Seeing the photo above, some might ask:  what on earth are we doing here?  Making hay.  But why?  In an inner city backyard?  There are no big meadows or cows close by!

Well, we are using it as the chicken coop bedding for our pet chickens!  Instead of buying hay or wood shavings for the bedding, we tried to make some.  It works!

In our bid to live more sustainably in the city, making hay is one little step towards greener living.  It reduces waste and saves money.  It might seem insignificant, but all the little things do add up.

How to Make Hay

Hay is basically cut and dried grass.  It’s usually made on farms to feed stock during the winter or dry season, but also as bedding and/or food for pets.  Straw on the other hand is a byproduct from grain production like wheat.

Although you can’t make haystacks as above form suburban lawn (you’ll need taller grass and lots of it), grass clippings are excellent for making hay in smaller amount. The two most important things to check are:

1. Lawn shouldn’t be chemically treated: no weed killing solution or chemical fertiliser used.
2. The weather: do it on a sunny and wind free day.  As the saying goes: Make hay while the sun shines!

The first point is obvious and if you have kids playing on the grass area you probably don’t use chemicals anyway.  When asking the lawn moving guys to leave some grass clippings, I always remind them not to put any from the nature strip between the pavement and the road as it might contain dog’s poo or cigarette buts.

A perfect day for making hay is when it’s sunny and calm.  Spread the grass clippings in a thin layer on the ground, preferably on the concrete.  Turn it and mix it around a few times during the day.  It shouldn’t take more than half a day or so until it’s completely dry.  Before night time, gather it on a pile and store in a box or another container and leave in the dry place.

On a rainy day I don’t bother making hay, even in the sheltered area as it’s too humid.  I can’t choose the day as the grass is always cut on Tuesday.  Instead, I give a portion of freshly cut grass to our pet chickens to eat (only on the first day!) and the rest goes in the veggie garden as mulch.  The grass breaks down into organic matter enriching soil.   It is also beneficial to leave some clippings on the lawn.   Alternatively, toss it into the compost bin, but no thicker than 5-6 cm.

If you have rabbits or guinea pigs, you might like to try making hay for your pet as food.

Hay as Chicken Coop Bedding

Here you can see our pet chicken Sunflower, the boss, inspecting the fresh hay layer in the coop!

As said, we use hay as bedding for the chicken coop.  We have 3 backyard chickens and they use the coop only for sleeping. At daytime they are in their chicken run.   Fresh hay has a lovely smell, at least until the chickens go to sleep (yes, chickens poo during the sleep, too!) .  The coop is cleaned once or twice a week and the whole hay bedding and the chicken poo goes into the compost bin and makes great fertiliser for the veggie garden. Grass clipping recycling at its best!

Here are some ideas for recycling grass clippings:

• Make hay for pets’ bedding/food
• Feed it to the chickens (freshly cut only)
• Leave them on the lawn as a fertiliser
• Mulch the garden
• Incorporate into the soil in the garden
• Compost the grass clippings
• Put them into the green waste bin, anything but…
• Just don’t throw the grass clippings into the rubbish and add to the already full landfills.  Only…
• In one instance trow the grass clippings in the bin:  If the turf was treated with chemicals!  That grass has been killed long before it was cut!

Finally, after more than one year since applying for a plot in the local community garden, we’ve got one!  Coincidentally, we received the news on the day Sustainable Echo was celebrating its first birthday.  It felt like a real anniversary present for us.

A few years ago, the waiting period was much shorter as the turnout was quicker.  Nowadays, people are committing to their community garden plots.  Our application was timely because the waiting list grew longer and longer so much so that no applications are accepted for a year till June 2010.  Also, to accommodate the interest, all full plots that become available are split into two half plots.

Our small veggie patch at home is just not big enough for us.  We gave up more than a half of it to our three chickens and added a container garden.  However, in winter we can’t grow anything as it’s in the complete shade for months.  This community garden receives full sun year round and we are really excited to finally be able to grow our broccoli, cabbage and other winter veggies.

