However that is our choice and, of course, everyone has to make up their own mind about whether they feel it is safe or not. Today I received an email from a reader who had come across the original post and he told me about a product he had bought on ebay to use as a lining. It is a drinking water safe pondliner that he is using to line his wicking beds and, if you are interested, you can view the product here. It has a ten year guarantee. It is a tad too expensive for us at this stage of our life but I thought I would let my readers know about this product in case anyone was looking for a similar product.
Wicking beds are great to use especially in parts of Australia which don't receive a lot of rain or where it is really hot. Rob Bob has lots of YouTube videos about how he made his wicking beds and he has a great garden. There are heaps of helpful gardening hints on his YouTube Channel so do check it out if you have time and are a keen gardener.
If you have no qualms about growing food in styrofoam boxes you might be interested in Roman's Self Watering Planter Box and he gives easy instructions on how to make them. He and his wife have a very interesting website and I read last night about their Chemical Free Cockroach Catcher. We don't like using pesticide and as we live in Queensland and in an old house where cockroaches love to dwell, they are a problem in summer. So I thought I would give the catcher a go and see if it worked. The idea is to put a banana skin in the bottom of a bottle and put vaseline or oil inside the top of the bottle and the cockroaches get in but can't get out and then they can be fed to the chooks. We don't have Vaseline so I used oil. The instructions on the site are to put it on the top of the bottle but I guess it should go inside towards the top. Anyway that is where I put the oil and my bottle is ready for business and waiting for the lights to go off and then there might be some action and hopefully the 'girls' will be very happy tomorrow morning :-)
I also love the State of the Art Technology - Maggot Grower Tin. If you haven't seen this before on Roman's website or when he appeared on Gardening Australia you really will have to check this out. He has lots of other inventions on this page and there are so many things there I would love to make. This couple is really quite inspirational.
On the home front the CEO has recovered from his operation last week but is now suffering badly from a self inflicted injury sustained while thinking he was still 21 when he shifted about 9 ute loads of dirt a couple of weeks ago. He can hardly move his shoulder and can't get an Ultrasound and XRay done for over a week to diagnose whether he has torn something. So there will be no gardening done and there are lots of garden beds to get ready so we can plant all the seedlings we have bought. I hope to get some planted this week although there are high temperatures forecast mid week even though it is not officially autumn. Who knows what the weather will do these days?
The reader I mentioned earlier wasn't able to comment on my blog today and I must apologise for that but I changed my blog settings so that people can't post anonymously any more as I was getting so much spam and I think that readers need to have a Google account now to be able to comment. Someone more knowledgeable than I am about the ins and outs of blogging might be able to enlighten me on that. If you can't comment and do need to contact me you can fill out the contact form on my sidebar if you don't mind and I will get back to you.
I will leave you with a couple of photos I took this morning of some of the wildlife on the dahlias. I am sure they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Hope the CEO get better soon. Love Roman and Jana's wicking boxes and I also have no qualms about using Styrofoam - my research tells me it is only dangerous when heated. So, when full of cool earth this never is a problem.
ReplyDeleteThey have so many great ideas on their website don' t they, Phil? I thing Rhonda said on her blog that they have to move.
DeleteYes the landlords are knocking their old complex down - I am certain they will flourish where ever they go.
DeleteThanks for the link to the wicking bed video Chel. Making a wicking bed is something I have thought about for some time now. I was sorry to read that the CEO is now suffering from a sore shoulder. My husband is too, I have suggested a few times he see the physio, but he is toughing it out at this point. His soreness stems from a problem in his neck. I hope the CEO recovers quickly. He must be feeling a bit miserable. Your dahlias are a beautiful shade of pink.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it doesn't pay to tough it out, Sherri. However many of us do and end up being worse off unfortunately.
DeleteThis was a post with a bit of everything, very informative and finishing with a flourish. I love how you call him the CEO. Who, by the way, are usually useless without their PA.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, trust you, Lynda :-)
DeleteHi Nanna Chel,
DeleteI showed my parents the way Roman did with the foam boxes. I printed out the instructions and away they went to try it. At Christmas time when they were here, mum was bragging about her two tomato plants in a foam box that were producing better than dad's that were planted in the soil. She was very well pleased. The good thing about it is you can add fertiliser into the water and they really boom.
My opinion about the foam boxes is this; they transport our veggies in them so you would hope they are food safe. The store veggies are sprayed with all sorts of nasties and we eat them, so I guess the good of home grown veggies without pesticides outweighs the bad.
xTania
I think the CEO is concerned that down the track it will be found out that there was leaching into the soil from the styrofoam and that it will be a bit like what happened with growing potatoes in tyres which was common years ago until it was discovered that there was cadmium going into the soil from the tyres.Hopefully it is safe though as they are so easy to make into wicking beds.
DeleteNanna Chel,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links. I hope the CEO gets better those joint pains can be terrible.
-Shiralee.
Thanks Shiralee. He is still in pain as the painkillers don't do a real lot but hopefully he will have a diagnosis soon and will find out if he has torn something.
Delete