Don't See Red! Turn Green.

If you have just moved to a new housing estate, you will most likely see cardboard boxes discarded by the contractors who have installed new appliances. What a waste when these can be collected to be recycled.

In some you may also see construction leftover or debris.

You may even see green waste being indiscriminately discarded .

While some of my fellow neighbours may see red over these, I would like to see green; Herbie Spiral green, that is.

I came across an article "Smart Gardening" by MARY BETH BRECKENRIDGE published in "The Star" on 15 May and discovered that one can easily build herb spirals by laying stones or bricks or broken tiles in a circular manner to look like a spiral staircase. 

Try googling "herb spiral design" for images and you will have an idea of what I am talking about.  That is how I discovered this video.



According to the article, "Build an Herb Spiral: Give Your Garden Ancient Flare" due to the spiral formation:

1) the top and center of the spiral will contain the driest soil and the sunniest growing area
2) the bottom and end of the spiral will have the wettest soil and the shadiest growing area

Though we do not have the 4 seasons to worry about, the articles posted at, "When to sow what", will give you an idea what is best grown on the sunniest or wettest part of the structure. 

For ease of movement as you work on it, the best dimension to create a herb spiral is:
Diameter: 2 meter high
Height at Centre of Spiral: 1 meter high

Happy gardening and let us hope that no one will be fighting over the following abandoned materials required for building the Herb Spirals:

1) cardboard
2) stones, bricks, tiles
3) dried cuttings

Of stones, lallang and snakes...

My neighbours spotted snakes in their compound! What should I do to protect my family against being bitten by one? I called the MPkj personnel covering Zone 8 in Kajang about it and was told to call Jabatan Bomba at "994" if assistance is required to capture the snake and for some guidelines on what to do on sighting one. I also did a search on "snake like to hide in" and came across a link to "How do snakes hide?" and found the following answers: 1) Depending on the snake they usually are hidden in grasses (lallang) or small tight spaces like under parts of rocks and some even live in trees. (Oops, there are lots of trees, tall weeds and rocks where I live.) 2) Probably somewhere warm and dark. Popular hide outs are under floorboards, in unfinished basements, under beds, or under shelves. (Seen this often on Discovery Channel.) 3) anything that they can go under................ (That sounds scary.) My neighbour told me that snakes eat frogs and that is worrying as we have a water feature in our garden that attracts them to breed there. So, how can I encourage my neighbours to work together on getting rid of stones or tall lallang that are often see in vacant units in a new estate? Herb Spiral to the rescue. What's that? Find out in my next posting.

The Green Thing

Something to think about from My InBox:

The Green Thing In the line at the supermarket, the young cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The old woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day." The young cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment." He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen almost the size of the wall.   In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.   Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We either used a push mower that ran on human power, or we use manual sickle.   We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled fountain pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service.   We had one power point in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.   And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-ass young person. Remember: Don't make old people mad. When we get mad we use logic!