Gardening Tips

Creating your own compost by recycling

With prices skyrocketing and gardening becoming more expensive every day, I have decided to detail an efficient way of creating your own, cost-effective compost using recyclable items.

Firstly you´ll probably need a bottomless bin. This is not a prerequisite, but it´ll keep the pile of waste from becoming an eyesore in the corner of your garden and also assist with speeding up the compost process. A plastic or steel garbage bin would suffice, but I personally would suggest a cleaned out and painted oil drum – or a new one if finances allow. If your bin does not have its own lid, create one using a sheet of metal or a sturdy board. A handy idea is to create a flap, or even just an opening at the base of the bin to make access to the best compost easier – and it eliminates having to lift the bin and spend ages cleaning up around it afterwards.

Place your bin in a level, well-drained area. A little sunlight helps as it speeds up the composting process. Ideally you should use soil as your base as it assists with aeration and drainage, and insects which help the process can access the waste so much easier too. Other ideas include digging a shallow hole and placing a piece of wire mesh over it which the bin would then stand on. If it is really necessary to place your bin on concrete, be sure to layer the concrete with soil first, which will aid with the composting process.

Now, what to throw into your bin...and what not to!

Ingredients in compost, like cooking, are essential in creating a great finished product. “Green” items are quick-rotting and provide important nitrogen and moisture. The best examples of these are vegetable skins and peelings, fruit waste, teabags, plant prunings and small amounts of grass cuttings. “Browns” are also important, allowing important air pockets to form in the mixture as well as providing necessary carbon and fibre. The best examples of browns are dry leaves, thin scrunched-up cardboard, egg boxes, egg shells, vacuum dust, wood ash and crumpled paper. Although slower to rot, these play an important part in the mixture. If you want, ask your local nursery about compost activators - they speed up the breaking-down process but can be expensive (a cheaper and effective method is to open a couple beers on your compost).

Remember to leave the following OUT!
A great way to ruin good compost is by adding cooked vegetables, meat, dairy products, diseased plants, pet poo or dirty nappies. All you will do with these items is create an undesirable odour and encourage unwanted pests. Weeds like dandelions and blackjacks are also a no-no and please, PLEASE, leave out the kikuyu grass! Also remember that plastics, glass and metals are not suitable in any way for composting and should be recycled separately.

Getting the mix right is important. If your compost is too wet, add more “Browns”. If it is too dry add more “Green”. Ensuring there is enough air, it is important to remember the crumpled cardboard and egg boxes. Break the egg boxes down but leave the cups intact.

Finished compost is a dark brown, almost black colour and is rich in nutrients with a spongy texture. Remember that this is not an overnight exercise and could take months, depending on climate. Spreading compost in your flowerbeds will improve soil quality considerably, suppress weeds and thus aid the growth and health of your plants.

There you go - a simple way of using recycling to improve yet another facet of daily life.

Starting your own garden...

Drawing up a plan - Refer to the plan of your house. Tape a sheet of graph paper to a work surface. Draw the outline features of your house such as the house, garage, shed, existing trees and shrubs, rock and outcroppings. Mark locations of sewers, drains, electrical and gas lines and telephone lines to avoid damage while landscaping.
To help you decide where to put trees, shrubs, bedding etc... indicate the directions of the wind and sun. Identify all the views of your house: the ones you want to camouflage and the ones you want to keep.
Use tracing paper over this plan to draft your design, and replace with another sheet to make changes.
Two weeks before planting, choose a windless day to spray lantana, sesbania and other noxious plants. Always wear heavy-duty gardening gloves when spraying and when cutting these deadly plants, and make sure to double bag them for disposal or burying.
Test your soil's acidity and alkalinity, before you landscape. Keep in mind DIY test kits are not reliable. Get an expert's advice from fertiliser companies.
The universal pH scale ranges from 1 to 10, indicating whether your soil is sweet (alkaline) or sour (acidity). Most plants flourish in neutral soil which is (pH7). However, some require acid distinctly (pH5 to 6) or alkaline (pH8 to 10).

Garden Pests

I got tired of spending so much money on insecticides and weed killers that I decided to try a couple of things to see if they would work, and they did.

