Gardening

Feb 6th

43 celery starts in the larger tub, 12 curly kale starts in the smaller one. Yes, those are toilet paper rolls cut in half that I am using. The jury is still out on whether they will do as good a job as newspaper pots. I do like the size of them though. Of the 43, 1 celery has sprouted so far. But it's early days yet.

Oct 16th

I obtained a worm composting setup through Freecycle a few months back. 

I didn't know anything about worm composting, but I added vegetable pulp and peelings every day or so and pretty soon I had a lot of "dirt."

You'll laugh: I was like, how come the dirt isn't falling down into the bottom container. Yeah...several YouTube videos later, I realized it works from the bottom up. You start a bottom container, then when that one gets full, you move it to the top (or dump it), and start a fresh one on the bottom again.

I decided to start over, since there were several things "wrong" with my current set up (they had let me take the WC "as is", meaning there was already some composting underway.

Problems: (1) a little too wet, (2) egg shells should have been ground up not just broken up (see pictures), and (3) now I know I don't have a whole lot of actual worms, so I'm impressed I have as much compost as I do.

I learned a trick from YT: if you dump out the compost in a sunny spot and build a hill, give it 30 minutes, the worms will actively burrow their way to the bottom of the interior of the hill. This means you can sift through the compost from the top, and actually get quite far down the hill before you see a worm.

As you can see, I ended up with nearly an entire 5 galllon pot of compost. This is all from the worm composter. Soil ends about 4-5 inches from the top.

After sifting through the soil, I separated out the worms from the compost. I set up a new tray, with a sheet of newsprint on the bottom, then some dirt/compost, then some shredded newsprint, watered that down a bit and mixed it together. The worms from the sorting process ended up on top of that. Then I went into my garden, and harvested a bunch of broccoli leaves, shredded them up a bit, and laid them on the top, as you can see below.

The end result looks like this: 

Something you don't want to do if you can avoid it, is end up with compost looking like this. All that white/beige are eggshells which didn't get consumed. Worms love eggshells, but they DON'T like big chunks of them as you see here:

What you ought to do, is "bake" them in a toaster oven or regular oven at about 200 degrees for about 10 minutes or so. This is just to harden off the egg membrane/residue. Air drying them outside will achieve the same result. After the eggshell(s) have baked/dried, put them in a blender or magic bullet and grind to a powder. The powder is what you want to evenly sprinkle over your vegetable peelings. As the worms eat the peelings, they will also eat the egg powder, which helps the worm's digestion, and also adds calcium directly to the soil. In fact, you can just do the eggshell bake/grind thing as a standalone process and cast it out directly on to your garden soil as an amendment.

Now that I know what I'm doing, I'm looking forward to buying more worms, and growing worm compost with a vengeance. I still have my tumbling composter. I've found it is more efficient to put my "chunk" vegetables in that (i.e., ends of carrots, season end broccoli or kale stalks) that make my worms chew through it. 

Oct 10th

Changed the varmint fencing...got rid of the back row of fencing and instead extended it from the street straight back to the house. That design enables a bigger work space.

Laid down wood chips a few weeks ago. WOW. What a difference in growth it makes! The beets have grown by leaps and bounds, and this morning I harvested two cucumbers, albeit the Japanese cucumber, so I have to do some peeling in order to juice them. Darn it. They grew interwoven through the varmint fencing, hence their weird shape.

Now, two cucumbers may not seem like a lot to you. But this year, I've managed to successfully grow a passel of Kale, which we juice almost daily, harvested a bunch of Broccoli seed, and a reasonable amount of broccoli/broccoli stalk, and my beets are growing well. 

Previous gardening attempts resulted in ZERO produce. Well, maybe 5 tomatoes and 5 pounds of carrots.

So I'm VERY excited. I have a south-facing garden space which gets a lot of sun, decent soil on the way (2-3 inch layer of compost on top of my barren soil), and a 4 inch layer of green & brown wood chips adding more nitrogen and long-term compost to the soil.

It's working !!


Sept 17th

I am an idiot. I hadn't put up varmint fencing before now, because I didn't have the money to go buy some. Then someone on freecycle was giving away a bit of trellising. I suddenly remembered: I had a whole heck of a lot of tall white trellis fencing which I had salvaged from a community garden.

So today, my boys and I varmint proofed the front yard garden, at least the part which isn't in use. It's okay, and it looks nice, but as you can see, by 3pm, I am losing about a foot of gardening sun because the trellis weave is so tight. I had this same problem at the community garden: the quinoa on the north side of the fence grew nice and tall, the quinoa on the south side of the fence grew shorter and stubbier. For the record, the south side of the fence in this yard is where the potted plants are.

