Handy hint for winter months. Keep a sunlight liquid type squeeze bottle of water in your car for when you go out in evening and find front car window frozen. We also keep a clean bucket of water at our back and front doors for local cats to have a drink of water. These are […]
Timebanks and LETS (local energy transfer system) are excellent groups to join to help live more prosperously without money (or certainly with a lot less money)… We have Eastbay Timebank in Whakatane and surrounding areas…. Google for your local one.
Dont buy it if you havent got the money saved. Then concider is it a Want or Need? You will appreciate it more if you need to wait. You never know it may be On Sale when the time comes. Bonus!!
I make raised gardens out of discarded pallets. There is a business not far from us that puts them outside their premises for people to have free. I dismember them and re-cut the timber to suit. The result is a raised garden about 800mm by 500mm by 300mm high. It takes about three pallets to […]
Instead of throwing out tin cans I punch some holes in the bottom and use them as plant containers for herbs. I have them sitting in a sunny spot in the kitchen. [Painted bright colours, they are also good for a kid’s garden. – Oily Rag Ed’]
Bev has responded to last week’s column about fire ash as a garden fertiliser. “There are a couple of kitchen waste products that are also good fertilisers for the garden. Egg shells are high in calcium so do the same job as lime. I store the shells for a week then bake them for about […]
We have a number of raised garden beds. This is an ideal base to add a mini green house. We built one that was only about 500mm high with a sloping lid which can be propped up using some old casement stays we had in the shed (my hubby never throws anything out!). It’s perfect […]
Anita says she loves winter fires. “We use our freestanding wood fire to slow-cook winter meals in our cast iron pot. The bonus is we save on electricity, and we have ash from the stove to put on the garden”. Using wood ash is a very good oily rag trick. Spreading ash onto plants gives […]
I use wood chips to keep slugs and snails off the garden – spread it liberally around the paths and the slugs and snails won’t go over the chips into the garden.
For a fire starter, I take a few leaves, fold them over and wrap them around to form a tights bundle. It’s excellent kindling. [Another reader uses the dried stalks from the flax flower as kindling. It’s light like balsa wood and very easy to burn. – Oily Rag Ed’]