Saturday, July 17, 2021

Around here - Sustainability

What a month it's been with Brisbane in a 4 day lock down, Sydney in lockdown for what I'm sure may be a couple of months and Melbourne have gone into a 5 day lockdown which sadly I think will be longer.  This is all due to the Covid delta variant which can be transmitted in 5-15 seconds by simply walking past someone.  The Melbourne outbreak is a result of removalists from Sydney transporting someone's belongings and then not wearing masks for 5 hours going up and down in a residential building lift.  This Delta outbreak is way worse than when Covid hit Australia early last year.

All of this reminds us that health is at the forefront and is very important.  I've mentioned that I get my spray free veggies delivered from "Spray Free Farmacy" and today I received my second order of grass fed and free range beef, lamb, pork and organic chicken from "Our Cow".

Last week I enrolled into a 2 hour "Homesteading Course" with Carrie in her home at Riverbell Cottage.  I saw on Instagram she had places available for the next day and I was free so booked in.  She covered making sourdough bread [which I've done before], Brewing Kombucha, Fermenting & Pickling Vegetables and Sprouting.  There was myself and another gentleman [his wife sent him along] as she will be doing Carrie's soap making course, so she got her husband along to the Homesteading Class to learn a few things.  It was a lovely morning and when I came home I boiled up my beetroot that I had in the cupboard and pickled a jar and a half.  Here's a few photos of Carrie in her kitchen.







Recently I also come across Micropods to grow your Micro Greens so I looked them up online and the kits were $59 plus postage which I'm guessing would be at least $10-$12.  I really liked the idea of getting more "Micro Greens" into my system however $80 was a bit steep.  Lots of these types of things people may give them a go and decide they don't want to use it again so I thought I would look on FB Market Place to see if anyone was getting rid of one.  Low and behold there was only one kit for sale and it was in the next suburb over [that's putting it out into the universe for you] so I went and collected the kit - never used.  I said to her "you're not into them" and she said "her hippy sister gave it to her for Christmas" which made me laugh.  I was so pleased that I got a brand new kit for $15 and a 10 minute drive away.  


The kits comes with the little seed mats which you can also buy separately.


Continuing on with the sustainable theme I put a request on the "Buy Nothing New" FB group to see if someone had a spare worm farm.  Again sometimes people get them, decide they are not for them or move and don't need them however no one had one so that was that.  Then I was on IG again and local gardener said that the Brisbane City Council have a $70 rebate for Rate Payers towards a compost bin or worm farm to stop food scraps going into landfill.  Awesome [another put it out into the universe].  It's a simple process of watching the two videos working out what system you want.  You then load up the PDF form which says you have watched the videos and answered the questions and then you are registered.  You get a unique code, then purchase your system and then go on line and claim $70 towards your system.  The payment should be made into my bank account within 4 weeks.

I purchased the $75.00 Maze Worm Farm from Bunnings which I'll receive $70 back from the Brisbane City Council.  I also purchased a pack of 1,000 worms for $50 and a worm blanket.  The Maze Worm Farm came with a small block of coconut peat which you soak in water for 30 minutes which is the bedding for the worms.   I purchased this block which I'll be returning for a refund as the Maze Worm Farm came with the coconut peat block.



First a few pages of newspaper soaked in water goes down.

Then on top the coconut peat.
 
Then the packet of 1000 worms.

This is with one layer of the worm farm, there is another layer to add to it later on.  I love the fact that this system is so compact too.  

The instructions say to leave the worms to settle for a week without feeding them and then start with small scraps every couple of days.

We did have worms many years ago however a neighbor's kid left the lid off them unbeknown to me and they died.  So it will be good to get back into this for our kitchen scraps.

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