Join a Community garden near you

If you would like to grow more veggies, but have little or no garden space, see if there is a community garden near you.  Not only is this a best way of getting fresh organic veggies if you have no garden, but also there is a great sense of community. We’ve already met some wonderful people.

Some form of fee, like joining fee, annual fee or similar is offset very quickly once you start to harvest the produce.  Our joining and annual fee equals the amount we spend on fruit and veggies for a month.  Every year after there is only an annual fee – the amount we spend on one trip to the farmers market.  Plus, all the produce from our plot will be organic!

Our Two-stage vegetable planting project

As summer is approaching and we are experiencing unusually hot spring weather, we rolled our sleeves up.  As you can see above, we first needed to loosen the slightly compacted, but very good soil.  We inherited a cauliflower and a bunch of silverbeet (chard) on the right in the picture.  The pest ridden cauliflower was devoured by our chickens, but silverbeet is left so we can collect the seeds.

The picture below is stage one finished, taken after sunset.  We’ve planted cucumber, corn, sunflower, zucchini (courgette), eggplant (aubergine) and tomatoes (self-seeded and Roma).

The next evening stage two was finished.  We had to work late to avoid heat and give the plants a chance to soak up the moisture during the night.  We added beans (green and butter beans), spring onions, beetroots, peas, red capsicums and marigold (calendula) at each corner as it deters several garden pests:

This picture below was taken early next morning just before watering.  We’ve added some mulch to retain the moisture.  Due to years of drought watering is allowed only twice a week in the morning, other days we use rainwater and watering cans.

It takes only 7-8 minutes on the bike to the garden and 5 minutes from (it’s downhill on the way back ), nice and close so we can pop in very often.  All plants are still OK and hopefully will establish themselves before the hot Australian summer.

9 – 15 November 2009 is National Recycling Week (Australia) founded by Planet Ark in 1996.  This post is Sustainable Echo’s contribution to NRW.  It’s about finding another use for something otherwise destined for the dump: the coconut shell.

Recently I bought a whole coconut to make some coconut cookies.  Packaged shredded coconut sold in shops usually contains preservatives I try to avoid.  Opening and shredding a coconut is more work but it was worthwhile the effort.  The taste was great!  One half of the flesh was shredded finely for the cookies, the other half made into flakes and dried for homemade muesli.

How to open a coconut

There are several methods on how to crack open a coconut, but this was the simplest for me:

1. Using a screwdriver, corkscrew or a metal skewer make holes in two out of three coconut “eyes”
2. Drain the coconut water
3. Wrap the coconut in a towel
4. With a hammer tap around the coconut’s “equator” till the coconut opens.  If you need straight lines, use a hand saw.
5. To release the flesh insert a butter knife between the flesh and the shell and break off small chunks
6. Shred or slice  using a greater, V-slicer or similar

To store for later use, bake in oven on low temperature until dry to touch but still white.

What to do with coconut shells?

Coconut cookies have long disappeared, homemade muesli was delicious.  The two halves of the coconut shells were left outside to dry.  But, what to do with them?  In different countries different things are manufactured from them, eg. buttons, musical instruments, baskets, bird feeders, jewelry even briquettes for BBQ.

We had a brainstorming session the other day and the kids came up with these brilliant ideas:  one half become a basket for egg collection, the other a pot holder!  Both very simple to make.

The basked needed two holes drilled and a short length of ribbon (actually a fabric off-cut).  Done.  See the picture above.

The plant holder was even easier as it required only one hole to be drilled and screwed to the fence.  Fill with the soil and plant a seedling.

For the plant holder we used the coconut shell half with the “eyes” for the drainage:

This is our way of reusing things around the house.  Do you have a tip on reusing coconut shells or any other reuse tip for everyday items usually destined for the rubbish tip?  Please share in the comments below.

Engaging kids in the organic gardening from an early age has many benefits: it teaches them about nature, sustainability, environment, patience, to appreciate food, etc.  When they are older, gardening will become second nature to them.  By doing it themselves and watching the plants grow, kids learn faster than any other way.  Above all, gardening with kids is heaps of  fun.

