I use coffee grounds, from my husband's work, to help in this endeavour. I've also been known to use sand and compost too. All of which, can set like concrete if it dries out. Which means, dead plants.
I found a solution, in a waste product I have to deal with every few weeks...
Vacant for cleaning
We once had two guinea pigs, but one passed away, last year. Now we just have the remaining one to look after. She lives inside for the most part, and I bring fresh greens, a couple of times a day. We buy wood shavings from the local produce store, to line the bottom of the cage. Which I then have to clean out, every few weeks.
Previously, I dumped the spent shavings in the compost, but we gave up making compost in piles. We prefer to place all our food scraps, either in the chicken coop, the worm farm, or in the banana circle. But then one day, I decided to experiment with this waste product, in a different way....
What is this?
It's a terrific soil extender, for my potting mix. I had about 15 litres of a bag left, which I already extended with coffee grounds and old bark - sitting in a pile for years. But it was also setting like concrete, when it wasn't kept moist. Most plants like to have damp soil, but not drenched, so I had to fluff the mix up with something else.
I used about half of what was in the cage, to match how much potting mix I had. Then I mixed it all together. A wheelbarrow came in handy, for ease of mixing, and so did my son's smaller shovel (a Christmas gift, for gardeners in the making).
Ready to use
I stumbled on this trick, several months ago, and it keeps the moisture in the soil, without needing to be drenched all the time. Plus it doesn't set like concrete, should it dry a little - which can be damaging to finer plant roots.
Finally, I get nuggets of guinea pig poo, and guinea pig hair, as slow release fertiliser. So I'm pretty happy to have discovered this new way of recycling waste. I like how it's performing in the pots too - the plants are doing so much better.
Effectively though, the money I spend on the guinea pig food and shavings, are extended into my nursery and potting culture. I don't have to buy as much potting mix now, or any slow-release fertiliser. Nor do I use as much water. Incremental savings add up over time. It makes sense to simplify what we buy in, to do as many jobs as possible, on it's way out.
Do you have any secret ingredients, you use to extend potting mix, or a useful way to recycle waste from the home?
Great idea! Like you, I'm always trying to reuse anything I can and you are so right about potting soil drying out to become brick-like. We don't have guinea pigs or such, but I do have sawdust from Dan's milling projects. It seems to me that it should work just as well! Definitely going to give this a try. May even do some repotting.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how aged our wood shavings are, but I imagine they're not super fresh, and one large bag can last several months. So use aged wood shavings if you can. I imagine the the fresh ones might drawn nutrients from the soil, as they age. Give it a try though, it works great. Extra fluff and moisture holding too. :)
DeleteI have read that guinea pig's and rabbit's waste is fabulous for the garden
ReplyDeleteIt breaks down really quickly, in our banana circle, so it would be great anywhere plants need a boost of organic matter.
DeleteThere is a fellow on Gardening Australia who has guinea pigs and uses them to mow his lawn, he reckons you get one pig/sqm/lawn! I love he has it all worked out, but they wont edge his lawns for him mind you. ;)
ReplyDeleteThey are sweet little animals, sadly they do not go well with our dogs....
xx
No edging? The slackers. ;)
DeleteWe tried ours on the lawn, with a chicken tractor. David dropped a tree on it though (they were inside) and it was out of commission. They lived, due to the sturdy structure of the a-frame. But I didn't have anything to put them in afterwards. I recommissioned the tractor recently, but it's had chickens in it, since.
This is exactly what we do with our own waste, yes our human waste. We have a composting toilet in an outhouse on our back acres and after each use we add a cup of wood shavings and peat moss. The barrel in the toilet gets rotated and in a few weeks we pull out the tray and dump the compost out in our pastures which need lots of organic material. I don't use it on our veggie garden but I do use composted chicken and cow manure there. Even I have limits to my recycling!
ReplyDeleteHumanure is an excellent form of recycling waste, as long as it's done sensibly. It's an old tradition, and great to see others are still observing it. Only in modern times, have we reverted to flushing it all into water systems.
DeleteWe divert our septic run off, around the property, via a hose we move around. It's suggested this spreads dangerous pathogens, but we've found, so long as there's biomass growing, it breaks it down as part of the natural cycle. Like you, we avoid putting it on our edibles though.
That's a great idea! Here, I add compost and worm castings to our potting mix and I've just started adding coffee grounds too. We don't drink coffee but the local cafe saves their grounds for me and I pick them up every Friday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteWorm castings would be excellent stuff, in pots! I've just started a worm farm, to get our own. I want to use the tea on potted plants. Anything to avoid buying slow release fertilisers. :)
DeleteGreat to hear you found a local cafe, to collect coffee grounds from. You're saving them money - it would have to get dumped otherwise.
Wood shavings are beautiful things! I use them in the composting toilet. I've tried sugar cane mulch and mulched bracken but they just don't do the job as well. I buy a compacted bag for about $20 and it lasts well over a year with a small handful used to cover each 'deposit' in the toilet. The shavings don't break down completely in the time from filling a bin to emptying it, although the 'deposits' do, so the humanure is nice and fluffy when it comes out. If I'm feeling generous, I also put the shavings in the chook nest boxes; the Girls look so comfey sitting in the pile when they're laying.
ReplyDeleteI keep my potting mix in a 60 litre rubbish bin beside my potting bench....it never goes hard and if it dries out a bit, I just spray a bit of water in and fluff it up with the pitchfork. It doesn't 'wet' as well when it's too dry and the dust isn't good for the lungs. The only thing I would add to it at all is the spent gravel mix which I use for cuttings, although I often just dry it in the sun and blend it back in with fresh mix.
We buy a compacted bale of shavings for around $12-15. We're fortunate to have a local produce store, which is big on stocking all livestock and pet supplies. Which is probably why they can keep the price down. In town, they charge a lot more money, because they have to pay town rents and demand isn't as great. But I don't quite get mine to last a year! Between the guinea pig, and lining the chicken nest boxes (like you) it only lasts a few months.
ReplyDeleteNice to hear you're able to use your humanure in a productive manner also. You're paying for the wood shavings, but it's doubling as waste collection, then fertiliser. If it's put under a fruit tree, then it's feeding you too. So that $20 investment, goes a long way. :)
This is such a clever idea!
ReplyDeleteI don't use potting mix, but I can see that this would work really well for retaining moisture. Also a good idea to use the guinea pig manure too. I have been collecting up some wild bunny poo from our yard and adding to the compost bin. Might as well make use of it :)
Those little nuggets are terrific, placed anywhere in the garden. It's slow release fertiliser, because of all the greens bunnies eat. Good idea to pop it in the compost.
DeleteWe get hares here in Queensland, as myxomatosis wiped out the rabbit populations. But we also get kangaroo poo, which tends to be more in abundance. Which is great because apart from the chicken tractor, we don't move our livestock around. The roos fertilise the ground for us. ;)