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Grate Idea!

Re-using fibrous material to ease the task of extracting vermicompost castings at Grate Idea!

Two new web pages

I have created two new pages, one describing my process for harvesting worms and seeding a vermicomposter and one for my Orange Grove.

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Yet another lamp bulb blown this week. I flip the switch, see a flash and hear a pop. Sigh.

Yet, there is a Second Use For Everything!

First step is to separate the bulb from the stem. I achieve this by removing all small children & pets from the vicinity, running a basin of cold water, wrapping a piece of string three times around the bulb where the metal socket meets the glass bulb, and loading the string with a few drops of kerosene or lamp oil. Rubber gloves and glasses complete the scene.

I light the wick and let it burn upwards, enveloping, if it will, the metal socket. After five seconds of this I plunge the bulb, metal socket down, into the cold water and hear a satisfying "pop" as the glass cracks in a fairly neat, but sharp-edged, circle. My theory is that if anything is going to shatter outwards, the water will dampen, so to speak, the motion.

A quick twist separates the metal socket from the glass bulb.

Below is a photo of the glass bulb, waiting for the shards.

I chose shards of a broken clay pot, figuring that the clay shards would absorb and retain water, sponge-like.

I am using a small hammer gently to break the clay pot into fragments no bigger than a quarter-inch on a side. Yes, that's last-year's yellow-pages being used as a protective mat. When I'm done it will go into a vermicomposter, taking with it small particles of clay.

Below is a photo of the glass bulb, holding its volume of pottery shards. I placed it in an empty coffee beaker (Second Use For Everything!) to stop it tipping over. Now I know the correct volume of shards I will empty the glass bulb temporarily.

Below you can see some philodendron cuttings. I learned some years ago to trim the stalk below a node, and to strip off leaves from two nodes. This gives me two leafless nodes which will root readily. Leaves would rot in the potting medium (which in my case is just water and clay shards).

And here is the glass bulb, primed with four philodendron cuttings and tanked up with shards and topped up with tap water.

If my friends ask me what it is, I will say proudly "It's a Bulb Garden".

Well, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden!

Thanks for reading this. I hope that you are inspired.

Orange Peel

This isn't a recipe blog, but what with Christmas coming etc. etc.

Orange peel can take a long time to rot down in any composter. Here's an alternate method of disposal in tune with both Second Use For Everything and the Christmas Season.

It's never as good as store-bought candied peel, but it's a darn sight cheaper, and that's what I'm all about.

In essence (good one Chris!), I boil the peel of an orange in sugar.
70g peel in 180g sugar.

1. Gently heat the solid sugar from last time in a saucepan of water. I think I'm stupid to tie up a nice glass bowl for weeks at a time this way.

2. Eat the thick-skinned orange for breakfast. Dieting, you know. Slice the peel into a Lambert Conformal Conic sections and dream of Africa.

3. Slice each segment into strips about 2 mm wide.

4. Pour the liquefied sugar from last time into a different pan. That's right. The original pan didn't shrink! Add 180g sugar, toss in the peel and stir. I use a plastic teaspoon because I'm too cheap to replace the jam thermometer that broke last year. If the plastic melts, the sugar is too hot.

5. Stir the pan, but don't stir too far away from the stove. A good book on genetic technology helps here. Also a bar stool.

6. Reduce heat once the stuff is at the boil. Lowest heat, simmer to drive off some water.

7. Strain into the coffee percolator. Sweet orange-flavored coffee tomorrow morning. With cream. Sod the diet.

8. Spread out to cool/harden on a plate. I use chopsticks because it's almost lunchtime anyway.

Plastic bags

I found this today - uses for plastic bags (grocery bags, bread bags etc.). Many of the uses seem to be duplicates or clones, but still and all it's a good list.

http://frugalliving.about.com/cs/tips/a/blplasticbag.htm

Too much energy

I was asked yesterday about my use of a cross-cut shredder to chop up scrap paper and junk mail.

"Why are you burning up electrical energy instead of ripping the paper by hand while sitting in front of the television?", my questioner continued.

The answer is simple: I don't watch TV; I read books.

The electricity I don't use watching TV is not matched by the occasional use of my shredder.