At home composting

After living in Oregon, a very eco friendly state, I am having a hard time adjusting to Tulum, Mexico. For one the town itself JUST became a city so the basic services that one would expect to find are just now coming in. One of the services that I cannot wait for is recycling in Tulum. I have heard that there is or was a recycling center but no one to run it. And you have to bring your items there. So with no pick up, no people at the center and very few people with cars you can imagine how much trash (and much of it recyclable) gets thrown on the floor. And this drives me especially crazy because Tulum is supposed to be this whole super eco place. It is part of its whole shtick.


Anyway. Since I am not currently recycling I needed to do something to offset my guilt. So I started composting, much to the dismay of my husband. Now, we live in very close proximity to a lot of people and have very limited space. The last thing I wanted was a stinky mess. I saw some various designs for garbage bin composers on many websites. The one I liked the most was this one.

I did not want to purchase and materials so I used what I had. In my case it is our old kitchen garbage can that has no lid be cause it broke and so I used the bottom half of my cats carrying case with a brick on top. When I make my next one, I will use a can that is round on the bottom so that it is easier to roll.

I took my husbands drill and drilled a bunch of little holes in it. If I had to do it over again, I would have cut out larger fist sized whole but lined the inside of the bin with fine screen and mesh wiring. I think that would let the air through better. But it is so hot here that it is doing just fine.

I have a little bowl on the counter and I throw it in every night or so. I also throw in all of the leaves that my husband gets when he rakes. We have to be careful though because there are a lot of weeds and i do not want those in the bin. I do throw in our tp rolls, cereal boxes, and egg cartons. That helps a lot for the dry part of the compost.

Even after a few months, I still have not filled up the bin and it is a small little container that comes up to my about my knees. I am trying to turn or mix it but it is really hard. I think that if I did a larger and round one it would be easier.

I went over to my friends house the other day and he had just started composting recently as well. He has already put the first layer on his garden. I hope that mine is ready soon. I might ask him to come and take a look at mine and see if I am doing it okay.

My garden has definatly not been going well. There seem to be more weeds then anything growing. Something about living on the beach has been hard. Oh well. It is a learning curve. I am not much of a gardener at all and learning to do it in the sub tropical climate of the Caribbean is proving to be challenging. I really took the environment in Oregon for granted. Things grow like mad there.

My garden

While I was in the USA with my kids I regret that my garden really suffered. For one, while I am sure he did it almost everyday, my herbs need to be watered 2 times a day. Most of the little herb pots were completely dried out. I have been nursing them back to health and some are making a great comeback.

My pumpkin did not make it. It had a ton of squash blossoms but the whole thing died before I we got any pumpkins. My corn also died. I think that was because it was not the right time to plant.

One problem I am having is with the soil itself. Someone told Ruben that the plants would probably not produce anything because the soil was not good enough. I need to be adding fertilizer. Well, the whole point of trying to grow my own food is to keep costs down so I really do not want to buy a bunch of expensive fertilizer.

Well, I have been doing some research and have found some home made fertilizer ideas. One is the egg shells and coffee grounds. We have eggs and coffee everyday so there is a ton of this to add to the garden. I also read about collecting sea kelp and soaking it in water for a month or 2. This is a good option for us as we live in a beach town. I also heard putting sand around my tomatoes will do wonders.

Some of the plants are doing really well but are not giving any fruit. This one is a pepper I think but there are no peppers????? There is also this other huge plant growing right in the middle of the pepper. I am not sure what either of them are really.

I have a few tomato plants that have finally started to grow but as of yet are not giving much. There is one little tomato on one of the plants but that is it?!?!?!

I really hope it changes soon.

My garden is Growing!!!

I had lost faith for a little while that nothing was going to happen with my garden. I have never really done a whole lot of gardening before except for house plants- which I had a ton of! But, so long as they are green they are fine. Fruits and veggies are so much more full of expectation.

I started the seeds back in late January. I had everything from onions, tomatoes, peppers (the top most important thing in any Mexican garden!!!) as well as corn, pumpkin, carrots, herbs --- all sorts of stuff.

When we planted them in the garden we got some serious rain down here. This ran a whole bunch of the seeds together. So other then the pumpkin, corn and tomatoes I am not really sure what any of the stuff that is growing is. Not to mention that since we get our dirt from the jungle (via the store!) things pop up out of nowhere.