Our garden isn’t really big.  We gave up more than half of it to our chickens and started container gardening.  Kids love it because it is more accessible than our veggie patch.  Two most exciting moments for them are when the plants sprout from the seeds and harvest.  From my experience, children are more likely to eat veggies they’ve grown (see the pictures and comments below).

Last weekend we pulled the last beetroot: time to eat cool weather veggies that are remaining and make space for summer crop:

Our chickens got the leaves (young leaves can be tossed into salad) and we had a simple yet very delicious salad of grated fresh beetroot, carrot and Granny Smith apple only seasoned with a bit of lemon juice.  Colourful and yum!

We’ve planted a few sprouting spuds a couple months ago and here we’ve dug up the most delicious new potatoes.  I boiled them and the kids ate them all before they could make it to the plates!

Beautiful pink colour!

Snow peas are also ready for harvest.  I was surprised how quickly they grow.  While picking,  our daughter ate a few raw.  After a brisk boil,  they’ve been eaten in a minute, our son declaring them as delicious!  He wasn’t keen to try snow peas before

Whether you have a huge garden or a few pots on the window sill, get your kids into growing their own plants.  It’s a fun activity, gets the kids outside and let them be responsible for what they’ve planted, from watering to harvest!

For now all our vegetables are growing in the container garden quite happily, as you can see below.  The reason is that our small veggie patch is still in the shade.

Provided there is a sunny spot in the garden or on the balcony it’s possible to have an edible garden no matter how small the space is.  If you are Down Under, get some pots and start (container) gardening!

The benefits of a container garden:

• grow veggies and other plants on limited space or on balconies
• easily moved to a sunny/shady position or inside/outside
• the earth warms up quicker in spring
• less water and fertilizer needed
• fewer issues with the pests

Here are the latest pictures from our organic urban garden:

Carrots and onions

Carrots and onions are great plant companions.  Onions are believed to deter carrot fly.   Carrots and dill, however, don’t like to be next to each other.

Potatoes in the container

Potatoes can be grown in the containers: the deeper the container the more potatoes you’ll harvest.   Plant potatoes at the base and add more soil as it grows until the whole container is full.   Instead of container, a hessian bag can be used with the same principle:  add more soil and unroll the bag as you go.

Growing potatoes in pots will hardly cover the needs of any family, but it’s heaps of fun and the potatoes are the sweetest I’ve ever tasted!

Lettuce

I would recommend lettuce as the easiest veggie to grow!  A couple of containers provided us with plenty of salad leaves  throughout cool months.

Self sown tomato seedling

This self sown tomato seedling sprouted in between carrots and onions, possibly from the compost or the garden soil I filled the container with.  Hope it survives (and is of good variety) as the frost danger isn’t over until the end of October.

Dill

Dill seems to happily share the pot with spinach.   But keep it away from carrots!

Marigold (Calendula)

Not a vegetable, but a pretty and very beneficial flower to have in the veggie garden. Marigold (French marigold too) deters a number of pest insects.

Azalea

This is definitely not an edible plant, but brightens our urban garden in early spring!

Also in our urban container garden, we have some garlic, a few beetroots, strawberries, snow peas, sunflower and basil seedlings enjoying the spring sun.

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Today is World Environment Day. This year’s theme for the WED is ‘Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change’.

To celebrate the WED our kids planted the seeds of a beautiful native weeping red bottlebrush tree.  The seeds pack is a promotion of the Melbourne tram company.  See the pictures below:

Eco kids – Planting seeds:

Seeds planted – great addition to our urban garden:

Watering:

Mission accomplished, minor misspelling

Sunflower

Basil in pot

Cherry Tomatoes

Urban Chickens

Garden Strawberries

Chillies

Bee on Sunflower

Basil

Your thoughts on urban gardens? Please share in the comments!

Slugs and snails are annoying pests, more so as they are “invisible”. They are rarely seen at work because they come out at night and hide in dark and moist places, mostly underground.