Paper thorns and broad leaf weeds

Take the cheapest vinegar that you can buy in the shops. Don’t mix it with water as thinning it out will not do the trick. Just take the vinegar and pour it directly over and around the area where the broadleaf weed or paper thorn weed is. Within 5 days you will see that the weed starts dying and within 10 days it will be totally dead and will never come up in the same place again.

You can also try this method on other weeds, snd although I have not tried it yet, I’m sure it will work.

Termites

If you have any idea as to what poison costs to just get rid of termites then you will also realize that you are wasting your money. Termites are like cockroaches, as soon as they adjust to the poison, they actually start living off of it. I had a huge problem with termites destroying and killing my lawn and the poisons I was buying were not working, so I made up my own concoction.

Take a one litre bottle or jug and fill it with water only halfway. Now mix in 200ml of Jeys Fluid, 200ml vinegar and 100ml ammonia. Stir it up well but do not seal the bottle as it will build up gas and can explode so be careful when doing this. It smells absolutely awful so don’t try and sniff it either. Pour or spray the liquid into the termite holes and around the area where they are. If the hole is big enough, try and pour a lot of the liquid down into the hole. This will destroy the nest from the inside and the fumes will drive them out. Do this process over a period of 4 weeks, one day a week and thereafter you will see that you no longer have a termite problem.

Black ants

Now black ants have always been a nightmare for any homeowner. You can spray as much poison as you like and they just keep coming back. If you can find the source of where the ants are coming from, then there are two things you can do. At the nest, you can pour some ammonia in and around the nest. This will kill the ants and will destroy the nest. If the ants are coming into the house from outside and you can’t find the nest, then at the place where they are coming in, sprinkle a generous amount of baby powder in and around the area. It is messy but it will deter the ants from coming into the house from that specific area.

Tuin en pes wenke

Ek het moeg daarvan geword om so baie geld te spandeer aan insekdoders en onkruid gif dat ek besluit het om ‘n paar dinge te probeer om te kyk of dit sal werk en dit het.

Papier dorings en breë blaar onkruid

Neem die goedkoopste asyn wat jy in die winkels kan kry. Dit is nie eers nidg om dit met water te meng nie. Gooi dit direk oor die onkruid en om die area waar die onkruid grooi. Binne 5 dae sal jy sien dat die onkruid begin vrek en binne 10 dae sal die onkruid heeltemaal dood wees en dit sal nie weer op dieselfde plek groei nie.

Jy kan die metode ook op ander onkruid probeer. Ek het dit nog nie self probeer nie maar ek is seker dit sal werk.

Termiete

As jy enige idee het wat gif deesdae kos net om ontslae te raak van termiete, dan sal jy ook agter kom dat jy jou geld mors. Termiete is soos kokkerotte, sodra hulle by die gif kan aanpas, dan lewe hulle darvan af. Ek het ‘n groot probleem by die huis gehad met termiete wat besig was om my gras te vernietig en die gif wat ek aangekoop het, het op die ou end nie meer gewerk nie.

Neem ‘n een liter bottel of beker en maak dit half vol met water. Meng 200ml Jeys fluid, 200ml asyn en 100ml ammonia daarby en meng dit goed. As jy dit in ‘n bottel doen, moet dit nie toe maak nie aangesien dit ‘n gas opbou en kan ontplof so wees versigtig. Moet ook probeer om nie daaraan te ruik nie want die reuk is verskriklik sterk en giftig. Gooi of sproei die vloeistof binne in die termiet gate in en om die area war hulle is. As die gat groot genoeg is, probeer om baie van die vloeistof in die gat af te gooi. Hierdie sal die nes vernietig van die binnekant af en die walms sal die termiete uit dryf. Volg die proses vir so 4 weke, een keer ‘n week en daarna sal jy sien dat jou termiet probleem sal weg gaan.

Swart miere

Swart miere was nog altyd ‘n nagmerie vir enige huis eienaar. Jy kan soveel gif spuit soos wat jy wil en hulle gaan net nie weg nie. As jy die bron kan kry van waar die miere kom, dan is daar twee dinge wat jy kan probeer. By die nes, kan jy amonia neer gooi in en om die gat en nes.die sal die miere dodmaak en die nes vernietig as jy die amonia in die gat van die nes kan afgooi. As die miere van buitekant af inkom en jy kan nie die nes vind nie, kyk waar kom hulle in en daar kan jy baba poeier neergooi om die area. Dit sal verhoed dat die miere by daai spesifieke plek inkom.