My tomatoes plants grew a few inches tall and then just sat there for weeks and weeks. I asked Ruben's dad and he said that they were gaining strength and would grown with strong stems.

That is what is happening. The tomato plants grew almost over night and now are doing great. Now all sorts of stuff is popping up. I am very curious to see what it is going to be. hehehe

"make it work" slip cover

When we left the United States we left just about everything that was not breathing. Along with all of that stuff was our nice furniture. When we got to Mexico we bought our neighbors furniture. The sofa and chair are in terrible shape. I have been using our queen size sheets that I brought from the USA as slip covers. I would be using them as sheets but we only have a double bed.

Well, I have been getting really sick of fixing the slip cover every time someone sits down. So I came up with something that helps a lot.


I took the flat sheet and cut it length wise so each end could cover the seat and back portion of the sofa and chair. I then cut the fitted sheet into 4 sections. The corner sections fit really well on the arms of the sofa. It makes it so much easier to fix the sheet when they get messed up which is not nearly enough.

I am currently using another unused sheet to cover the pillows on the sofa. This is just because I do not like the orange cover that is on the pillow. When I come back from the USA I will bring some new fabric and recover things. I will post new pics.

It is ghetto but it works. And when you have NO money... you make it work.

Chocolate fondue

I am sorry for the long delay. I thought that this recipe was already here, oh well.

The chocolate fondue could not be easier. It was simply a pot of water, a bowl, some heavy cream and hershey's kisses. We would have used just chocolate chips or a bar, but we could not find anything like that. Those are the weird things that we seem to not be able to find. Anyway.



I also got the first yield from my garden... yep, 1 whole radish. Granted, it was good. But still, hopefully more grows soon. The corn has gotten bigger and the pumpkin is HUGE!!!!!

home made pots

Since this blog is more about becoming a domestic goddess in my new home and my new way of life- I am trying to relay all of the new things that i am learning and figuring out to all of my... well, probably not that many readers but still. Since we are living on a budget that by our old standards in the USA can only be described as insane, we have really tried to come up with new and interesting ways to use things that we would have other wise thrown out. Also because regrettably, the recycling system here in Mexico and especially here in Tulum is tragic. So we have come up with some pretty good ideas. One of my favorites is the use of our old soda bottles and in 1 case, an old bleach bottle (well cleaned ironically enough) for planters. I have finally gotten a bunch of herb seeds and have started to grow them. I took many 1 liter and 2 liter bottles and cut off the top 1/3rd. I punched a few holes in the bottoms and a few on the sides. It is my plan to hang the small "pots" from the rungs on the ladder that leads to the roof. Which is where I hang my cloths and we have decided to put the kids pool. (trust me- if you saw it it would make sense. Once it is all set up and cute I will take pictures. The hanging pot is full of strawberries that I really hope will work because strawberries are very expensive here.


The other thing that we did today was make a little screen to cover the planter in the front yard. The cats kept getting into and using for a litter box and that was not good. I also learned a few tricks that are very cool and that are working amazingly well.
The first is that if you smash a clove or 2 of garlic and put it in a spray bottle with water along with some chopped pepper, preferably a little roasted (we are using habanero) It keeps the bugs off of your plants. The other is to sprinkle used coffee grounds at the base of the plants and that keeps off unwanted pests as well. The whole goal of all of this is to be more natural and more healthy and spraying with a bunch of chemicals does not seem to make sense. Except when it comes to cockroaches. I will spray those little f***ers with whatever napalm I can get my hands on. One thing that has also proven its own difficulty is that the bark dust that you buy here is not the same you would get in the states. Here it is directly from the jungle mixed with some fertilizer. The good thing is that it is full of naturally composted materials falling from some of the best trees of earth. The bad news is that is also comes with a ton of sticks, dry leaves and stuff of that sort. oh well. The plants seem to like it.

I'm Back- sorry for the long break

Well, I was gone for quite some time from this blog but I am back now. I have a camera so this blog will be much more fun to read and look at now. Well, it is now the start of 2009 and my quest for becoming a goddess is in full swing. We have done a few projects around here to get started.
The first is that my husband built me 2 screen doors so we could have the doors open, the bugs (for the most part) out of the house and the cats can go back and forth. What makes this really amazing is that this was done using a machete, an old saw and a drill. He even made the angles in come wood so that he could make a design. He basically sandwiched the screening between the different pieces of wood and then made the little door for the cats.