Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Showing posts with label MoneySupermarket.com. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MoneySupermarket.com. Show all posts

Friday, 19 July 2013

Not safe to let me go to Garden Shows!


I was very kindly sent some money by MoneySupermarket.com as part of my entry to their home improvement hero  competition.

 They are asking 
Is it possible to change the look, feel and even functionality of a room on a low budget? We’re asking bloggers to provide step-by-step instructions to help educate the nation on how to carry out simple, yet effective home improvements. Whether you have skills in craft, art or DIY, we want to see what you can do with a £50 budget.
 My bright idea was to use the money from this competition to change the look, feel and  functionality of my "garden room" ( ie flower beds) outside my sitting room.

I wanted to improve the view from our sitting room and (nearly finished - yay!) newly refurbished bedroom, so when we looked out of the windows we would see lots of colour and insect life. The view  is not very attractive at the moment, with weeds and a half dug patch of soil on show.  This area used to have Leylandii trees, but they blocked the light and shaded the sitting room so last year we cut them down .

Compostman then dug the stumps out (using the JCB) and we moved a large tree Paeony into the hole, but that is all that has happened so far. It is a bit of a mess and as it is by the road and we look directly out on this area I felt it could do with a makeover.
 
View from sitting room and bedroom window

I was working with the idea that if I improve the view out of the window, I have also improved the room itself. Inspired by some of the planting I saw at Hampton Court I came up with a design for planting up a new herbaceous perennial flower bed, as well as some improvements to at least one other existing bed. I used some of the money to buy some nice new plants but this is going to be frugal flower planting as I can't afford to spend the sort of money on plants that I saw at Hampton Court!


I marked out where I wanted the new bed to go and then Compostman got to work digging, while I gathered up plants and seeds and took stock to decide what I would need to buy.

At the moment I have quite a good collection of plants I have grown from cuttings or seed. I also always keep an eye open for "past their prime" plants sold at a discount.  I bought three plants late last year (Coreopsis, Solidago and Aster) which would have been £8 each full price, for £1 pound each and re potted them and over wintered them.  These have been earmarked to go in my new flower bed.

I also took advantage of the good deals on plants at various local nurseries with  "4 for £10"  offers which I used to buy some rather nice RHS award of merit Geraniums as well as some Campanulas and Nepetas. I am also a member of various Garden Centre loyalty schemes so was able to get BOGOF deals on some of the plants I wanted to buy (the two Dahlias in particular were a bargain at £4 each)  I also got lucky at a local garden supermarket where they were selling various herbaceous perennials cheap because they looked rather tatty. A bit of tlc and some dead heading and they looked pretty good again and will look even better next year. They cost me £1 each rather than the £5 each full price.




I had no need to buy in soil improver, either! I dug out a lot of wood chip compost to enrich the very hard clay soil in the new bed. Note my lovely new wheelbarrow - thank you, Argos!

I then got cracking and and laid out the plants in their pots on the soil and arranged (and rearranged) them to my design. Then Compostman and I got to work planting them. As it is so hot at the moment we waited until the evenings so as to be a bit cooler.
 


I also had some summer flowering bulbs which I planted in the bed in drifts of colour. These were reduced at the end of last year so I got them cheap (£2 each pack) and planted them in pots to overwinter in the polytunnel - some of them came in handy today. I also planted some of the Crocosmia bulbs I got free from Spalding Bulbs.


I had a lot of (free) wildlife friendly seeds stored up, which I scattered around the herbaceous perennial planting. Hopefully it is not too late for these to flower if the weather continues fair. If not, I have more seed packets and will be sprinkling them on the bed next year. I have also planted some daffodils and snowdrops in this bed - we have a lot from where we were digging around the pool so I have moved a lot of bulbs across
part way through planting up.


Compostgirl helped me with some of the watering

The colour scheme starts yellow at the left, moving through orange, red, blue, purple, pale lilac and then finally white on the right of the bed, with the backdrop of the honeysuckle and the climbing rose on the fence. It still looks a little sparse; I wish I could afford to buy lots of each plants to re create the dense planting effects I saw at Hampton Court, but I can't so have done what I can, with what I have. I do have lots more cuttings growing, especially Lavender, Geraniums, Nepeta and Daisy though, so will be able to add more plants to this bed as time goes by.

Finished, for now


View through the sitting room window now

I view my garden as a part of my house; an "outside room" if you like, so I want to make it all as attractive as I can. With the money I got from moneysupermarket.com I could have bought a picture to hang on the wall in the sitting room but rather than a frozen image in a frame I have chosen to improve the view of the "living picture", outside. The wildlife love it as well!

I spent a total of £43 on plants for this new bed, both new and bought at a discount.  I have also planted three Pulmonaria  and a couple of extra Lavender plants, which I grew from cuttings for free.