I accidentally discovered this very easy and organic way of reducing and eventually eliminating slugs from the garden. Initially, I had a problem with a cat from the neighborhood. Mostly in spring when our small city patch is bare and being prepared for new seedlings, the cat would be inspired to dig in and do her business there. I tried several tactics and one was to scatter squeezed out orange halves around the garden. I read somewhere it deters the cats.

Eventually, the cat stopped coming due to oranges, new seedlings planted, or other tricks. But what I discovered when I went to the garden after dark was dozens of snails in each orange half! It took only minute to collect the orange halves with all the snails in them, probably close to hundred.

Now, whenever I make freshly squeezed orange juice, I scatter the halves around the garden edges and pick them later, usually few hours after dark. I just make sure one edge is close to the ground so the slugs have an easy access. Grapefruit halves work as well.

What to do with all the slugs? Up till now, I usually put them all in a plastic bag and threw them in the rubbish bin. Now that our three chickens are bigger, I’ll try offering the slugs to them. Apparently, some chickens love the snails and the other not -it’s all matter of taste. Alternatively, they can be kept in a container and offered to the birds, drowned in soapy water or squashed (I couldn’t do this somehow).

There are other natural and organic methods of slug and snail control available, especially if your garden isn’t close to where you live. Wandering with a torch in a community garden at night for example wouldn’t be the wisest slug control option! Instead you might try this:

Beer trap: mix a little flour with a stale beer and fill a shallow container with the rim 1 or 2 cm above the ground so that slugs and snails can climb. Substitute beer for wine, sugar water or water mixed with yeas.

Coffee spray: make a weak coffee brew with ground coffee and water. Spray the plants.

Pot trap: place a plant pot upside down in a shaded area of the garden away from seedlings and check regularly

Physical barriers: scatter crushed egg shells, sawdust or wood shavings around plants at risk.

Would you like to share your tips on natural control of slugs and snails in the garden? Please do so in the comments!

The effort and initial small investment of money and time will pay off in many ways. The benefits of growing food in your urban garden:

Fresher and better tasting food – food is picked and eaten straight so it doesn’t lose the nutrients

Healthier food – eating fresh and organic gives you peace of mind that no chemicals are present, even if it’s just few herbs it’s a step forward

Kinder to the environment – no petrol used to transport the food to the shops, no need to hop in the car for it and no soil is harmed by organic gardening practices

Saves money – almost “free” compared to organic food form shops

Educational – kids can learn so much form growing an organic garden (adults too!) and food is more appreciated and less wasted

Plants suitable for containers or small urban gardens:

Herbs – the easiest to start with. The taste of freshly picked herbs is incomparable to the shop bought that traveled long distances and spent days in the refrigerators. Herbs grow happily in containers or in the garden bed. Plant seedlings from the local garden centre or directly from seeds – which is more economical.

Choose herbs you use most in cooking. Popular are parsley, chives, coriander, basil, thyme, mint. Some herbs such as mint, sage, thyme or lemongrass make wonderful herbal teas. Pick regularly as it promotes new young shoots and delays flowering.

Vegetables – lettuce leaves, tomatoes and chilies are all pot loving veggies. Plant them in a container filled with quality potting mix that has at least one hole for drainage. You can mix veggies with herbs and the best example of companion growing is tomato-basil combination.

For a small urban garden or raised bed choose varieties that don’t use a lot of space. Spring onions, radishes, spinach, silverbeet (chard), garlic, leek, climbing beans, carrots, tomatoes and lettuces are crops that use limited garden space efficiently. Ask at your local nursery or garden shop if in doubt.

Fruit – my favorites are strawberries! Easy to grow in the hanging baskets, pots or in the garden, the taste of home grown is sensational. Other fruits easily grown in pots are lemons, mandarins, dwarf apples and pears, figs and other.

If the benefits of urban gardening sound appealing to you, then you should start planning out your urban garden today. Begin with few pots of herbs and in no time you will be expanding to veggies and fruit. Go to the local nursery, grab a book on gardening, watch a TV gardening program or search on the internet for inspiration. Involve the whole family and/or friends. Gardening, be it on small or large scale is very rewarding and soooo much fun! See pictures from my urban garden.