Travelling On

greenbee

edinburgher said:

@Karmacat - ink might not be the best thing for the garden in terms of the components - but I'm pretty sure the organic material being added makes it a net win 🤔 Pretty much in the realms of guesswork here!

I think if the paper is burned, the ink probably isn't an issue. TBH I don't think it is if it's composted either - the proportion of ink to paper tends to be pretty low. I mix both shredded paper and ash into my compost heap (mostly wood ash, but there may be a bit of coal ash too, which i'm going to try to remember to keep separate now I'm growing veg). Wood ash is good as mulch round fruit trees. 

Suffolk_lass

I also compost shredded paper, it is great for layering between grass clippings to stop the nasty dry layer you can get

I_Love_comps

@Karmacat I have just read through your diary.  I have bookmarked it to continue following your journey.
You are lucky that your green bin collection goes on through the Winter months.  Where I live it stops in November and resumes in March

Karmacat

Thank you all for the discussion on paper and ash into the garden, that's really useful - I'd forgotten about inky issues.  I seem to remember somewhere that lots of shiny magazines shouldn't be part of your regular input to your garden or compost heap?  Not that I have any!

I Love Comps, hello!  My word, there's a lot of diary to read that's really something.  The green bin saga is a combination of mad luck, you're right, but sadly also annoyance at other parts of the system: I'm lucky it carries on through the winter, I'm even luckier that it's not actually my bin, but my neighbour's (I buy him a really nice bottle of red wine at Christmas ) I'm lucky that thanks to his generosity in giving me space in his bin I've almost caught up with the backlog of green stuff caused when I fell ill and could do so little.  But I'm ever so slightly teed off that, after I started yabbering on about it on here, I discovered that lots of people don't get charged for a green bin at all!   I've just checked on my local authority's website, its £70 a year, paid upfront, for 25 collections (they miss the one around Christmas, fair enough!).  

What's it like where you are?  Do you have a garden yourself?  Fruit and veg, or flowers, or both?  I'm always interested in other people's gardens  

Karmacat

Thanks to two sets of exercise yesterday (navvying plus a walk immediately after) I slept really well, even though my circulation felt sluggish by the time I went to bed.  Got up lateish for me (8.15), started even slower than usual, so I'm only just looking at what I want to do with the day   
- there's  a spill of liquid soap I need to deal with, I was stacking things after plotting an orgy of facemask sewing, and it's all over the floor.  Did an emergency wipe when I saw it, but it needs a proper go today.
- kitchen!  Tidy the flour away, stack the dishwasher, watch the ready to roast parsnips which are now in the oven, put the washing machine on, as I've been working through the patchwork stash and found useful materials for facemasks and their straps.  By this time next week, there could be practice at straight lines on the sewing machine, you never know!
- cut my hair.  This will actually take about 5 minutes max, as it's straight across the bottom.  I don't want to wash it when it's this length again, and I *really* need to wash my hair 

I_Love_comps

Yes. I do have a garden. Myself and my OH did neglect the garden (due to family illness), but we are slowly getting the garden into a better shape.  Our garden has too much ivy and weeds.  We do not grow any vegetables or anything . There a few bushes which flower.  I much prefer seeing a nice display of colourful flowers than greenery 

apple_muncher

We too have to pay for the green bin, karma, so we don't have one. Nobody on our part of the estate does. We don't even have wheelie bins. When the place was built (60/70s), there was an outside bin cupboard with meters in the top half and a bin in the bottom. Still like that. Management co have even said NOT to have wheelie bins a s it would spoil the outsides!!! And there's prob a clause somewhere in the deeds about spoiling the outside look... Also re not hanging washing oh on a Sun. Or having a satellite dish (that one is just ignored!).

Anyhow, out garden is tiny enough for my dalek-shaped compost bin to be enough, most of the time. So we just have a few runs to the tip throughout the year. Don't know what other people do here...

rtandon27

Our council does not offer garden bins or compost bins!  We are lucky that living in a rental in a rural area the farm-hand will take away all the garden matter for burning, which then gets tilled into the soil for the owner's greenhouse, orchard & berry patch.  Unfortunately as it is a rural location, there are too many wild creatures that would get into a compost bin, so kitchen scraps get put into the regular bin.  We do however have decent enough recycling, so glass, paper, tins & the common plastic get sorted into their allocated bins.

Cheery_Daff

It's interesting how everywhere is so different, isn't it? I think our area has a food waste collection wheelie bin, which I think you can add green waste to - but because we're on a stupid special 'rural service' we don't have that (or glass collection). We just compost everything ourselves - I built a lovely three bay system which takes all the  non-cooked kitchen scraps, chicken bedding and garden waste, and provides me with excellent garden compost 😁

Paspatur

I pay £30 a year for garden waste collection which is every fortnight all year, although was monthly during first lockdown. Food waste can also go in this and we get free food compost caddy and compostable liners, although the source of these has now been closed for nearly a year. Most of my food compost goes in my compost bin anyway. Some neighbours refuse to pay it but I think it is a bargain as I have no transport.