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OBJECTIVE : Grow organic food producing plants without spending any extra money, while choosing the methods that close the loop between consumption and refuse by recycling household and yard waste, paper, cardboard, food containers, water, and urine.
I am fortunate enough to be living rent free for the year in beautiful and mysterious Roswell NM, I decided I would like to experiment with how to live sustainably and cheaply (two things that go well together), so that in the future I can implement these skills and tricks when I return to a renters life. Naturally this requires skills like gardening, greywatering, composting, and the raiding of dumpsters and recycling bins. I decided to bring all the small things I have learned/developed together into one all encompassing life altering instructable. Along the way I have found other peoples instructables to be very useful so I have linked to them as well. Be sure to look at all the picture notes for details and specifics on the smaller things I have done.
RESULTS: beautiful organic veggies, herbs, healthier richer soil, less water consumption, less household waste, muscles, a tan, admiration from your friends and neighbors (you will be a buffed green hero!) This experiment has changed my life, I kid you not.
I am fortunate enough to be living rent free for the year in beautiful and mysterious Roswell NM, I decided I would like to experiment with how to live sustainably and cheaply (two things that go well together), so that in the future I can implement these skills and tricks when I return to a renters life. Naturally this requires skills like gardening, greywatering, composting, and the raiding of dumpsters and recycling bins. I decided to bring all the small things I have learned/developed together into one all encompassing life altering instructable. Along the way I have found other peoples instructables to be very useful so I have linked to them as well. Be sure to look at all the picture notes for details and specifics on the smaller things I have done.
RESULTS: beautiful organic veggies, herbs, healthier richer soil, less water consumption, less household waste, muscles, a tan, admiration from your friends and neighbors (you will be a buffed green hero!) This experiment has changed my life, I kid you not.
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Signing UpStep 1WHAT YOU NEED
TRANSPORTATION - You will need to do a lot of alley raiding and dumpster diving*, unless you have a great bike trailer (I sure do need a nice bike hint-hint) I'm afraid this might require a car, but with luck you wont have to go too far out your neighborhood, and to minimize gas usage -- just allot a little extra time when you go out on errands and incorporate as many alleys into your route as you can. Keep bins, bags, gloves, rope in your trunk so that you will be ready to salvage whatever may turn up, this way you wont be using more much more gas than you
normally would. See the pictures and notes below for what I found in about 1/2 an hour on my way to pick up my friend from work, train yourself to see the hidden potential in other peoples refuse, of course neighborhoods with yard will probably be more fruitful if you live in the city.
LAND - Anywhere thats has dirt and sun is a good place to start, don't worry if it doesn't have very good soil because we are going to fix that. If the soil seems really questionable you could take a sample to your local county extension for a free soil test. If you have no land check out community gardens, or abandoned lots, or consider container gardening if you only have a roof or balcony.
SEEDS - save from organic non-hybrid veggies, or go to a seed swapping website like:
http://www.seedswapper.com/
http://www.thriftyfun.com/board_seeds.html
http://www.garden.org/seedswap/index.php?q=browse
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/exseed/
or buy from a good seed company like:
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
http://www.tinyseeds.com/
Robyntheslugsays: "The problem with saving seed is that many plants are hybrids. The seeds from the resulting fruits are often either infertile (Think mules), or are genetic variants without the protections and flavor the parent plant would have. If you save seed, avoid hybrids! (For instance, heirloom varieties tend to work better)"
CLEAR PLASTIC BOTTLES - these are good for making mini green houses
PLANTERS - just look around the house, check the recycle bins
CARDBOARD or STACKS OF NEWSPAPER - Enough to generously cover your garden
MANY MANY BAGS OF YARD WASTE - grass clippings, leaves, spoiled hay try and get a good mix of green and brown avoid anything that might have pesticides on it, black walnut leaves, bermuda grass, anything too seedy). These are easy to find fall and spring if you go down the right alleys looking for them.
FOOD WASTE - nothing meaty or greasy, usually you can find a lot of "about to rot" produce behind small grocery stores.
3 LOADING PALLETS - About the same size
OLD GARDEN HOSES - leaky is OK, spring and fall people throw these out, often found with lawn waste.
MULCH MATERIAL - Here in New Mexico there is a pecan shelling place where one can just go out back and get as much of their discarded pecan shells as one can handle. Think what kind of local byproduct you might be able to get in your area, I've heard many landscaping places will give you free woodchip mulch if you pick it up.
OPTIONAL
RED WIGGLER WORMS - can be found in manure piles or ordered on line
OLD MATTRESS SPRINGS OR OLD FENCING - Go ask a mattress company, or just look around for fences people are throwing out.
