Decluttering: Poultry efforts in the garden

A scattering of snow doesn't quite cover the mud patch.

Have I ever told you about my guilty pleasure? If I haven't perhaps now is the time to divulge and see if I can get you on board too.

It involves Tom, Barbara, Margot and Jerry and I have to say I love them all. Now before you start thinking it involves anything dodgy like swapping car keys at parties, let me reassure you that it's all clean good fun. Well apart from the odd bit of dirt that is.

I'm referring of course to the comedy series The Good Life, which I started watching thirty five years when I was just six or seven years old. I absolutely adored that series. I loved Margot in her long posh maxi dresses and how she was regularly shocked over Tom and Barbara's latest escapades in growing their own and raising animals in their suburban back garden. I always felt really cosy whenever I watched it.

Fast forward to a 21st century Sunday morning when sat on the sofa in my pyjamas with the laptop to hand, I discovered the series had been uploaded onto YouTube. Well there are some things that are just too hard to resist when everyone else is tucked up in bed, so I immersed myself in the original episodes over a cup of tea. I was quickly joined by my youngest son who's an early bird too, both up us tucked under a blanket, watching the episode of Tom and Barbara raising chickens for the very first time.

For a moment I was distracted by a movement outside and I could see our own hens beating the boundaries for their early morning forage. I then looked over towards our lawn, which now resembles a mud patch and it crossed my mind whether our neighbours could consider us to be the new Tom and Barbara of modern day suburbia. We don't quite have a big veg patch in our garden, but having given the chickens free rein all winter, since they worked out a way to escape the run, it is now looking very much like a farmyard, especially as all our grass has been pecked at and covered in stones and dirt from their scratching habits.

Memories of grass

So what has this episode got to do with cluttering, you might ask yourself.

Well, given that decluttering is about better organisation and tidying up as well as getting rid of surplus things, this weekend I decided to take the bull by the horns and sort out the garden and our crazy chickens. We brushed the scattered stones back into position, raked the mud patch and tidied away leaves and twigs that covered the ground. I even gathered all the kids' broken plastic toys that were used for outdoor play and took them to the recycling centre.

And if by chance you are wondering about the fortune of the chickens, don't worry, although we've decluttered them, we haven't rehomed them or anything like that. They're too adorable and obviously far too useful in the egg laying department. They just needed putting in their place that's all. So we've improved the small matter of security in the chicken run, raising the height of the fence that surrounds it and finding an alternative way of securing the gate. You can just see the new fence at the back of the photo shown below. Hopefully it will now keep the chooks at bay.



So, as we work our way through February with a much neater backdrop, my attention now turns to the dilemma of the mud patch lawn. We had initially considered restoring it, but since watching The Good Life, I am now really inspired to ditch the idea of turf and use the space to grow more vegetables instead.

But the soil in that area is not great, very poor in fact, so I'm going to give serious consideraton to installing a raised bed. It seems a very appealing idea. After all, I'd best be careful. If I take too many tips from The Good Life, I've a feeling my neighbours might complain. To see what I mean, check out the YouTube clip below:

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On an entirely different subject, if you're listening into BBC Radio Suffolk's James Hazell show later, you'll find me joining in the conversation at around 10:10am about whether we have too many bags for life. I know I have lots, but they all come in handy at different times. What about you? Are you a keen collector of bags for life? If so, listen in later, or catch it on Listen Again.

*UPDATE* The radio debate has been postponed until Thursday 18th feb. Same time, same place, but with a difference face. It'll be with the lovely Georgina Wroe, who's stepping in for James.

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The Rubbish Diet Challenge: Week 5, Dig for victory

Tomato seedlings on the windowsill in 2009

Can you believe we're now at Week 5 of the Rubbish Diet challenge. How time flies. It doesn't seem that long ago, since I was challenging you to your first weigh-in. I hope all is going well with your efforts to slim your bin and that you're enjoying the mini-challenges.

This week I hope to inspire you to make further inroads into your household waste by doing some extra things around the garden. That is if you happen to be blessed with a small patch to call your own. Even if you don't have a garden, you can still join in if you've only got a windowsill going spare around your home.

This week's guide will get you thinking about how you can reduce waste whilst gardening and how you can use your garden to reduce waste too, helping you to find ways to avoid packaging and divert your kitchen scraps away from the rubbish bin. There are lots of ideas to encourage you to grow your own and includes a mini-guide to composting as well as an introduction to keeping chickens for those who fancy taking their self-sufficiency a little bit further.

