HOME’s staff and volunteers are keeping sustainability in mind during lockdown in a variety of ways. Here’s a look at what they’ve been up to and some tips for how your can have yourself a #sustainablehome.
Make a bug hotel – Suzanne Smith
Suzanne’s bug hotel was made using an empty drinks bottle, rolled up takeaway flyers, string, twigs, leaves and bark. It’s a great way to use upcycled waste to support your local insects and pollinators.
DIY body scrub using everyday kitchen ingredients – Nazma Noor
Nazma’s been making her own beauty products, from tumeric face masks, to using egg whites to condition her hair. Her latest creation involved combining olive oil, sugar and honey to make her own body scrub.
Homegrown spuds – Suzanne Davies
Suzanne is on a mission to homegrow some spuds. To do this, she currently has some potatoes “chitting” in an egg box. Chitting is the process of breaking the dormancy of a potato tuber and encouraging it to grow shoots, before planting.
Growing rhubarb in an unexpected place – Victoria Howarth
Victoria thought her rhubarb plant had given up because the pot it lived in was too small. She threw it into her compost bin, where it’s now thriving!
Bokashi tea in Queensland – Gill Borkin
Gill is currently in Queensland, on her friends little farm in Witta. Over on the farm they’re is using a system known as Bokashi that converts food waste into a soil fertiliser. It’s a little bit different to other composting methods. They collect food waste and this goes into food bins in the kitchen on a daily basis. Then the food waste goes into a special airtight bin, with a supply of fermentation starter called bokashi bran and left to ferment for a few weeks. When organic matter is fermented, it breaks down and releases a liquid that runs off into a container through a tap on the Bokashi bin. The liquid that runs off is diluted with water and then can be used to fertilise the soil and the plants on the farm..The run off is sometimes called bokashi tea! The left over matter is put onto the traditional compost heap to compost slowly.
Bokashi is a Japanese word meaning fermented organic matter
Queen of gardening, repurposing and sustainable living – Claire Dorsett
Claire’s little back yard container garden is fabulous! The plants she’s growing include Kale, Spinach, Rocket, Mint, Rosemary, Lavender and Rhubarb.
She has a bird box and a bee hotel on the walls, with vegetables growing in guttering salvaged from her grandma’s back garden. You’ll find turned wooden pallets and old plastic milk bottles used as pots and planters. She even found a second hand composter on gumtree and furniture from a reclamation yard.
She uses Gardener’s World, Garden Rescue and her mum as her fountains of knowledge!
She does indoor growing too – check out her great use for old loo rolls and yoghurt plants to grow from seed.
#SustainableHOME lockdown tips for you
- Manchester’s Finest have teamed up with Ancoats boutique plant store Northern Lights to share their tips on how to look after your house plants.
- I’ve got grand plans to turn the fly-tipped pallet in the ginnel into a planter in the back yard. It might never happen, but Hubbub’s Give it a Grow guides have given me the inspiration.
- City of Trees aims to plant a city for every citizen of Manchester. They’ve developed a host of events online and ways for you to get involved.
- Lancashire Wildlife Trust has a host of free guides for green living. Get involved with the City Nature Challenge taking place 24-27 April.
- Get involved with community gardening in your neighbourhood. Let’s Keep Growing and Platt Fields Market Garden do brilliant things.
- Learn more about pollinators, can you identify which species of bee you’ve spotted?
Ways to bring nature into your home
- Go on a virtual tour of Kew Gardens
- Take a Walk in the Park with the podcast from our neighbours over at the Whitworth
- Listen to musicians duet with birds Singing with Nightingales from the Nest Collective
- Check out the brilliant tips and tricks from Patagonia Manchester, including their work with our friends the Carbon Literacy Project
- Watch Honeyland on Curzon