BUCKETS - construction site dumpsters, they may have caked sludge to be scraped out
TIRES - behind tire places
BOOKS - Go to the library try and get the following books:
Dam Nation, Dispatches from the Water Underground by Cleo Woelfle-Erskine et all this is an amazing book about water, graywater, urine composting, composting toilets, and how we had better get our act together or we wont have any clean water anymore. Has great advice on greywater systems and a bicycle powered washing machine etc.
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway
Anything by Bill Mollison (the guy who invented the term "permaculture")
if the library doesn't have those books you should ask them to order them, otherwise just see what else they have especially pertaining to your climate, and general organic gardening.
THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE TO BUY IF YOU CAN'T FIND OR MAKE (I know I said no money, I just haven't figured out how to do these for free yet. Any suggestions other than the five finger discount?)
HOSE REPAIR KITS - also hose accessories like splitters and sprayers may be needed, but stay away from the soaker hose and fancy irrigation systems OK?
SEED STARTING MIX - it's pretty important to have a good sterile potting mix to start your seeds use coir blocks which are made from coconut fiber (instead of peat moss which is a non renewable resource) vermiculite, perlite. If you think your soil would actually be conducive to seed starting you can sterilize it in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes in a big pan.
NATURAL FERTILIZER - like fish emulsion (anybody have a recipe? nevermind here it is http://www.ypsidixit.com/blog/archives/2006/05/diy_fish_emulsi.html), and bat guano -- know any friendly spelunkers?.
NATURAL PEST CONTROL - like neem oil or insecticidal soap spray, but some say just let the insects be, in order to attract whatever likes to eat them, just grow more of everything, a very interesting idea that encourages the natural ecosystem to right itself.
GOOD SOIL/COMPOST - Only if you didnt start composting early enough.
GARDEN TOOLS - if you don't have any already try to find some second hand (or just steal out of your neighbors yard . . . JUST KIDDING!) check out this home made hand trowel http://www.instructables.com/id/EGC7RCOF03GBB8C/?ALLSTEPS
normally would. See the pictures and notes below for what I found in about 1/2 an hour on my way to pick up my friend from work, train yourself to see the hidden potential in other peoples refuse, of course neighborhoods with yard will probably be more fruitful if you live in the city.
LAND - Anywhere thats has dirt and sun is a good place to start, don't worry if it doesn't have very good soil because we are going to fix that. If the soil seems really questionable you could take a sample to your local county extension for a free soil test. If you have no land check out community gardens, or abandoned lots, or consider container gardening if you only have a roof or balcony.
SEEDS - save from organic non-hybrid veggies, or go to a seed swapping website like:
http://www.seedswapper.com/
http://www.thriftyfun.com/board_seeds.html
http://www.garden.org/seedswap/index.php?q=browse
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/exseed/
or buy from a good seed company like:
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
http://www.tinyseeds.com/
Robyntheslugsays: "The problem with saving seed is that many plants are hybrids. The seeds from the resulting fruits are often either infertile (Think mules), or are genetic variants without the protections and flavor the parent plant would have. If you save seed, avoid hybrids! (For instance, heirloom varieties tend to work better)"
CLEAR PLASTIC BOTTLES - these are good for making mini green houses
PLANTERS - just look around the house, check the recycle bins
CARDBOARD or STACKS OF NEWSPAPER - Enough to generously cover your garden
MANY MANY BAGS OF YARD WASTE - grass clippings, leaves, spoiled hay try and get a good mix of green and brown avoid anything that might have pesticides on it, black walnut leaves, bermuda grass, anything too seedy). These are easy to find fall and spring if you go down the right alleys looking for them.
FOOD WASTE - nothing meaty or greasy, usually you can find a lot of "about to rot" produce behind small grocery stores.
3 LOADING PALLETS - About the same size
OLD GARDEN HOSES - leaky is OK, spring and fall people throw these out, often found with lawn waste.
MULCH MATERIAL - Here in New Mexico there is a pecan shelling place where one can just go out back and get as much of their discarded pecan shells as one can handle. Think what kind of local byproduct you might be able to get in your area, I've heard many landscaping places will give you free woodchip mulch if you pick it up.
OPTIONAL
RED WIGGLER WORMS - can be found in manure piles or ordered on line
OLD MATTRESS SPRINGS OR OLD FENCING - Go ask a mattress company, or just look around for fences people are throwing out.
BUCKETS - construction site dumpsters, they may have caked sludge to be scraped out
TIRES - behind tire places
BOOKS - Go to the library try and get the following books:
Dam Nation, Dispatches from the Water Underground by Cleo Woelfle-Erskine et all this is an amazing book about water, graywater, urine composting, composting toilets, and how we had better get our act together or we wont have any clean water anymore. Has great advice on greywater systems and a bicycle powered washing machine etc.
