Making use of waste

We like finding opportunities to turn waste into something useful.  Why buy something when you can find a suitable free resource? We've talked about how we make compost from the collection of workplace kitchen scraps here, but that's not all we collect for free to use in the garden.

Mulch. All gardeners know the value of mulch in helping to prevent water loss from the soil, suppressing weed growth, and as it breaks down, adding nutrients to the soil.  We have a reasonably sized productive garden and would be spending plenty of money on mulch....if we had to buy it.  But we don't.

A suburb or two away from us is an arborist business. These kind folk leave piles of woody mulch on the naturestrip in front of the business for people to cart away for use in their own gardens.  

We pull up in the car with a bunch of bags and a spade and fill the car with bags of mulch. The bags we use are also recycled from a friend's factory who would otherwise have to throw them out.

Fully loaded car

This woody mulch gets used in the garden to make pathways and suppress weeds.   Before spreading it we mow/pull out most of the main weeds and then cover the ground with thick overlapping layers of newspaper.  The newspapers have been recycled from my workplace for use under the hay bedding in our guinea pig hutch before being used again with the mulch. Double recycling in action!  

Once the layer of newspaper has gone down the mulch goes on top in a nice thick layer. Eventually this woody mulch breaks down and then we move it onto the garden beds....and make another trip to the arborist to load up on some more. 

Woody mulch pathway between garden beds
(bamboo leaf mulch on left bed, grass clippings mulch on right bed)

Suppressing weeds around the beehives 

Weed suppression around the water tanks

 By taking this mulch we are helping the business to deal with what would otherwise be a waste product they'd have to dispose of some other way. In the process we are getting a free source of something that we'd otherwise have to pay for. Everyone wins.

Sometimes we've even done a deal with a local arborist to get a truckload delivered if they happen to be working in our neighbourhood. Bartering some home produce for a truckload of mulch. Seems like a good deal to us 😊

The Green School

We were recently in Ubud, Bali for a well-deserved 2 week holiday (my first overseas trip for 16 years!). While we were there we heard about the Green School and decided we had to take a tour.

The Green School, located along the Ayung River not far from Ubud, is a private school for children from pre-kindergarten to high school.The curriculum, school site and infrastructure have a strong emphasis on sustainability. The school has been designed using renewable resources such as bamboo, mud and local grass. Several buildings are amazing examples of large scale bamboo architecture and is worth visiting for that reason alone. Even some of the furniture is made from bamboo.  

 

our guide (a former student) showing us around

Learning takes place in the natural environment - some buildings have no walls and coexist among the trees and productive gardens, with some trees becoming incorporated in the buildings themselves. 

The curriculum focuses on educating for sustainabilty and has a strong focus on the environment and community, encouraging the children to be creative and share what they learn through entreprenurial joint projects with local businesses.

The school is expensive, costing up to around USD11k for later years. The school says there is a scholarship program for local students.

Permaculture in action can be seen throughout the school in the productive gardens, the aquaponic system, compost station, water filtration system, biofuel generation station and composting toilets.
 

Food for the students is grown on-site

Aquaponics greenhouse

Fish tanks in the greenhouse floor

Compost station

 

Water filtration system

Used cooking oil is collected and turned into fuel

Recycling centre

Composting toilets

As it was school holidays when we visited, there were no students on site so we had a really good look around.  I think I'll let our photos tell the rest of the story....

classroom

close up view of roof construction

beautiful yoga studio

another classroom

amazing covered bridge over the river

Basket making demonstration

In early February, we attended a basket making demonstration by Sue Dilley, president of Basketmakers Of Victoria. It was one of the many interesting events organised by our local permaculture group.

Sue took us through a wonderful display of different baskets made from native and exotic plant fibres.

She explained how to select and dry the plant material and gave us plenty of tips:

• Drying should be done in the shade
• If you don't plan to use your dried plant material immediately, then it should be stored wrapped up in butcher's paper to keep it clean and dry, and with the paper labelled to identify contents.
• Vines - to be suitable for basketmaking they must be able to wrap around your finger 3 times without breaking
• Leaves should be generally be collected after the plant has flowered and then dried.
• Grasses - to dry these, spread them on newspaper and each day move the grass around so it dries completely

 Some of the plant materials we  discussed were:

Spinifex - Here's a basket Sue made from spinifex grass using a darning needle and cotton thread:

Watsonia - a weed in many areas, this can be collected when it dries on the plant. It has a lovely chestnut colour.

Cordyline - Cordyline australis is a tough fibre and can be collected as it drops off the plant. However if you pull it off when fresh the leaves will be in better shape (no stringy bits to them). Cordyline stricta is a lighter fibre than australis, but still good for basketmaking. Here's a basket Sue made from stricta:

Red Hot Poker(Kniphofia)- these should be collected green, after the plant has flowered

Bullrush - collect in January by cutting as low in the water as you can. Strip off the leaves and collect at the tip of the stalk, fold it over, tie and hang up to dry. You can see an example of how to tie the stalks in the picture below

Passionfruit vine - this can be used fresh or it can be coiled up until ready to use when it will need to be rehydrated slightly. Rehydration may take a couple of days if the vine is thick.
Here's a picture of a basket Sue made from passionfruit vine:

Fruit tree prunings are also a great basketmaking fibre. Sue had several examples of baskets she'd made from fruit tree prunings.
The basket below was made from apple prunings:

And this basket was made from olive prunings:

As an unexpected bonus, we all got to have a go at basket-making in the form of a small tension tray. As the name suggests, it is the tension between the branches that holds the tray together.  Here's a tension tray Sue made from black willow:

 Sue had kindly already cut and pre-soaked the cane for us to use. A quick demonstration and we jumped in and had a go.

 

Here's mine in progress:

And the finished product:

 The whole experience was a lot of fun and we were very fortunate to have an expert such as Sue who was kind enough to give up her time to spend with us.

To finish this post I have to show you my favourite of all the baskets, one made from fallen Jacaranda leaf stalks. Isn't it gorgeous?

If you are interested in basketmaking, you should definitely check out the Basketmakers of Victoria website. They run a lot of events and classes where you can learn to make your own beautiful baskets.