At least the potted plants now have some use. I'm going to start some lettuce or low laying crops in those planters....maybe herbs. Rabbits probably won't eat the herbs. 

You can barely see in the far right back corner a cucumber plant. That's all that is left of my asian-vegetable garden. I am so mad at those bunnies. No edamame, bok choi, watercress for me. Oh well, you live and you learn.

I have beet starts ready to go, and as soon as I start those, I will start some other fall crops...probably Amanarath and Quinoa where the broccoli and kale are now planted. The broccoli will not die off...and I need it to so I can harvest the seeds !!

August 19th

I need a tried-and-true recipe for RABBIT meat. Yep. It's startling how fast you can have a paradigm shift. There's a little brown cottontail running around our neighborhood. So cute. Evidently he's decided that my front yard garden is his own personal restaurant. I didn't mind so much when he was eating the broccoli that was going to flower.

But I had 36 beet seedlings yesterday. This morning? I had ONE. The varmint ate all of them down to the dirt. 

Ideas to keep him out welcome. I don't know if I should spend the money on little white fencing or not. Do bunnies jump? Do they tunnel? 

ARGG !!!  



July 5th

Well, the front yard garden is almost done. We finished the sides to the retaining wall this morning, smoothed out the regular dirt. Now we just have to lay down the compost, clear out the vegetables in the back which have overgrown (I grew broccoli to seed on purpose, they're heirloom), and keep an eye out on Craig's list for wood chips. I may have to put that one off until DH finds a job. Right now, I can move the retaining wall with me if I have to, and leave the compost behind. Wood chips would be a different story.

So here's what it looked like before we started (although I did clear out the back section and transfer grown-from-seed seedlings:

And up close shots of those seedlings (these would be the ones referenced in my March 8th post, BTW): 

Beginning stage of the retaining wall (we had to do it in sections due to time and money constraints): 

And the nearly finished product (lacking layer of compost and/or wood chips):

That big, bushy green stuff in the background by the house are those little baby seedlings!

Looking forward to laying the compost and planting more veggies for year round gardening !



March 8th

So excited! Many of my seeds sprouted, then, since I wasn't prepared to plant them in garden space (sort of had to convert my DH to the concept of yanking up our south-facing 12+ hours of direct sunlight a day front yard) and converting it to a vegetable garden, I created newspaper pots, transplanted the baby seedlings, filled them with compost/gardening soil.

Look how big they're getting!! I'm hoping to dig up the front yard this weekend and get them planted for real, then start all over again so I can have a continual garden (hey, SOMETHING has to offset the outrageous amounts we pay in rent here in SoCal.)

I compromised with DH. If he let me pull up the front yard and get rid of that offensive Bermuda grass, I would only plant things like Kale, Broccoli, Carrots, Onions---things that look ornamental and pretty much stay green. I did a "show me" planter of just Kale. He was good with how that looked, so we're a go. (Front row is the newspaper pot seedlings, back row is the "show me" Kale planter.)

February 11th

How to calculate/convert square feet into cubic yards (just in case you're getting compost, wood chips or anything else, in bulk) without too much explanation to clutter the formula. BTW, the 27 is # of cubic feet in a cubic yard (see, already Too Much Information!) 

___ # of square feet / 27 = ____Cubic Yards (CY) 

___ # of CY * .333 (if your layer is 4 " thick) = ___ CY material needed

___ # of CY * .500 (if your layer is 6" thick) = ___ CY material needed

If you want something a foot (12") thick, then the first equation is the one you will use.

My bulk composter/supplier sells 1 CY of compost for $100. If I have say, a 8 ft wide by 24 foot long planting area, and I want a 4" layer of compost, my formula would be:

192 square feet/27=7.11 CY
Then: 7.11 x .333 = 2.37 CY needed to buy, to cover my space.
2 CY X $100 = $200.

On the other hand, today I lucked out and found some damaged bags of compost and potting soil at Home Depot. I got them for $2 a bag, they are about 2 ft long, 12-18 inches wide, and about 2" deep. If I am patient enough to gather and install them bag by bag, I'll need about 24 bags per planter (2 planters each 4ft wide, 24 feet long), for a total of 48 bags X $2 = $96 plus tax. 

Kind of odd isn't it? Bag by bag ends up exactly half the depth of buying it in bulk, and half the money. Math. It's all around us <grin.>

January 28th


(This is an update for Californians--refer to the Post on Insidious Water Rights, or the Agenda 21 page.)

Does storage of rainwater harvested from rooftops require a water right permit?