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway
Anything by Bill Mollison (the guy who invented the term "permaculture")
if the library doesn't have those books you should ask them to order them, otherwise just see what else they have especially pertaining to your climate, and general organic gardening.
THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE TO BUY IF YOU CAN'T FIND OR MAKE (I know I said no money, I just haven't figured out how to do these for free yet. Any suggestions other than the five finger discount?)
HOSE REPAIR KITS - also hose accessories like splitters and sprayers may be needed, but stay away from the soaker hose and fancy irrigation systems OK?
SEED STARTING MIX - it's pretty important to have a good sterile potting mix to start your seeds use coir blocks which are made from coconut fiber (instead of peat moss which is a non renewable resource) vermiculite, perlite. If you think your soil would actually be conducive to seed starting you can sterilize it in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes in a big pan.
NATURAL FERTILIZER - like fish emulsion (anybody have a recipe? nevermind here it is http://www.ypsidixit.com/blog/archives/2006/05/diy_fish_emulsi.html), and bat guano -- know any friendly spelunkers?.
NATURAL PEST CONTROL - like neem oil or insecticidal soap spray, but some say just let the insects be, in order to attract whatever likes to eat them, just grow more of everything, a very interesting idea that encourages the natural ecosystem to right itself.
GOOD SOIL/COMPOST - Only if you didnt start composting early enough.
GARDEN TOOLS - if you don't have any already try to find some second hand (or just steal out of your neighbors yard . . . JUST KIDDING!) check out this home made hand trowel http://www.instructables.com/id/EGC7RCOF03GBB8C/?ALLSTEPS
- There is certainly a gray area to alley raiding and dumpster diving, I have never had a problem with assuming that if its in the alley next to trash it's up for grabs, but if you have any doubts you can ask before taking if that sets your mind at ease.
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I was concerned about your kitchen sink trap suggestion - though its a great suggestion, I hope you coverered the empty end of the trap so sewer gasses don't come up (that's part of the purpose of a trap in the first place)
Good luck on your sustainable living - I admire your dedication to it!!
Never place your beds downslope of a road, as the cadmium runs with the water and deposits in the soil.
good work gowihflo
There are plenty of other things that you can use to support your seed trays, including cardboard boxes, a box made from chicken wire, wood or other scrap/salvaged materials.
Composting is accomplished by:
AEROBIC BACTERIA [they breathe AIR] that "munch" the materials to be composted,
and "their byproducts [equivalent of urine and feces] ARE the resulting compost,
AND the purpose of wire or slatted pallets for containment ,
AND regular "TURNING" of the pile ALL of which are NECESSARY for the bacteria to survive and do their work.
Therefore, it is strongly recommended that compost piles NOT be enclosed in any material that restricts maximum air flow!!!!!
The "warmth" needed is provided by the metabolic heat generated by the bacteria themselves. All a composter must do is reduce the loss of THAT heat by having the compost pile as large and compact as possible.
What mold are you guys talking about? Rerat are you suggesting that composting is dangerous?
Another way to get started with birds is to install bird houses, feeders, and bird baths. Just getting the wild ones to your place to pick caterpillars and beetles can be very beneficial. You will have to watch your crops, though.
Regarding molds: If you had asked a microbiologist in the 1980s how many microbes lived in the soil, they might have told you there were about 50 but only a dozen would grow on a petri dish in a lab. Since the 1990s, with DNA testing available at relatively low costs, they have discovered DNA from over 100,000 species. A lot of them are molds. Don't ask me to name them, because they have not been named. This added microbial complexity has driven the scientists to stop calling it a food chain. Now they call it a food web. Specifically for soil they call it the soil foodweb. If you are interested learning more about soil biology, the best thing I've found is this. It's about 50 pages long with all the pictures, so settle down and turn off the phone if you want to concentrate on it. I have reread it several times and learn more each time. When all the microbes live together in relative harmony, the condition is called 'normal.' When things get out of whack, some of the good microbes will be overpowered by the disease causing microbes and you will get fungal or bacterial diseases on your plants. Usually all it takes is restoring the health of the entire population of microbes to reset things to normal again. This is how Mother Natures has evolved the system over the past 4 billion years.
Composting is not generally dangerous. It can become more hazardous if you don't know what you're doing. If you stick to composting garden scraps and non-meat table scraps, you'll be fine. If you want to start composting meats and animal dung, give yourself at least 3 good years of successful, productive composting before you try the advanced stuff.