Day 56 of our Green Year: Bottle Composting

You may be thinking we are talking about composting bottles, but the truth is we are talking about making a portable composting machine that you can take with you. Whether you are on vacation, or even at work, why should you forget about going green when you are not home? This is where the portable bottle compost method comes into play.

You can easily make this portable compost device and take it with you wherever you go. Now you don't have to throw things out that could be composted when you can simply put them in the bottle and compost it from your car, hotel room or office.

These are really easy to make. To make them, you need these items:

• A Two-Liter Plastic Soft Drink Bottle
• Two Cups of Fruits and Veggies Scraps, all chopped up.
• One cup of grass clippings or leaves
• Two cups of garden soil.
• Blood and bone fertilizer if you have it.
• One newspaper torn into squares.
• Spray bottle with water.
• Spoons for the soil.
• Tape and a marker

To make the compost bottle, follow these steps:

1. Remove the label from the bottle, leave the lid on and cut about three-quarters of the way up the bottom to form a flip top.
2. Put the soil into the bottom and then moisten it with the spray bottle. Put a layer of fruit scraps in, then cover with soil about one cm thick.
3. Put some fertilizer in it.
4. Add leaves and then cover with another one cm of soil.
5. Put some fertilizer on that.
6. Place newspaper in the bottle and put another one cm of soil.
7. Put another layer of fruit and vegetable scraps in, cover with one cm of soil and sprinkle with more fertilizer.
8. Tape the top up and put it in a sunny spot on the window sill.

Afterwards, every so often, check to see if it is too moist (open lid) or too dry (add water). After a few weeks of adding composting to it, then take it out to the garden and put it in the soil.
This really makes a great portable compost bin for when you are on vacation or in the office.

If you have photos of you making this compost bottle, send them to crwbaird@gmail.com and we will put them up.
Here are a few photos of me using our manual lawn mower, which does a great job of the lawn.

Day 23 of our Green Year: Going Green On The Lawn

Well, with spring comes the time to mow our lawn, and since Layla and I have a large front yard and backyard, there is a lot of lawn to mow. That being said, we have decided we will not be mowing our lawn with a gas or electric mower, and have instead decided to go old school with our mower.

We will be using a Reel Mower, which is a mower that cuts grass as you push it around. The motor is you and they have been designed to be lightweight and easy to push around.
So now not only do we get great exercise pushing the mower around, but we also don't deal with gas at all, which means we do not put any CO2 into the atmosphere just so we can cut our grass.

We were quite surprised by prices for the mower, we thought they would be expensive but the one we are purchasing one for only $99 at Canadian Tire. These mowers have been proven to last longer than other mowers, if they are cared for properly, and they are even better for your lawn.
When most people cut their lawn, they cut it too short for one thing, but they also collect all the grass in bags and then dump it elsewhere. When you let the Reel Mower cut up the grass and leave it on the lawn, it creates a great natural mulching system that will actually help your lawn.

This is just the start of going green with our lawn. You can check back in the future as we use a rain barrel to deal with watering, we use natural fertilizers and more!

A traditional gas lawnmower puts 22 pounds of CO2 in the atmosphere for one hour use. This means, that if we mow the lawn, one hour every two weeks from April to September, that puts 264 pounds of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is exactly what we are taking out of the atmosphere with our Reel Mower.

Some good news! We were awarded the Blog of the Day award from http://blogofthedayawards.blogspot.com/ so that is great! Word is getting out! Thanks everyone!