Erin FoxChildren’s Corner with Erin Fox
World Earth Day is next week on April 22 and to celebrate the day there are plenty of things to do to help take care of the environment.
With the water charges now in place, conserving water is a good place to start. There are several ways of saving water such as turning the tap off while you brush your teeth or washing dishes, reducing time spent in the shower or reducing the amount of bath water you use.
Making a compost heap is one of the best ways of caring for the environment as it preserves water as well as benefitting the earth in other ways. By creating your own compost you have created the starter to a healthy and colourful garden. Compost is food for gardens as it adds nutrients to plants and conditions soil.
Homemade compost saves on water, recycles food and garden waste and in doing so, reduces the amount of waste you dispose of and of course it helps to feed your garden. You can buy a compost bin or make one with your family. Make two – one for outdoors and one for indoors so you can empty it regularly into the outdoors bin. For the indoor one, use a plastic container pierced with holes to allow air in. Store it in a cupboard under the sink to prevent fruit flies from getting in.
Bring your green ways to school and create a compost heap as a class project. When starting a compost heap at home or at school, make it a long term project. Follow up by using the compost when planting bulbs in the autumn and seeds in the springtime.
Foods such as fruit and vegetables are ideal for composting. Chop up large scraps of waste to speed up the compost making process. While having a compost heap starts the way to a healthy garden, there are still pesky things to look out for such as slugs and snails eating away at the plants. Egg shells can be composted too but reserve them for making a homemade slug repellant. Place egg shells on a roasting tray and leave inside the oven just after it has been switched off.
When the oven has cooled down, remove the eggshells and grind with a mortar and pestle until grainy, but not too fine. Sprinkle over the flower beds and this will prevent slugs and snails from getting at the plants.