Self-Fertilizing Compost Worm Clementine Tree

Check out this video to learn how we are enlisting the aid of some of nature's most awesome soil makers to assist us with our Clementine Tree. My wife and I always like to buy each other some type of fruiting tree of plant for our anniversary and this year it was this awesome clementine tree. We have had it for about six months at this point and it is growing very well. Since we live here in Michigan we bring it inside for the winter and then put it out on the pool deck in the summer. It has been growing very well so far and almost produced some fruit the first year we had it!


The tree was loaded with flowers a couple of months ago but I think it is not established enough in the pot and dropped all of the tiny clementine starts. It is loaded with new growth and we are looking forward to this next season to get some fruit.


We ordered this tree from Amazon early this summer and we were surprised at how big it was when we got it. This is not the first live product we have purchased on Amazon and been very happy with the results (also ordered worms). This is a 4 year old clementine tree that is of the dwarf variety suited for indoor/outdoor potted growing. I will keep you updated on the growth this year and post when we get some fruit!


I am not a very big fan of using fertilizers and to be honest we have never even bought any for our gardens, trees, or fruit buses/vines. Not that we have a huge garden but I have just found the aquaponics waste from the swirl filter to be all the fertilizer we have needed. We also use a compost pile to amend the soil and use household products like Epson salt and crushes eggs shells to add nutrients. We also have a small worm bin in the basement that has been cranking along for almost a year. We started off pretty rough with the worms and made some big mistakes but they bounced back and now the bin is loaded with the little soil makers. The worm castings are an awesome source of nutrients and a great addition to regular compost to make the best soil!

The idea that I am testing here is a way to combine the worms with our potted tree. I am using a method that is similar to those larger growing containers (55 gallon drums usually), you know, the ones with the tube down the center that you can fill with food scraps. The idea here is that the worms can come in through the holes in the pipe and chow down on some yummy rotting food and then take off into the soil around the tree to drop off some awesome castings. They will also work the soil and eat any root matter and other organic matter and turn it into useful nutrients for the tree. We are hoping that this new symbiotic relationship will allow us to get away from ever having to fertilize the tree, we will see........

            

 

 

This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop

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Garbage 101: Ways to Reuse Paper Waste Around Your Home

In our first Garbage 101 article, we discussed it was best to keep paper and other biodegradable materials out of landfills as much as possible.  We are lucky enough to have a recycling service that picks up our recyclables every two weeks, but we really try to reuse as much of our paper waste as possible before we even consider recycling it.

It all starts with our recycling bins where all of our paper waste is sorted.  We added labels to the bins for the girls.  We even had a LANDFILL sign on our trash at one point.  It was a good reminder to us all. 

The trick to sustainability is viewing your trash as a resource instead of garbage, and we have found lots of re-uses for paper around our home.

Cardboard makes great landscape fabric.  It keeps the weeds out, just lay the mulch right over it.

We have had a problem with rabbits eating our new bushes and trees.  So we reuse our paper towel and toilet paper rolls and wrap them around the base.  It has worked like a charm!  The SSL Family Dad has a post and video on this topic.

After we have weeded out the boxes for landscape fabric & storage, and the paper towel rolls for the trees, we then shred everything else.  But first we separate the glossy paper out.  The non-glossy paper and non-glossy boxes are shredded separately and used for the outdoor compost pile and worm bin. 

The glossy paper and boxes are then shredded and soaked in water for up to a week so that it all breaks down.  The SSL Family Dad then takes that soggy paper mess and turns it into paper logs with this paper log maker that he burns in our outdoor wood burning stove.  We use this stove to heat our pool in the summer and heat our garage in the winter. 

Here is the contraption my wonderful husband put together for the shredding and soaking of glossy paper.  He mounted our old paper shredder on top of a 55-gallon barrel that he cut in half.   Yes, we're weird.  And yes, some things around our house are weird.  But because marriage is all about balance, I would like to think that I balance things out and keep things from getting TOO weird around here.  (Let's just not ask the SSL Family Dad about that, okay?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Homestead Blog Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop

 

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Garbage 101: Adopt a Meat Garbage Disposal & Never Waste Food Ever Again

"40 percent of food purchased for the home is wasted.  Half of the world's produced food is wasted."  That's a huge amount of food wasted, food produced but never eaten.  And certainly most of that wasted food ends up in landfills. 

We are proud to announce that we  here at Simple Suburban Living waste 0% of our food.  Absolutely no food whatsoever finds its way from our house into a landfill.  Remember from yesterday's post that landfills should be the last resort for our waste.

All of our food scraps get fed to the dog or chickens, and anything they don't eat ends up in our compost piles.  We have a worm compost bin in the basement, and a compost pile in the backyard. 

Our chickens are our vegetable, grain, fruit, and dairy garbage disposals.  They are fed chicken feed also, but they just love the food scraps, too. 

