Kitchen Garden Forum

I have just realized I am a compost addict. I just can't bear to throw a used teabag in the bin - full of lovely compost ! I have just brought home all our used teabags from a short break in Dorset to put in our garden. How sad is that !

Dear Happymouse, we have known you were a compost addict for ages.

Don't worry Happymouse, there's a lot of it about.

And look, Chantal has got up early to do some.

I can't pass a pile of horse manure without wishing I'd brought a bucket and spade with me.
And before you say it Herby - while I'm driving in the car!

...and before OH says it, I'm not sure about being in your car if you're passing piles of horse manure

Jenny, I was just like you regarding patches of manure in the road. In fact I used to drive around with a bucket & shovel in the boot of our car Then one day, we bought a new car, I found a lovely pile of fresh horse manure down a country lane and I shovelled it up and stupidly put the bucket on the back seat of the car. Took a bend a little too fast.... and you can imagine..... all over our new upholstery. My husband was understandably furious. I had a major cleaning up job to do and buckets and shovels in cars are now sadly BANNED.

I can remember when I was a child and the rag and bone man would come by with his cart and horse. My mum and I would be out in the road collecting the deposits before the neighbours got it.

Chantal, I'm not sure if you're dating youself there.

I've been uping our recycling lately. Making my partner save all our cardboard boxes that can't go in the council's recycling bin to take out to the allotment. I fish through the rubbish to take out things he's forgotten.

alan refail wrote:...and before OH says it, I'm not sure about being in your car if you're passing piles of horse manure

I promise I won't do it with you as a passenger, Alan.

Malk, I regularly pick things that could be composted out of our rubbish too. Things that could be composted anyway. I do wash my hands before making the dinner though. Well, usually.

Early 1960s Malk; you can work it out from there.

We're still as bad now. Rugby Pony Club is less than half a mile from my house and there's also stables very close. I often walk to the plot with my kitchen caddy in hand if I can see suspicious heaps up the road. Tim tries hard to pretend he doesn't know me if he happens to be there. He walked on the other side of the road last time.

I used to tie my own flies, for fishing, and my wife was fed up with me because I couldn't pass a dead animal on the road without chucking it in the back of the car! I always carried black bags for the animals, so what she was on about, I do not know!

You make fishing flies out of dead animals? Or did you just attract a lot of flies you could brain and use on a hook?

Chantal, The fur and feathers of animals and birds are used for fly tying. There are literally thousands of fishing flies like the Teify Terror, Haul y Gwynt, Doctor, Black Spider, Coachman. Some like the Dunkeld were first tied in the 1800's and some are relatively new. The larvae of things like Dragon Fly and Damosel fly are also tied. There are wet flies, which are used under the water, and dry flies used on top of the water. I could go on, but one thing is for sure, it's big business, with millions of pounds spent every year, for ready made flies or fly tying material, which, for quality feathers and fur, is not cheap. Hense my picking up of dead animals and birds. If they were too big, like Fox,then I would cut off the required bit (tail) before placing it in the boot!

fly tying, that takes me back i was brought up near a reservoir and I earned all my pocket money tying flies to sell in the lodge.

Mandy

and we would pick up a dead pheasant when we found one and steal peacock feathers from the zoo!