It was lovely to have some new (and old) faces join us for the first working bee of the semester. Although there isn't much planting, harvesting or weeding to do right now (everything is growing so slowly at the moment!) we managed to find lots to do in the garden: another lick of "Spinach Green" paint on the shed, putting some stepping stones in, taking cuttings of vietnamese mint, marjoram and thyme, planting jerusalem artichoke peelings (they regrow extremely easily), tidying up the herb spiral, feeding the worms and planting some leek seedlings.
And, as always, we turned the compost. But this time there was a change in the air: we've got a new source of carbon to balance out the nitrogen in all the kitchen scraps. We have three bulging bags of sweet-smelling coffee chaff, delivered completely for free by Allpress Espresso, who hate chucking this waste product from coffee roasting in the bin. We love using coffee chaff, because it is a local, organic waste product which breaks down quickly and smells dreamy (kind of like toffee or slightly over-cooked biscuits). As an added bonus, it is free and we are trying to work out a way to return the bags to Allpress so that it is also packaging-free. We think this is a much better carbon source than shrink-wrapped sugar cane mulch which has been trucked in from Queensland. If you'd like some coffee chaff for your compost at home, you can come and grab some of ours or go straight to Allpress. Or, why not ask your local coffee roaster? You shouldn't have trouble finding one - they are pretty much on every corner in Melbourne! |
AuthorsRead all about it: MUC Garden and Burnley Student Association share updates on their activities. Blogs about...
All
|