Do you get excited over free composting material?
- chuck_n_grace
- Barbara Good
- Posts: 182
- Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 7:30 am
- Location: South Carolina
Do you get excited over free composting material?
I think I've gone over the edge. A friend at church was cleaning the garden and I was helping. I noticed several bales of hay over by a bunch of old branches. She explained it was going to be hauled off by the city. I asked if I could have them. She said yes!
She told me of more hay behind the church. It was used during the Christmas Eve outdoor presentation with real livestock. It was a bit messy with animal droppings. Anyhow, I loaded up 5 bales of hay into my small truck.
On the way home I kept thinking I had 'hit the mother load'. I was feeling pretty good...especially saving $30 (about 20 pounds). However, if I shared this with my 'non-gardening' friends they would consider me nuts.
How about you...what makes you excited? And makes you seem crazy to those who don't understand?
Regards,
Chuck
She told me of more hay behind the church. It was used during the Christmas Eve outdoor presentation with real livestock. It was a bit messy with animal droppings. Anyhow, I loaded up 5 bales of hay into my small truck.
On the way home I kept thinking I had 'hit the mother load'. I was feeling pretty good...especially saving $30 (about 20 pounds). However, if I shared this with my 'non-gardening' friends they would consider me nuts.
How about you...what makes you excited? And makes you seem crazy to those who don't understand?
Regards,
Chuck
- Milims
- A selfsufficientish Regular
- Posts: 4390
- Joined: Mon Oct 16, 2006 9:06 pm
- Location: North East
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
Wehave been known to slam the brakes on and dive out of the car with a bag to pick up some horse poop!
Let us be lovely
And let us be kind
Let us be silly and free
It won't make us famous
It won't make us rich
But damn it how happy we'll be!
Edward Monkton
Member of the Ish Weight Loss Club since 10/1/11 Started at 12st 8 and have lost 8lb so far!
And let us be kind
Let us be silly and free
It won't make us famous
It won't make us rich
But damn it how happy we'll be!
Edward Monkton
Member of the Ish Weight Loss Club since 10/1/11 Started at 12st 8 and have lost 8lb so far!
- Flo
- A selfsufficientish Regular
- Posts: 2188
- Joined: Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:12 am
- Location: Northumberland
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
I get given cardboard by people who are convinced I'm daft. I'm teaching them to keep their pure cotton and wool clothes to cut up and include in compost heaps as well rather than send them off to landfill.
I've eventually taught my daughter that teabags and old cotton washing up clothes are acceptable in her offerings of vegetable peelings too.
I've eventually taught my daughter that teabags and old cotton washing up clothes are acceptable in her offerings of vegetable peelings too.
- Zech
- Site Admin
- Posts: 857
- Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 3:05 pm
- latitude: 52.36
- longitude: -3.84
- Location: Mid Wales
- Contact:
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
I got pretty excited when I saw a sign up a few miles from where we live saying, "Free horse manure"
---
Rachel
Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.
My blog: http://growingthingsandmakingthings.blogspot.com/
Rachel
Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.
My blog: http://growingthingsandmakingthings.blogspot.com/
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
I put a pot in the kitchen at work for people to put their used teabags in and excitedly checked to see how many had been donated everytime I made a cup of coffee
There's a horse in the field next to home and I haven't quite got up the courage to nip over the wall yet, but it's only a matter of time!
There's a horse in the field next to home and I haven't quite got up the courage to nip over the wall yet, but it's only a matter of time!
I changed my signature because it was rubbish; I like what you said
- little blue duck
- Barbara Good
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:39 pm
- Location: Derbyshire. England
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
as a livestock keeper as well as gardener.. I have absolutely no shame in accepting & blagging all kinds of stuff!
Colleagues donate their egg boxes, carrier bags, old fruit & veg, peelings, windfalls, shredded paper & cardboard.
friends will pass on anything they've tried & dont like - wash powder, pasta sauces, dog biscuits etc
I bring home carboard boxes, shedded paper & bubble wrap from work (for when "He" sells on ebay) and I collect all kinds of pallets, slabs, bricks and stuff from people's skips! I can often be seen walking through town with odd things, or when I walk home from work, with dandelions & stuff for the animals.
last year, my friend moved house & offered me a table - I went round to fetch it & she said we could help ourselves from the garden.... it took us all the daylight hours of my husband's February birthday but we stripped the garden, greenhouse, shed & pond! she said it served the idiot ex right for bu**ering off and leaving it!
Colleagues donate their egg boxes, carrier bags, old fruit & veg, peelings, windfalls, shredded paper & cardboard.
friends will pass on anything they've tried & dont like - wash powder, pasta sauces, dog biscuits etc
I bring home carboard boxes, shedded paper & bubble wrap from work (for when "He" sells on ebay) and I collect all kinds of pallets, slabs, bricks and stuff from people's skips! I can often be seen walking through town with odd things, or when I walk home from work, with dandelions & stuff for the animals.
last year, my friend moved house & offered me a table - I went round to fetch it & she said we could help ourselves from the garden.... it took us all the daylight hours of my husband's February birthday but we stripped the garden, greenhouse, shed & pond! she said it served the idiot ex right for bu**ering off and leaving it!
