top of sheets of newspaper. Put a damp folded newspaper on top of the compost where the worm will gather out of the sun. Collect the worms to go back into their new kitchen waste collection. The spent compost can go on the flowerbeds or vegetable patch.