No. Water Code section 10574 provides that rainwater harvesting from rooftops does not require a water right permit. The State Water Board encourages methods of water collection or diversion, such as rooftop rainwater harvest, that reduce demand on streams and reduce water quality problems associated with stormwater runoff.

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/board_info/faq.shtml#rooftop


January 11

Okay, I am motivated. I spent the Christmas holiday/high school break discovering YouTube (GrowingYourGreens, Dehydrate2Store, HungryHammockHanger and various canning and gardening channels) and getting our house in order (literally.) We got the back garden strip BackToEden'ed, the front planter box BTE'd, relocated a few things around, and this week I started seeds for Kale, green beans, broccoli, and bought some Kale transplants. I planted the Kale transplants in the front yard planter (below); they were kind of sickly when I planted them but they haven't gotten any worse, so that's a plus.

This is the back garden strip. If I can successfully grow something this year, I may end up putting up the whole back yard:

I am trying really hard not to pull up the entire front yard. It gets 12 hours of continuous, non-shaded sunlight as it is south facing. My DH is horrified. Seriously, the only thing that is stopping me is I am a lousy gardener. But I'm related to a (deceased) grandfather and a brother who can grow self-sustaining (like a year's worth) of vegetables in a single season. Sigh. I'd be happy if I can just beat last year's record: 5 meals worth of yellow bell peppers (that's 10 peppers BTW) and 5 cups of quinoa. And that was a successful season!! I just hate my street side front yard. I can't even grow anything in the planter box there because the bermuda grass clippings get embedded and take over.

January 1

SUPER EXCITED ! I just found out about a really cool website, SmartGardener.com. A wonderful online resource where you can plan out your garden (manually or have them lay it out for you); the type of garden you have (in ground, raised bed, container, in rows or square foot); your growing conditions by week (color coded for 12 months); and recommendations for plants per season. You can just "add it" to your garden, or you can "add it" on the plan and also purchase directly from vendor sponsors (i.e., Southern Exposure, Baker Creek etc.)

AND BEST OF ALL THE BASIC PROGRAM IS F-R-EE-EEEE !!

Here's some exciting screen shots:

Basic data based on where I live

My growing season temperatures. This is also where I get to choose plants by season.

This is the layout based on the veggies I chose, and how much space I have. It also asks for sun orientation.

Gives you a weekly To Do List for your garden. Pretty cool to know I can set seedlings out for collards!

VERY EXCITED !! HOPE YOU ARE TOO !

December 29

A few things. First off, my gardening goal for 2013 is not only to grow SOMETHING successfully (yes, it may take me a whole year) but also to "put food by" through home canning.

To that end, every two weeks I am going to Put Something By (PSB) even if it is a small amount, just to develop the skill. Two weeks ago it was canning pineapple, 8 quarts worth off of 8 pineapples. We pressure canned it since that was the YouTube video I'd seen; other voices (too late to help me) said use a Boiling Water Bath (BWB) canner. Going forward, until I have to do it in a pressure canner (PC), I'm going to be doing anything which has a sugar syrup in a BWB. The sugar syrup which escapes normally from jars really messed up my canner, as I found out last night.

Yesterday I purchased 30 pounds of ground beef. I was going to can all of it, but only managed to put up 14 pints worth (roughly 14-16 pounds.) That's because my popup valve got stuck and pressure would not build. By the time I received knowledge on how to fix the problem and started over, it was 9pm. Since ground beef has to process for 75 minutes once it comes to pressure, I knew it would be close to 11pm by the time I was done, so I put the rest of the hamburger into 1 pound patties, wrapped and froze them.

Sigh. Well I did gain some new knowledge from the adventure which is the whole point anyway.

I boil my ground beef first, then can the cooked beef in boiling water. Yes, I could use broth if I had it, No, I'm not using the "broth" which comes from boiling it...the whole point of my boiling/cooking it first is to minimize the grease inside the jar.

Here's a picture of my finished product, safely canned:

November

Hugely blessed via Freecycle with 120 bricks and about 250 pounds of wood chips which will become compost by spring (see Back to Eden film below for more info.)

I have three areas to choose & garden: a concrete patio (using bricks to build a planter):

A strip of the yard--pull up grass along the sunny strip installing some 2x12"s:



I've already placed some wood chips in the front yard planter which faces south:

What's your choice? Leave some comments and let me know!

November 25
Coming soon: My Quinoa Adventure !

In the meantime, check out this really cool gardening calculator website:

http://www.evergreenofjohnsoncity.com/gardencalculator.htm


And this really cool, virtually maintenance free gardening system:

http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/