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
Yes!
Next door isn't bothered about his garden and gets some gardeners in once s year to mow the law & weed the drive.
I popped in to talk about the evergreen hedge between us and got a massive bag of grass clippings ( his grassy bit is about 80 feet long) for my compost which has been a bit dry & struggling despite hubby and the dogs best efforts to water it (doggy thinks his dad is 'marking' so he joins in)
Dug in the grass last night and it already looks better this morning!! Yeay for free compost material!
Next door isn't bothered about his garden and gets some gardeners in once s year to mow the law & weed the drive.
I popped in to talk about the evergreen hedge between us and got a massive bag of grass clippings ( his grassy bit is about 80 feet long) for my compost which has been a bit dry & struggling despite hubby and the dogs best efforts to water it (doggy thinks his dad is 'marking' so he joins in)
Dug in the grass last night and it already looks better this morning!! Yeay for free compost material!
- Neko-Chan
- margo - newbie
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:18 am
- latitude: 41.4407° S
- longitude: 147.1272° E
- Location: Launceston, Tasmania
- Contact:
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
Yes, always! I love it when I can get a hold of free manure, and all my veg peelings go straight to the bin. At my old job (a coffee bar), I used to collect buckets full of the coffee and espresso grounds and throw them in the compost, giving it a major jump start!
I also get excited when I find meat "off cuts" in the grocery store: usually pieces of meat that people normally don't think about eating, such as tongue, heart and oxtail. They're usually cheaper than other, better known cuts of meat. I was pleased this weekend when a friend invited me over to help package up her steer, and sent me home with lots of good meat. :)
I also get excited when I find meat "off cuts" in the grocery store: usually pieces of meat that people normally don't think about eating, such as tongue, heart and oxtail. They're usually cheaper than other, better known cuts of meat. I was pleased this weekend when a friend invited me over to help package up her steer, and sent me home with lots of good meat. :)
-
- A selfsufficientish Regular
- Posts: 1237
- Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:31 pm
- latitude: 44.564
- longitude: 0.959
- Location: Lot et Garonne France
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
When our neighbor, lost his wife a few years back the OH, would often make a meal up for him and his two sons when they were busy in the fields.
The following September, came home from the town, to find the biggest heap mature cow sh-manure, on the veg garden, took me weeks to spread it around the gardens, and amongst my friends. My friends thanked them, in the usual manner.
So now every September they deliver the muck during the week and we have a
Thanksgiving at the weekend
The following September, came home from the town, to find the biggest heap mature cow sh-manure, on the veg garden, took me weeks to spread it around the gardens, and amongst my friends. My friends thanked them, in the usual manner.
So now every September they deliver the muck during the week and we have a
Thanksgiving at the weekend
I can't do great things, so I do little things with love.
-
- Tom Good
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Tue May 24, 2011 6:34 pm
- Location: pembrokeshire
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
having just aquired my 3rd compost bin,I've got some strange looks from family and friends when i've been known to shout "Don't you dare chuck that ! I'll have it for the compost. I have a lovely friend that lets me help myself to the lovely old horse manure pile in her field. Bliss !!!
For us to lose contact with the soil results in real unease and maladjustment...to recapture it affords profound joy and inward comfort. Sam Ogden
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
Basically I get excited by anything going free, for compost or otherwise. Bits of old rope on the road, clumps of straw or muck that have fallen off a tractor, collecting more leaves from the woods in the autumn to add to the leaf pile along with the odd bit of wood, asking the paint shop if any of their pallets are going free............... Making the most of everything makes me happy.
-
- Barbara Good
- Posts: 152
- Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:03 pm
- Location: West Cumbria
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
Hubby and I went to the Cemetery yesterday to put flowers on his Mum's grave. as we were leaving we passed the bins on the ends of the rows and they were full of dead flowers etc - I am seriously thinking of suggesting to the Council that they install brown recycling bins, or invite people to add dead flowers etc to a heap that could be raided by gardeners to add to their compost heaps...alternatively, I might just take a couple of big bags up there next time and help the council by relieving them of some of the green waste that will just go to landfill otherwise!
We all have two gifts we should try to use as much as possible - imagination and humour.
Imagination compensates us for what we are not.
A sense of humour consoles us for what we are.
And wisdom tells us not to worry about it!
Imagination compensates us for what we are not.
A sense of humour consoles us for what we are.
And wisdom tells us not to worry about it!
-
- Jerry - Bit higher than newbie
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:44 pm
- Location: Walsall, West Mids. UK
Re: Do you get excited over free composting material?
Today my my neighbours very neglected and unproductive garden was tidied up by her brother making a big bonfire of lots of branches etc. I just can't wait to ask for the wood ash.
I almost cry when visiting other peoples houses: How can they waste the way they do!
P.S. I have now had three buckets of wood ash and charcoal and a part bucket if cobbles and stones: My neighbour was delighted and so was I!
I almost cry when visiting other peoples houses: How can they waste the way they do!
P.S. I have now had three buckets of wood ash and charcoal and a part bucket if cobbles and stones: My neighbour was delighted and so was I!