So there should be something for everyone this week and even if you're not that much of a keen gardener, I hope you'll get in the spirit and consider planting up at least one small container of your favourite herb, vegetable or fruit-bearing plant.

And if you want to be inspired to compost a bit more, don't just take my word for how easy it is. I've gathered a few examples that have been sent in over the last few months from some of my blogging and Twitter friends, both old and new.

For example, here's how Susanna at A Modern Mother collects her kitchen peelings, in a convenient caddy for transferring to her compost bin in the garden. She's blogged about her composting experiences to help share the knowledge over at
http://www.amodernmother.com/2010/02/how-to-compost.html



And here's an example of how the professionals do it too, thanks to expert gardener Claire Brown from PlantPassion, who saw my plea for photos last year via her Twitter account @PlantPassion. The photo on the left shows the contents from a wooden compost bin, revealing much better quality compost than I make.

Claire sent an example of her plastic dalek composter and new tumbler as well. No doubt, this set up will have some readers browsing with envy.

Claire also sent me a link to a fabulous blogpost she's written about compost bins and rats and includes useful advice, whether you are a novice composter or have been at it for some time. Visit : http://plant-passion.typepad.com/plant_passion/2009/05/could-my-compost-bin-attract-rats.html.


Fellow tweeter and blog reader @MrsBYork sent in a photo of York Rotters' demonstration bin, showing which types of items can go in it. To see a larger version, just click on the photo.







The photo to the right shows Mrs B's compost set up at home, which shows you don't really need much space at all.






Sarah Barnard, author, blogger and Twitter user @ethicstrading, has a couple of dalek type bins and revealed how she managed to get one of them free from her local Frecycle Group. As she says, not bad for a freebie eh! Too right, especially as I had to pay around £20 for mine, which is exactly the same as Sarah's.

Of course if you've got enough land you don't even need to worry about having a container to put it in. You can simply create your own compost heap in a suitable spot that takes your fancy.

So I really don't think I could finish today's introduction to this week's online guide without showing you the king of domestic compost heaps, brought to my attention by fellow Twitter user and composter @MartinCampbell2. Here it is in all its woodland glory. I can only dream of such space and consider it a rather spectacular specimen.



Now it's all very well composting, but eventually you also need to do something with it. Here's an example of what blogger AllGrownUp does with her compost, proving that you don't even need a huge veg patch to justify going to the trouble. In her blogpost she describes what it's like to "harvest" your compost for the very first time and how it's great to have free stuff made from what would otherwise be rubbish.

http://allgrownup06.blogspot.com/2009/05/in-garden.html.

And if you're looking for even more examples of composting, Mrs Green at MyZeroWaste wrote a guide for beginners, which she published on her blog last week: http://myzerowaste.com/2010/02/beginners-guide-to-compost

So with enthusiasm like that, I hope we've all been able to inspire you to get out into whatever space you have and start digging for victory in your war against waste.

Of course you may just fancy putting your feet up until it gets a bit warmer and I can't say I blame you. So let's take advantage with a nice cuppa and grab a moment to read more about this week's Rubbish Diet challenge. You'll find everything you need now online at: http://tinyurl.com/TheRubbishDietWeek5

And when you're finished do go and see how other bloggers are getting on with their own challenges. Share some support and say hi to the following waste watchers: Carol at New Mummy Tips; Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings and Tepary at Grow Family Grow. So far, it looks like they're doing brilliantly. Maybe very soon I'll mention those three little words "Zero Waste Week". Well I might as well start hinting now and it's not as scary as it sounds.

Thanks to everyone who's sent photos and links. It really is appreciated. It's always useful to have a whole range of real-life examples that can be shared with others.

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Cluck, cluck,cluck, cluck, cluck!

So here they are. My three little hens: Snowflake, Chickie and Speckledy (named by the children, of course - can you guess which is which?).

I've not given them much blogspace since they arrived in the spring, partly because I've been very busy with so many other things, not least sorting out their poop - yes chickens do a lot of that as I've come to learn. However, as my thoughts this week are focusing on the garden and how composting and wormeries can help with food waste, I thought it would be great time to share news of how my hens are getting on....or indeed how I'm getting on with my hens.

I remember when I announced that we were getting chickens.

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed my mother in here lilting Welsh accent. "What ew getting them for? Havven ew got enough on yewer hands woman?"

Then I'm sure CompostWoman sent a note saying "Just wait till you see what they do to your garden".

Hmmm.

