Balcony Redesign and Happy Worms

Balcony Redesign and Happy Worms

Finally we started our own composting! I remember people trying it out before but the idea of composting was never tackled very soundly. This past week though, Rachel has been using her hands to repot plants and herbs and with redesigning the balcony, as well as creating a workable compost-system. Do you see the little table at the back of the photo, made from scrap-wood? Voilà. Under it you find a plastic container where now the compost goes.

And what you see here on the photo is - if nature provides - only the beginning! Next will be lots of growing plants and herbs, mostly eatable plants, but also some other greens and flowers. And at the same time, there is still other ideas floating around to make the walls even greener and work more with concepts of vertical gardening and making more shelfs for the pots.

I am very intruiged by this system of how-to use an old pallet for vertical gardening, that was send to me by Xo earlier today. Only downside: it is better not to use a pallet for eatable plants, since we can never tell with what chemicals the wood has been treated.

And as far as the composting goes, we will also be getting our own casa-worms. So no dirty smells, and the compost will be turned into healthy soil within weeks! If you have any, bring them along! They will be very happy vegan worms, as the article on Trashwiki about Worm Farming explains:

Worms will happily live a vegan lifestyle. Worms do eat meat but it is best NOT to put meat in the worm farm as it will attract flies. They love rotten fruit such as apples, bananas, peaches, avocados but avoid citrus fruit as it's too acidic. Vegetables are devoured but avoid onion, garlic and other spicy vegetables. Coffee grinds, tea leaves, paper and other organic matter is great, but never feed them dairy products or eggs.

So who knows, soon it might be a jungle again out on the balcony. Well depending on your point of perspective obviously :)

Comments

aniaba's picture

Is that lonely shoe a flower

Is that lonely shoe a flower pot, an ashtray or art piece?

robino's picture

lonely shoe

Good question! Rachel was thinking of using some old shoes for soil and plants, but this one was there just for decoration I think.

Also, we found a pallet the other day on the street, so I guess we will be playing with that soon!

By the way, what a great video of you fixing a bike! It is so great to see your face again, ha!

martina's picture

italian worms

well done people.... i'll try remember bringing some worms from my parents' garden, i'm also remodeling compost system here and there's millions of them! but rob egg shells are actually very good for plants, you can even powder them and put it directly in the pots.

robino's picture

italian worms!

Oh yeah, worms from Italy go very well with the pasta madre from Italy :-) A fun thing to travel with, ha.

looking forward seeing you here again! Don't forget to do your host-request ;-)

Katherine's picture

Shittens not shitting in the

Shittens not shitting in the plants anymore? sweet!I hope it becomes a crazy forest out there!

robino's picture

coffeebeans and kitten

Yeah well, we gave her her own shitting soil pot which she's been using and all the other things she used to be using for peeing and shitting we cleaned thoroughly and apparantly it helps to put coffee-beans and coffee-leftover in the soil to make sure she isn't using it any more to litter.

Ah what a sad story by the way of the cat your rescued in India and then she gets eaten by dogs! A wonderful lesson of life. Did you help the cat or the dogs? Or maybe looking at it from a different perspective, the cat was to die anyway, either from hunger or from being eaten. Ha, you're in India after all ;)

Katherine's picture

I am glad you found a

I am glad you found a solution, while I was at Casa I was dreaming of a beautiful Garden balcony!

It was a strange situation with Dirt, from the beginning he was not supposed to be alive, I guess it proves you shouldn't go against nature.When something is dying let it die.I guess we got him healthy and fat so the dogs could have a better meal. He would have died one way or another. I am happy to say we gave him some happy healthy days and that being eaten was a lot quicker then starvation. The circle of life... Fate gets you in the end, so don't bother fighting it. It was quite ironic he was eaten rather then starved though.

How is life Robin? Are you going to be traveling again soon? Come to Asia!