Hello and welcome Guardian readers

@GdnLiveBetter   @gardenorganicuk

Today I am very excited!

I was delighted when The Compost Bin was added to the Guardian Live Better Grassroots green blogs list on Twitter, and today I am even more delighted to be the Sustainable Blog of the Week.

So I’d like to welcome Guardian readers to The Compost Bin, where I write about us and our life here at what we jokingly refer to as Compost Mansions (it isn't a mansion btw, but a normal detached house in the country).

 

We are not totally self sufficient deepest darkest greens here by any means (!) but we do try to live a bit more of a self reliant lifestyle. We have, during the years we have lived here, gained a lot of experience of how to grow stuff, compost, keep chickens, manage woodland, preserve food and live on a smallholding, which I like to write about and share. So there are (I hope) lots of good ideas on this blog; some are ours and some we have gleaned from other people. 

Please do read and enjoy and share any of our ideas or experiences, after all that is why I write about our lives! And please, do leave a comment as I love to read comments and I try really hard to reply :)

Thank you for reading and welcome, once again, to The Compost Bin :)

Sarah aka Compostwoman xxx

Wordless Wednesday - Jungle Cat Cassi

A difficult challenge.

If you may recall, back in March I wrote about an interesting new on line project starting in the Guardian  called "Live Better".


Each month, it focuses on a different area of sustainability, this month's challenge on the Live Better Site is  : to recycle and reuse everything you possibly can, instead of throwing it away.I signed up to join in, as I have done with the previous challenges on food waste and energy consuption. In each of the previous challenges I found ways to reduce my food waste or energy consuption even though the changes were minimal.

I actually found it very difficult to take part in this challenge - I am sure we could re use and recycle more than we do, but I am blowed if I can see where to be honest.Which has made me think about how we could reduce our waste still further in the longer term as I hate to be complacent.

That is not a criticism of the challenge btw, I think it is a really good idea and it has certainly given me some food for thought! A  few years back I would have found it easy to reuse and recycle more, but maybe that is the problem? We have already done so much here in our lives on the reduction and recycling front that it gets harder and harder to do even more?

I guess if we bought no packaged, prepared goods at all we would reduce packaging waste - but it is very difficult to do so and  we make sure we buy recyclable packaged goods. I honestly cannot see how we could increase our recycling as we already recycle everything we can. We re use a lot of it, first as well. And as for composting...! Well lets just say nothing goes uncomposted. Except - we could have a composting toilet. Now that's a plan.

Does anyone else find challenges like these hard to do, just because it is the normal, routine way of life for you? I am sure that other challenges would be more difficult for us (cutting out computer use, anyone? Or maybe eating local, with zero imported goods at all such as coffee, chocolate, spices etc?) 

Comments welcome please

The problem with squirrels

 @JacobiJayne  #feedthebirds


As well the Woodpecker "problem"  I talked about in my last post, we also have a real problem with squirrels. Our wood is home to a number of grey squirrels and, as long as that is where they stay, we adopt a "live and let live" attitude to them. Indeed we are amused and entertained by their antics. One year, though,  the numbers multiplied and suddenly they were eating all the apples, all the growing crops and even chewed into the polytunnel. That year we had to resort to live trapping and shooting some to restore the balance, but usually we all get along together. The squirrels do however love to eat the bird peanuts and seed and will chew up any vulnerable feeder to get to the food. I use squirrel proof metal Droll Yankee nut feeders which work well but have not, so far, come across any squirrel proof seed feeders. I have been resigned to just regularly buying complete new feeders to replace the damaged ones.

So when I was contacted by conservation products company Jacobi Jayne & Co to see if I would like to try out some of their products I immediately said yes.  I had a lovely chat on the 'phone with Graham from Jacobi Jayne about squirrels, gardening, birds and wildlife in general and I outlined my problem with squirrel damaged feeders. As a result I was offered two different seed feeders to try;  one of which says it is 100%  squirrel proof and the other a general purpose easy to clean feeder but in which all the parts can be replaced.

When the parcel arrived I realised I had also been sent a couple of big feeder hanging hooks and a 12.5 kg bag of Special Mix bird food, so thanks Graham!

The One feeder is a standard looking bird feeder but is very easy to take apart for cleaning ( it is a very good design) and I can see it would be easy to just replace any chewed or damaged parts so I was impressed even before I hung it out.

The Squirrel Buster was easy to assemble and I could immediately see how hard it would be for a squirrel to get at the seed!

 Fill up the inner hopper

 Add the outer mesh cover - here it is open for birds to eat the seed

but if a squirrel tries to get to the food  (Compostman's hand pretending to be the squirrel, here)  the extra weight of the squirrel makes the cover slide down and blocks the feed. What a brilliant idea.

These two new feeders went out on to the bird table along with the Droll Yankee nut feeder - the birds immediately began to use the new feeders, and as usual the hens hung around waiting for the dropped seed (sigh)

 

You can buy Jacobi Jayne conservation products in shops or online at their website Living with birds
There is a wealth of useful information on the site and they sell lots of other products for wildlife. The Squirrel Buster retails at £24.95, The One feeder will be launched in mid June and the medium sized one (above, lhs of the pole) I am using would sell for £11.49.

I haven't seen a squirrel try the Squirrel Buster yet but I bet it will find it hard to get at the feed. I will keep you posted and try to get a photo if I can!


Disclaimer. I was sent the feeders, a couple of hanging hooks and a bag of seed to review. All opinions are my own.

Feeding the birds

 #feedthebirds  #rspb

We are very lucky here at Compost Mansions as we are host to lots and lots of wildlife, including lots of birds :)

At the moment I am having to avoid work around the front of the house due to Mrs Blackbird nesting

Can you see her? Click on the photo to make it larger and you can see her yellow beak in the middle of the image.

When we do the Big Garden Birdwatch we always have lots of different birds on our list, and of course we follow the advice from the RSPB on feeding "our" birds all year round. This can be a problem, though, when some of the residents decide to sabotage our efforts by drilling holes in the bird table pole.

This was done by one of our many Greater Spotted Woodpeckers. They come and take peanuts and usually fly to the nearest tree ( we offer them lots here!) to wedge the nut in a hole or crack to eat. But we now have at least one very lazy 'pecker, who hops off the nut feeder (to the right of the pole) and just sticks the nut in this hole to eat! I fear we may need a new pole for the bird table fairly soon.

So I decided to dig out a metal bird feeder pole I was given as a gift ages ago and had never got around to using (sorry, Sue!) to see if that would deter the vandal. It has a mesh food tray, hangers for three feeders and a water tray and I don't think even our Woodpecker will be able to drill into it. I try to put out more food at this time of year so an extra feeder pole seemed a good idea.









The kit was was easy to put together and, so far, the birds love the extra feeding station. The Woodpecker is just taking nuts from this new one and flying to a near by tree to eat them. Hopefully this may fix the pecking problem!