But I ignored the advice and took the bull by the horns, or rather went to the hen breeder just off the A14 past Newmarket and came back with three hens.

And within one week the Speckledy Hen was laying. Within a month the other two were following suit.

But my mother was right. I have had to juggle around routines to fit in the extra work. But that's okay, because what it means is that I am now happier to stay at home watching the hens than gallivanting around town shopping.

Chickens have an amazing therapeutic and calming effect. I just adore watching them and their funny little movements, scratching with their feet, and pecking at the ground.

But I often think of CompostWoman's wise words about what they would do to our little suburban garden.

It's all come true. All the leaves that are spread on the lawn are thanks to the girls getting busy hunting under the bushes.



And the view from my living room has changed a lot, on account of them digging out the gravel from the flower beds. This is the scene from the French windows as I write my blog this morning.



We don't mind the leaves so much or indeed the poop that gets dropped on the lawn. Indeed parts of our garden have never looked so good.

But it's the gravel digging that has caused us the greatest problems, because the stones have spread across the lawn, killing the grass in many places.

So as a temporary measure (while we work on redesigning our space), Mr A built a chicken run to keep the girls in one place.

What he hadn't anticipated however was how the chickens would plot their great escape, particularly Chickie who appears to be the ring leader.

First she dug under the fence and was successful, so we soon put a stop to that and blocked her escape route.

Then she learned out to jump up onto the chicken wire and with a bit of a wobble was the free bird she wanted to be.

But I put a stop to that, by digging in some extra canes to block her path to freedom.

However, not to be beaten, her final "piece de resistance" has involved jumping on top of the eglu henhouse, flapping her wings and launching herself over the fence, to the admiration of the other hens she's left behind.

She's most definitely worthy of a part in the animated movie "Chicken Run". In fact it was Chickie who sent me into a Benny Hill kind of dance, with me and the boys following her up the stairs and down again the first time she "broke into" our house.

Despite our "teething trouble" with the garden, they are the most wonderful pets. The children adore them and so do their friends. Where my youngest boy is a natural in picking them up and handling them, my eldest son has been more cautious. But even he can catch and hold them now too.

And as for the scraps, they help out in many ways, supporting my 5 year old bin saboteur with his leftovers. He's not much better than when I first started The Rubbish Diet, and still leaves half-munched apples and a compulsory amount of pasta or rice, no matter how little is served on his plate.

So the chickens are now my best friends, when it comes to reducing my little one's food waste. Better on their hips than mine. Anything that's too spicy for them, I add to the wormery.

And the thanks we get are the eggs we collect each morning. Mostly three a day, except when they are broody, but even then Chickie, the Calder Ranger, kept laying every day, when all around her had stopped. They've been so productive, I've only had to buy eggs on one occasion since we've had them.

At least that's some compensation for the destruction of the garden.

And long may it continue...the eggs that is...not the gravel!


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Day 2: You should never waste a good egg!

Blimmin' 'eck. I hope I've not put you off your breakfast or made you splatter your coffee over your keyboard.

But look at me. Not my usual calm self, I admit.

But this is how I used to feel on bin day! When I would drag the wheelie bin, with its huge bags of rubbish and couldn't believe the weight of it all.

Would you believe half of it used to be food waste?

There'd be meat bones and chicken carcasses as well as kids' leftovers. Dig deeper and you'd find gone off food, often still in its packaging, as well as a bunch of banana skins stuffed in too - all because the kitchen compost bin was overloaded.

Like most households across the land I'd be scraping the plates and bunging in dregs of the day's menu into the kitchen bin and a few days later it would stink like a troll's armpits after a bath in a ditch of rotten slime.

I never valued leftovers, or the time I'd spent cooking, or even the cost of the ingredients.

But I did care about the smelly old bin and the stink it caused as well as the flies and maggots in summer.

Consequently when I started the Rubbish Diet, one of the first tasks was to eliminate food waste. I soon realised that this was a serious issue and by reducing what we could we would be reducing the methane that such biodegradable matter could create when buried in landfill. I knew we'd save money too, by buying less and using up more.

After all, according to the LoveFoodHateWaste campaign, the average household throws away one third of food that otherwise could have been used.

It's like a whole load of your shopping falling into a blimmin' black hole.

Hmm....so that'll be a bit like this then!



So we quickly held a family meeting to gather ideas and the kids had a lot to say. And I cooked more of their favourite things. It helped to reduce some waste, but we still had more than a few leftovers to manage because I was hopeless at organisation, terrible at planning and awfully lacking in the ability to deal with my three-year-old's fluctuating appetite.

