TerraCycle is a very cool company — not only do they reuse milk jugs and pop bottles to package their Worm Poop plant food, they also turn old wine barrels into compost bins and rainwater collecting systems.
Now that I’m in a house with a garden, front yard and two decks, I’ll definitely need more than just leftover pasta water to keep all my greenery hydrated. So I’m getting a rain barrel like the one above and rigging it up to the bottom of my drain pipe, as this video demonstrates. I’m not sure where I’m going to find some extra cinder blocks to prop it up, but I do think I have some of that quarter-inch mesh wire leftover from when I constructed my compost bin (Um, OK, also, I think I can it’s safe to say that I never in my life thought I’d have extra quarter-inch mesh wire lying around the house … seriously, what have I become??).
Image from TerraCycle
February 4, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Speaking of worms… how about an update on yours? Did you have to bring them in during the winter. Where do you keep them at your new house. OR… like me, did you inadvertantly kill them all and are waiting for spring to start them over again???
February 4, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Cool! Just make sure you don’t use your collected water on food plants (if it’s asphalt). You can see the discussion from a post I wrote last May - I contacted our local Natural Lawn & Garden Hotline about issues with certain roof types. You’ll need to read through all the comments to get the info…
February 4, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Extra quarter-inch mesh wire lying around the house is very Macgyver and totally cool.
February 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm
You should really get a garden going once the weather is safe enough to start planting. Tomatoes are easy to start off with and after a few seasons, you’ll have more tomatoes than you will know what to do with (same thing goes for green beans)! Besides, it will taste better knowing that you’ve grown your own vegetables.
February 4, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Good point, csim33 — I should really write a whole other post about my wormies. What happened was: When I was selling my condo, my real estate agent came by and said there was no way this gigantic compost bin with fruit flies and smelly things and worms could be sitting in my living room for the open houses, so it had to go. I was going to put it in one of my storage lockers, but it’s REALLY hard to move because I constructed it in this awkward kind of way with a drawer that basically just falls out; and, on top of that, when I’m in my house I’ll have a green bin that gets picked up by the City of Toronto every week for composting anyway.
So, long story short: I spent a few hours digging up all the good soil and all the worms, put them all into two big buckets, and handed them over to my dad, who drove them back up to my mom’s garden. She dug a few holes for them, deep enough so they probably won’t freeze to death, and is crossing her fingers come Spring.
I’m not throwing out my food waste now, I’m just handing it over to someone else to compost. But bearing this in mind, I’m still looking at getting some more worms for myself in the Spring because the soil in my garden is pretty rough.
February 4, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Hey, we’re sort of in sync - toilets and rain barrels, which I blogged about recently, too. In our area, using rainwater is not legal, although I don’t think the water company has a big enforcement budget … but a jail stay is probably not green.
February 4, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Whoa, you can’t use rain water? How is that law even enforceable?
February 4, 2008 at 10:58 pm
You’ve got a yard now-you can have your own compost bin! To heck with waiting for the city to come get it once a week; there’s some good bins to be had through the city (or used to be) or Lee Valley or a dozen other places. Set ‘er up and you can feed it every day. I have the once-weekly pickup too (I, alas, have no yard) and the problem with it is you can get little white creepy crawlies (I’m not gonna say the name, they gross me out so much) around/on/in the bin if its been hot and rainy. Disgusting. Also, it means less diesel fumes spewed in front of your house as they do pickup.
February 5, 2008 at 12:23 am
I have lots of rocks if you could use those in place of cinderblocks, they all came out of that damn pond we are filling in.
February 5, 2008 at 12:25 am
Oh and also don’t buy any screws or nails for anything for the next ten years , I have a whole milk crate full of them left over from the renovation. This is what happens to you when you buy a house.
February 5, 2008 at 3:40 am
hahaha, i actually have a whole roll of wire mesh left over from bunny-proofing my apartment… i’m thinking of freecycling the excess. what the eff am i doing with mesh?? i don’t even own a screwdriver!
p.s. congrats on the new house!
February 8, 2008 at 12:25 pm
You can make your own rain barrel for under $40 like I did.
I bought a rubbermaid large garbage can ($25)and cut a near the bottom on the side. I picked a garbage that was flat on one side so it could be pushed back flush to the house.
I bought faucet for around $6 and a nut to attach it to the barrel for another $1.
I found that with the type of material that rubbermaid uses, the plastic is soft enough that you get a good seal between the faucet and nut and don’t need a rubber washer. If you use a different brand you may need one though.
March 2, 2008 at 4:47 am
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June 2, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Speaking of rain barrels, check out the new terracota rain barrel I got for my backyard! (pictures are in my blog)
June 2, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Here are the pictures:
http://garden-pond-accents.blogspot.com/2008/05/great-new-pictures-of-my-rain-barrel.html
June 5, 2008 at 12:08 am
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June 11, 2008 at 5:20 am
soma
August 2, 2008 at 12:45 am
That’s a good looking rain barrel! Where can I buy one in Toronto?
August 14, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Check out rain barrels made from recycled 55 gallon plastic barrels at http://www.yellowdograinbarrels.com.
Great Deal!!!!