Friday, April 22, 2016

EarthDay2016: Happy Earth Day!!!


So last year I put together a blog for Earth Day, and I would like to continue the Earth Day Blog tradition, because this is a pretty important day in my book. I mean without our earth, no other holidays would matter because we wouldn’t be here right?

So this year, instead of giving you tips on how to help the planet today, I am going to just focus on Composting. With the up coming moving date to our new house, my fiancé and I have been having many discussions about what we are going to be able to add to our house and garden, and one thing that we both agreed on was a compost pile. Growing up my parents had an open compost pile, which made it much easier to find additional soil for our huge garden.  So now we have decided on an open compost for the new house. We are going to use a tarp probably to help dampen them smell for the neighbors, but personally I never minded the smell.
Here is how we are making our open compost pile:

Materials:
• 7 lengths of 2 x 6 wood, each cut to 3'. Your lumberyard will make the cuts for you. Get exterior, rough, unplanned wood. The wood does not need to be treated with preservatives - untreated lumber will last many years. 

• Four lengths of 2 x 2 wood (or 4 x 4 ), each cut to 3' lengths.

• Galvanized common nails, 2 3/4" long. 28 nails. 

Putting it together:
• Sharpen one end of each 2 x 2 to act as stakes. This will keep your bin in place.
• Set stakes in place and drive them down into the ground with a sledge or heavy hammer.
• Nail the 3' boards to the 2 x 2's. Leave space between the boards to help aerate the pile. Pre-drilling the nail holes will make nailing easier and prevent the wood from splitting. This is where you can get creative and make your bin taller, or more air space) Make sure you keep the front low, so only nail one board on in the front so that you can easily dump into, scoop out of, and turn your pile as you need.
• Check your stakes, and drive them down to secure everything. 


What can you put in a compost pile? (From: http://www.plantea.com/compost-materials.htm )
Paper napkins 

Freezer-burned vegetables 

Burlap coffee bags
Pet hair 

Potash rock 

Post-it notes 

Freezer-burned fruit 

Wood chips

Bee droppings 

Lint from behind refrigerator 

Hay 
Popcorn (unpopped, 'Old Maids,' too) 

Freezer-burned fish 

Old spices 

Pine needles 

Leaves 
Matches (paper or wood) 
Seaweed and kelp 

Hops 

Chicken manure 

Leather dust 

Old, dried up and faded herbs 

Bird cage cleanings 

Paper towels 

Brewery wastes 

Grass clippings 

Hoof and horn meal 

Molasses residue 

Potato peelings 

Unpaid bills 

Gin trash (wastes from cotton plants) 

Weeds 

Rabbit manure 

Hair clippings from the barber 

Stale bread 

Coffee grounds 

Wood ashes 

Sawdust 

Tea bags and grounds 

Shredded newspapers 

Egg shells 

Cow manure 

Alfalfa 

Winter rye 

Grapefruit rinds 

Pea vines 

Houseplant trimmings 

Old pasta 

Grape wastes 

Garden soil 

Powdered/ground phosphate rock 

Corncobs (takes a long time to decompose) 

Jell-o (gelatin)

Blood meal 

Winery wastes 

Spanish moss 

Limestone 

Fish meal

Aquarium plants 

Beet wastes 

Sunday comics 

Harbor mud 

Felt waste 

Wheat straw 

Peat moss 

Kleenex tissues 

Milk (in small amounts)

Soy milk 

Tree bark 

Starfish (dead ones!) 

Melted ice cream 

Flower petals 

Pumpkin seeds 

Q-tips (cotton swabs: cardboard, not plastic sticks) 

Expired flower arrangements 

Elmer's glue 

BBQ'd fish skin 

Citrus wastes 

Stale potato chips 

Rhubarb stems

Old leather gardening gloves 

Tobacco wastes 

Bird guano 

Hog manure 

Dried jellyfish 

Wheat bran 

Guinea pig cage cleanings 

Nut shells 

Cattail reeds 

Clover 

Granite dust 

Moldy cheese 

Greensand 

Straw 

Shredded cardboard 

Dolomite lime

Cover crops

Quail eggs (OK, I needed a 'Q' word)

Rapeseed meal 

Bat guano 

Fish scraps 

Tea bags (black and herbal) 

Apple cores 

Electric razor trimmings 

Kitchen wastes 

Outdated yogurt 

Toenail clippings 

Shrimp shells 

Crab shells 

Lobster shells 

Pie crust 

Leather wallets 

Onion skins 

Bagasse (sugar cane residue) 

Watermelon rinds 

Date pits 

Goat manure 

Olive pits 

Peanut shells 

Burned oatmeal (sorry, Mom) 

Lint from clothes dryer

Bread crusts 

Cooked rice 

River mud

Tofu (it's only soybeans, man!) 

Wine gone bad (what a waste!) 

Banana peels 
 

Chocolate cookies 

Wooden toothpicks 

Moss from last year's hanging baskets 
Stale breakfast cereal 

Pickles 

'Dust bunnies' from under the bed 

Pencil shavings 

Wool socks 

Artichoke leaves 

Leather watch bands 

Fruit salad 

Tossed salad (now THERE's tossing it!) 

Brown paper bags 

Soggy Cheerios 

Theater tickets 

Lees from making wine 

Burned toast 

Feathers 
and Animal fur 

Horse manure 

Vacuum cleaner bag contents 

Coconut hull fiber 

Old or outdated seeds 

Macaroni and cheese 

Liquid from canned vegetables 

Liquid from canned fruit 

Old beer 

Wedding bouquets 

Greeting card envelopes 

Snow 

Dead bees and flies 

Horse hair 

Peanut butter sandwiches 

Dirt from soles of shoes, boots 

Fish bones 
Ivory soap scraps 

Spoiled canned fruits and vegetables 

Produce trimmings from grocery store 
 


For some other ideas as to what you can do for earth day, check out The International Business Times 2015 Earth Day activities.

1 comment:

  1. http://colleenfayebeyoutfit.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-5-tips-for-saving-earth.html

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