Then I discovered was one thing that could really truly help.

A Bokashi!

Yes a Bokashi!

Now it might sound like a nasty old sneeze, but it's indeed a landfill saver for those who don't have a local authority food waste collection.



And it's magic. You just bung unusable food in a special bucket, sprinkle over some bran that is impregnated with Effective MicroOrganisms and a few weeks later after leaving it to ferment, you can add it to your compost, wormery or even dig it into your garden and it will break down into nutrient-rich organic matter. Much better than landfill and because the temperature of Bokashi is significantly lower than if buried along with the rubbish, there is no issue with methane.

But how disgusting does that sound in practice?

The idea of lobbing your slops in a bucket and letting it hang around for a few weeks, then a month later you end up putting the fermented matter in a corner of your garden. Eurgh!



It's hardly an attractive proposition is it? And it took me a long time to convince myself that this would be more favourable than a stinky old bin.

I worried about the smell of the Bokashi and quite rightly so. It could have been one step too far. But I was reassured that if I could cope with a pickly scent I'd be fine. A whole year on, the system is still fully operational and it's great. Indeed last year's contents have broken down into fabulous compost that we've now spread on the vegetable patch. And the liquid it creates as a by-product has been used as plant food as well as drain cleaner.

But the interesting thing is when we first started out, we'd easily fill it up in just a couple of weeks. That's how much food waste there was. But thanks to careful food preparation and reducing and then reusing leftovers, it now takes up to six weeks to reach capacity, which I would say is a real result.

However, a year on we still have a problem with some food waste - thanks to the lovely lad with the fluctuating appetite. It's not much but still enough that it continues to need managing.

So with potential rubbish on my hands, I have asked the question could I go back to throwing it in the rubbish bin?

After all, this is my Maximum Waste Week.

So this morning I sat and gave it some deep thought and I then seriously considered the consequences.

I then looked at the bowl of leftover Weetabix - or rather the slops of the Sainsbury's Wholewheat Biscuits, the ones that we bought only the other day.

Then I thought about adding them to my rubbish, actually holding the bowl in position, ready for the dregs to slip into my almost empty bin.

Now that made my stomach turn.

The thought of having food waste languishing in my kitchen bin for a whole week or even two, remaining untreated and gradually decaying all seemed a horrible proposition.

It now seems a step too far.

And just imagine the stench once you add scraps of meat, slops of baked beans and anything else that stinks the house out. Then there's the thought of the flies and the maggots as soon as the weather warms up.

Yuk! I don't think I could go back to that.

I never even got as far as thinking about the methane, in the unlikely event that my small amount of food waste would actually end up in landfill.

So folks, I guess another one bites the dust as far as this Maximum Waste Week is concerned.

Hooray....

Landfill is dead! Long live Bokashi!

Or so you might think.

You see, on the journey along the road of wasting less and enjoying more, we've made another discovery that will help us make even better use of what little food waste we have.

And they come in the form of three special girls, who came clucking our way just this weekend.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to Speckly, Snowflake, and Chickie, three gorgeous little hens who are settling into their urban crash-pad in our garden. Perhaps you can guess which is which. It really shouldn't take long to work it out.



I would never have guessed that the road to reducing food waste would result in such a fantastic experience. And the great thing is, the money we've saved in the process has paid for the hen house!

And our lovely chooky chooks have even got cracking on laying eggs. Just look what we found yesterday.



So on day 2 of my funny old Maximum Waste challenge, I must be the happiest failure alive. I'm most definitely a convert and apart from the old giblets, I don't think we'll be throwing out any food waste to landfill again.

What was that about giblets?

Blimmin' 'eck

What in the heck's name is that squawking?

What was that? You say you now know why the chicken actually crossed the road?

Oh dear, I don't think we'll ever be able to eat a roast chicken again.

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The Eglu has landed

Looks like we've now got some work to do. So it's time to start preparing the chicken run and get to know some more chicken folk before we go and select our brood.

It's so eggciting... I know, I know. I'm not known for my jokes. But at least I'm a "good egg". Boom Boom

New Year's Resolutions in the Almost Average household

Good day to all you great people out there! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and have your sleeves rolled up ready to tackle 2009 because today is New Year's Day and it's time to get cracking and get prepared for the year ahead, no matter what it will bring!

