Shredded garden waste.

The dried garden waste goes through the mulcher fast and without jamming.

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Garden waste is trimmed short while green and left to dry in the top section of an IBC. It’s important for the mulcher that greens are short, or else they wrap around the shredder shaft and jam the machine. It’s also important that garden waste fed into the mulcher is dry, so it blows out the shredder without sticking to the exit grate and also jamming the machine.

Fixing the second hand mulcher.

I’m adding the mulcher to the blog because I have a feeling this is going to be an ongoing saga. I bought the chipper mulcher (COX model 7204h)for $150 second hand. One of the three rotor arms was bent over, that’s the bent peice of flat bar at the bottom of the photo. The air chisel and a hammer freed the bent rotor arm from the welds that weren’t already fractured. Six millimeter plate was never going to hammer back into place nicely while the rotor was still attached to the engine. The seller’s optimism that a good hit was all that was needed was probably to hide that the rotor is well and truly seized onto the engine shaft. Oh well. Also well that ends well. All the old welds were ground back and with the new bar everything welded back into position.

Lots of larvae for the chooks.

May need to add some pipe to the feeder to hold the quantity of larvae gathered after a few days from last collection.

Hustle and bustle.

It’s hustle and bustle in compost town. A growing population of soldier fly. Finally! I’m worried by what appears to be pale and not pre-pupae crawling off…

Frenzy.

Visible in the background of this photo is the twin BSFL compost bins. As soon as I touch a collection canister the chooks are in a frenzy.

Here it comes!

The moment the chickens have been waiting for. Down the larvae feeder they go.

Pay dirt.

Looking down the collection canister, finally the harvest is begining for soldier fly larvae from the bins.

Stragglers

From a whole bulb of garlic, only four or five cloves developed no signs of life. These two stragglers are getting an extension. One had roots and no sprout, the other a sprout and no roots.

Shoot’n sweet potatoes!

Sprouting so quick you can see it growing before you very eyes.