Planting

Wildflower Seeds (free)
many different Bulbs (free)
Globe Artichoke x 3 (from Rocket Gardens delivery)
Solidago
Coreopsis
Dahlia
Geranium (split into two plants)
Campanula Globerosa (split into two plants, one used)
Nepeta (split into two plants, one used)
Aster
Salvia
Penstemon
Dahlia
Lavender
Pulmonaria (several, split from plants in the garden in spring)
Polemonium
Aqueligia
Centaurea
Philadelphus
White Foxglove
Campanula persicifolia (split into two plants, one used)
Buddlia alba


Most of these plants would be £5 each, to buy full price, some (like the Buddlia and the Philadelphus shrubs) would be £8 - £10 to buy so I think we have managed well to buy so many plants with the money :-)



So, if you want to plant up a frugal-ish herbaceous perennial flower bed, have a look round for discounted plants and give them some tlc, maybe re pot them into a bigger pot as well? If you can, split plants into two or maybe three? Also look out for discount flower seeds which you could sow now and then plant out as plants next year? At this time of year a lot of gardening magazine are giving away free perennials and biennials seeds on the covers, why not buy one and sow the seeds? And look out for BOGOF and multi - buy offers to collect lots of plants together.

Have fun!










Friday, 19 April 2013

30 Ways to Save £1.

No idea if I am too late to get the £30 from Moneysupermarket.com
but thought I would have a go at this, anyway :-)

This is what the Moneysupermaket.com website has to say

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the £1 coin, we're asking the UK's most talented and creative bloggers - that's you, by the way - to give us as many money saving tips as they can. We want 1,000, to be precise!

We realise that asking each of you to give us 1,000 ways is perhaps demanding a little too much, so we'd like to reach to the magic figure by getting up to 30 ways from each blogger.

To thank you for your hard work and inspiration we'll be giving away £1 for each money-saving tip (up to £30).



So here are my 30 tips to save at least £1 - in no particular order.

  1. Make compost if you can - it is free soil improver!
  2. Grow at least some of your own food - even without a garden you can grow a lot of food in pots outside and if you don't have an outside to grow in, you can grow herbs and salad leaves in pots on a windowsill.
  3. If you don't have a garden why not see if you can use someone else's?Or sign up for an allotment, or a scheme like Landshare?
  4.  Swap any glut of fruit/veg with other people for things you don't grow, or other items or services.
  5. Make wine, cider, flavoured spirits at home to save on alcohol purchases - they are lovely to give as gifts as well.

  6. Make jams, chutneys and store away- great as gifts and will save you money rather than buying shop ones.
  7. Make a meal plan.
  8. Make a shopping list based on the meal plan and what you already have left in the cupboard.
  9. Keep your fridge and freezer at the correct temperature, more efficient and avoids food spoilage. Keep the coils at the back free from dirt - helps with efficiency.
  10. Keep your freezer full - use bread or bags of ice cubes to fill any empty gaps - you will always use it sometime!
  11.  Cook only what you need to eat, unless you are deliberately cooking extras.
  12. Batch cook double ( or more!) quantities of casseroles, stews and freeze half for a quick meal from the freezer.
  13. Use a slow cooker - tasty, frugal as you can cook cheaper cuts of meat, and saves energy.
  14. Save leftovers and make another meal from them - or take them next day as lunch.
  15. If you have a meat joint, make stock with the bones after you have used all the meat and freeze in clean containers. Then you will always have stock ready to hand.
     
  16. Use up any "tired" veggies in home made soup - add a handful of lentils and it will be even more filling.
  17. Bake tray bakes, cakes and biscuits and cut up and open freeze - better and tastier than shop bought!
  18. Take a packed meal if you go out to save buying food .Or at least some snacks (which you have baked - see above!)
  19. Take a bottle of tap water with you to save buying expensive bottled water.
  20. Save money on Gym membership and get outside, digging the garden, going for a walk.
  21. Walk or cycle rather than drive, if you can. If you take a bus to work or college, get off a stop or more and walk - save money and get fitter.
  22. Get a railcard if you use the train or get a season ticket if you use the bus.
  23. Car share with colleagues, join a local scheme run by your work or council. If there isn't one, why not start one?
  24. Always have some change with you for car park, bus fare etc - so you won't have to make an unnecessary purchase just to get some change.
  25. If you need regular prescription medication buy a season ticket.
  26. Make your own soaps, balms, face oils and creams from raw materials cheaper and you know what you are feeding your skin!
  27. Learn to sew, and mend your clothes as soon as you see something in need of repair.
  28. Learn to change a car wheel, change a plug, unblock a drain etc, so you can make simple household repairs and not have to pay someone else.

  29. See if there is a local LETS or other barter system locally and join it.
  30. Use your local library to borrow books, games, cd's, dvd's rather than buying them.
  31. Try charity shops first if you need something as it is often cheaper. Or could you borrow it from someone you know? .
 I could go on, and on and on...but I will stop, now :-)
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