I love this time of year and New Year's Day is my favourite of all. For me, it's a special day that always brings new hope, carrying a certain freshness coated with positivity and good intentions that beats Christmas Day, anniversaries and even birthdays hands down. After all, the feeling of hopefulness is one of the greatest possessions with which a person can be blessed and with hope comes new opportunities.

I never used to believe in resolutions and my track record was always appalling. Giving up wine never lasted more than a few weeks and as for ditching chocolate, after just a few days my willpower would always crack at the sight of Cadbury's creme eggs on sale in preparation for Easter, thanks to those naughty merchandisers and marketeers who push them into the shops in January.

However as I reminisce over the adventures of 2008, I realise how far my family has travelled in just 12 months, with new challenges and friendships, all of which started with just one new year's resolution this time last year - to reduce our household waste. Well it was actually one of twenty good intentions, but there'll be more on that later in the month when I celebrate the blog's first birthday and enjoy the highlights of the year.

So as I write my first blog post of 2009, it's time for the Almost Average Household to reveal our resolutions for the new year, and it will be no surprise that we have even more rubbish reducing plans.

But we won't be just sat indoors sorting out our recycling.

Nor will we be simply hanging out at the recycling centre more regularly.

What we've got planned is much dirtier indeed.

Yep, this year we're going to get digging and bring life to the garden in a way it's never seen before. If 2008 was the year of the bins, you could say 2009 will be the year of the backyard.

We've already got a lovely little snacking garden with berries, rhubarb, herbs as well as tomatoes grown in pots, which has taken very little effort but this year we're going to rev it up a bit.

We want to plant more berries, more greens and more root vegetables and we want to be able to feed ourselves as well as the birds that have begun to hang around in recent years. It'll be a great way of reducing even more packaging as well as food miles and will give us the practice we need for when we eventually get a bigger garden or hopefully an allotment in a few years time.

But it's not going to be easy because even though our plans are still small-scale, there will be many challenges along the way:

1. I'm neither green fingered or organised - so to make this work I really am going to have to change my ways.
2. Our garden is fairly small, a typical postage stamp on a new development - so we're going to have to work hard to fit a planting scheme into our current set up.
3. We've also decided to get chickens - yes, you heard correctly - chickens in our teeny tiny plot! As well as changing my routines to care for them, we're also going to have to be especially inventive to ensure those clucking hens won't destroy our hard work.
   

So the deed is done! I've revealed our plans for the new year. Oh my word, what have I gone and done?

What have I done indeed! It's rather scary actually, putting my lack of horticultural skills under the spotlight for all to see. Oh well, as they say, the world never stands still.

So as we're all set for yet another amazing adventure in the Almost Average Household, one thing's for sure...I know we won't be able to do it without your support. So please continue to chip in with your words of wisdom to help us on our way. I can be a really lazy booger when it comes to the garden and will need all the help I can get. So if you see me hanging around the blog a bit too often....please encourage me to get back outside! After all Rome would never have been built if all the Romans spent all their time blogging about it!

But what else will this year bring for The Rubbish Diet blog? As well as my cries for help and updates on our progress I will also continue to feature those amazing people who are helping us to slim our bins and reduce our reliance on landfill. So keep popping by for some fresh ideas that you can try at home, take to work or introduce into your community.

I've got a funny feeling that 2009 will be another trashtastic year when it comes to reducing waste and I'd love to know what you've got planned. If you've got some bin-busting resolutions and have blogged about it, why not share your ideas and join in this month's Carnival of Trash, which will be published here on 7th January. You can submit your post here.

So all that's left for me to do is grab my spade and get digging.

But before that, I'd like to thank you all so much for your visits, support and contributions in 2008. I couldn't keep up this blog without you and would like to wish you a very happy new year for 2009 and beyond.

Now before I get all slushy, where did I put those chocolates?..........I'm not giving up those in a hurry. Remember, that particular new year's resolution never worked for me, so I'm not even going to try....ahhh there they are...my box of Quality Street complete with their little recycling instructions to separate the foil from the plastic....That will most definitely keep me busy......................Happy new year everyone....see you soon!

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The Hen Party

My weekend was so exciting. I went to a neighbour's house to meet up with some special girls. It was a Hen Party run on behalf of Omlet for people interested in keeping chickens. Truth of the matter is I've been feeling broody for years and these ones had me running home clucking with intentions.

So if you fancy the idea of keeping some too and want a sneaky peek at how to handle a chicken, check out the video below. They're gorgeous! (Huge thanks to Graham for agreeing to be uploaded and featured).






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