 

 

 

 

~ Our Meat Garbage Disposal ~

 

If you have ever read the ingredients on most dog food packages, you will notice the first ingredient listed is corn.  You don't even want to get me started on the subject of corn, but more importantly, dogs are not meant to eat corn.  They are carnivores.  They need meat.  With that said, our dog eats all of our meat scraps and leftover meat.  We do give her dog food also, but not nearly as much as we used to because her diet is supplemented with our leftovers.  We have noticed a huge improvement in her coat and bathroom habits since we've changed her diet. 

 

You can help save the environment and a stray by adopting a faithful friend and meat disposer.

 

 

 

To make things easier and more convenient, we keep food "garbage" bowls on our kitchen counter.  One bowl is for the chickens, the other for the worms and compost pile.  We found that we compost more when we don't have to walk the food scraps outside.  In other words, we found that we are a very lazy environmentally-minded folk.


Serving our food waste to the animals and compost piles is now an integral part of our life and the changes were easily implemented over a short period of time.  Even the girls take an active part and know where to separate the food scraps.  I just love it when the youngest SSL Kid says "compost".

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” --Maya Angelou   


This post was shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Homestead Blog Hop

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Garbage 101: Paper or Plastic? It All Depends on What You're Going To Do With It.

We all want to be environmentally friendly and do the right thing for our planet, don't we?  But how do we know which choices will leave the smallest footprint, and which items to throw away and which items to recycle?  Finding the right answers are hard and when you do, they may surprise you.

The SSL Family Dad and I love to watch Ted Talks.  If you haven't heard of Ted, click here.  Ted talks are available on all different topics but we seem to migrate to those dealing with sustainability and farming.   One talk we watched earlier this year really changed the game for us, and I just love it when that happens.  I love it when information just hits you over the head and changes the way you look at life forever. 

This talk is so powerful, I think you should watch it right now and then finish reading this article because I will never do this topic the justice it deserves by trying to explain it to you myself.  For those of you who are worried about burning up your data for the month like I would be, click HERE for the transcript of this talk.

And for those of you who didn't have time to watch or read it, I'll recap for you but only if you promise to watch or read it later.  It's seriously THAT good.

The speaker, Leyla Acaroglu, states that "everything at some point comes from nature, and it's how you use the material that dictates the environmental impact....what we need to do is we need to learn to do more with less."

Biodegradable materials, such as paper bags, do not decompose in a landfill the same way they would in nature.  Landfills are anaerobic (meaning no oxygen) and biodegradable materials emit methane gas when they degrade. Some facilities actually capture the methane gas and use it to generate power, which is a good thing, and gives us an alternative to fossil fuels.   Bottom line is, if you're going to pick the paper bag but take it home and throw it in your garbage destined for a landfill that does not generate power with its methane gas, then you're not picking the best choice for the environment.  Landfills should be our last resort for items we cannot reuse or recycle. 

Reduce, reuse and recycle.  Sounds so "elementary", doesn't it? 

So the best answer to the great paper or plastic debate is actually neither.  The best option is to use reusable bags instead.  But if you really need to pick one, pick paper.  And reuse that paper bag, and then compost it.

Writing this article has forced me to look at everything we're doing now with our waste as a result of this talk we watched, and I have to laugh because it seems that a majority of what we do here at Simple Suburban Living is centered around our trash.  That surprised me, a lot.  But it also reminded me that we are being good stewards of our planet by being good stewards of our garbage.  Here comes Luke 16:10 again, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much."  It's so true, isn't it?

We've made some serious changes around our little homestead this year with regards to what we do with our trash.  So this week, we'll be sharing how our family reduces the amount of our waste that ends up in a landfill.

We're calling it Garbage 101.  (And don't forget to watch that video!)

This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Homestead Blog Hop

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Fall Composting With a String Trimmer

Leaves, leaves, leaves! There is one sure thing about the fall and that is there is no shortage of leaves! Every year I watch people rake up all of their leaves and either burn them or put them at the curb to be hauled off by the city. This is a resource that we should all be using in our yards, gardens, and flowerbeds. It seems very silly to spend all that time and effort collecting leaves from your yard just to get rid of them! And then on top of that, when spring time comes around, we will them go out and buy fertilizer and compost to put in our gardens! Leaves and grass clippings are one of the most abundant resources for a good compost pile that most everybody has (unless you live in the southwest, I suppose).

This post is not as much about how to compost but more about how to deal with leaves and how important they are to your compost pile or bin. Using leaves as the primary resource for you compost is important but it is not as easy as just throwing them into the pile and calling it a day. It is necessary to shred the leaves up as best as possible to prevent the leaves from matting down into a layer that will be hard to move and will not compost.

What else is needed for the compost to start working? Well, the best thing to do is to add some nitrogen material such as kitchen scraps to get the process going. It is also necessary to turn the pile as often as you can to keep air moving around throughout. Even in the coldest months the pile will begin to compost although slowly. As the weather warms turn the pile more and more and by early summer you will have composted all of those leaves into rich dark soil. This soil is full of just about everything that your garden could possible desire.

Another tip if you have a small yard, just offer to rake your neighbors' yards for them, they would love it and you will have rich garden soil in the spring!

TED talk on composting:

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