Blog #3: A new comPost

To all of my faithful followers (Mom, Kevin -  you know who you are) the wait is finally over.  And so, without further ado, I now present with great pride and humility,  Blog #3: A new comPost.

Two Saturdays ago I successfully made my very first compost pile.  It was surprising to me just how much work was involved in making a refuse pile of rotting fruits, leaves, and horse dung.  But, if you are going to do something than you’ve got to do it right. According to my sources, (cited below) the best way to make a compost pile is to layer the different ingredients the same way you would layer a lasagna, yummy.  I was very lucky that my husband and toddler came out to help, otherwise it would have taken all day, but with their assistance we got it built by noon.

The first step was picking a location far enough away from the house that we would not smell or see it. So, like my gardening book said to do, I prepped the ground where I was going to put the pile by loosening the soil with a shovel over an area of about 4 feet by 5 feet.  The reason of doing all of this extra work was to provide adequate drainage for the compost pile.  For additional drainage, we then took small branches from a tree that my husband had cut down, and arranged them so that they covered the loosened soil.  I think my husband threw down some bits of palm fronds underneath the twig, although I am not sure why.   The next thing we had to do was relocate the sight of the compost pile because it’s original position would have been in almost perpetual shade.  The pile needed to be in a sunny spot  to keep it warm; after all, what good is a cold compost pile?  Apparently, microbial growth is enhanced in warm compost piles.   We didn’t bother re-digging the dirt in the new spot, it was just too much work; so we just threw down all the sticks where we wanted the new pile to go.

After the initial groundwork of sticks, we layered our little compost-lasagna with leaves,  chopped up bits of food that I mentioned in blog #2, horse manure, worms, and topsoil.  Fortunately, the topsoil we needed was easily accessible because we had loosened up all that dirt from where we were originally g

oing to put the pile.  It felt very satisfying using that dirt, as if we didn’t expend all that energy loosening it for nothing.  And like a lasagna, we repeated the layers until we ran out of ingredients.  As you build a compost pile you are supposed to spray it throughout with water out so that it will be moist; well, we forgot to do this until the very end. Our solution: we dumped several buckets over the top and hoped for the best.  Hopefully no lasting damage has been done to my little heap.  The last thing we did to finish off the pile was to cover it with some palm fronds; I am not sure why we did this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  I am debating whether or not it would be good to remove them. On the one hand, they might be insulating any heat the pile is naturally creating, as well as protecting it from frost. On the other hand, they are also probably reflecting sunlight during the day, making the pile colder.  I guess I will just wait another week and check the decomposition progress the pile has made before I decide what to do.

My innovative husband chopping up food into smaller pieces using a shovel

Here is where the pile was originally going to be. You can see the manure in the 5 gallon buckets and fallen fruit in the back bag.

The cut-down tree we used as the source for our branches and twigs.

This is the finished pile! It is covered in palm fronds so you cannot see just how glorious it is on the inside.

 

Notes:

Bartholomew, M. (1981). Square foot gardening. Rodale Press. Emmaus, PA.

Jeavons, J., & Cox, C. (1999). The sustainable vegetable garden: a backyard guide to healthy soil and higher yields. Ten Speed Press. Berkeley, CA.

Mulch ado about nothing

Just so everyone knows, the majority of my posts are  likely be written between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.  Occasionally I have bouts of insomnia where my ideas keep me awake well into the wee hours of the night.  For some reason, it is during these insomniatic spurts where many of my most creative ideas and plans are born.  Although my mind is very active and  creative during this time, the downside is that the next day I am too tired to actually carry out most of my ideas.   It is my blessing and my curse.  The thoughts plaguing my mind tonight are actually about this blog!  I could toss and turn thinking about it for another hour or three, or I could just get out of bed, write it, and get it over with.  So here goes…

My search for manure was surprising fast and fruitful.  As I mentioned in my previous blog, I posted an ad on Craigslist asking for free manure. The next day I got a whopping 6 text messages, 3 phone calls, and an email, all before noon! In fact, I got so many responses that I actually had to delete my ad so that people would stop trying to give me their poop! Fortunately my mom came over to watch the baby and let me use her car so that I could go pick it up earlier today. Thanks mom!  All of the responses were for horse manure and they were all around the same general location, so I picked the nicest person who contacted me – who happened to be Beth and at Heartland Ranch.  Thank you Beth! I took 4 five-gallon buckets with lids on them so that the manure wouldn’t spill all over the trunk of my mom’s car (and as an added precaution I laid down butcher paper).  The drive was only about 15 or 20 minutes from where I live, which really isn’t too bad, and on the way there I stopped by a tackle shop and bought 175 red worms for $17.50.  Red worms are supposed to be great at making compost into mulch much faster. The creepy-crawly’s are in my garage right now wriggling around in their little Styrofoam containers.

In addition to my little venture  to get manure, my husband and I visited our dear friend Chad today to pick up some additional ingredients for my compost pile.  Chad has an assortment of fruit trees in his backyard, and although most of the fallen fruit had been picked up, nobody had gotten around to the fallen pomegranates yet;  a perfect addition for the pile!   Although, it would have been better to stop by during daylight;  as it was, I had to hold the flashlight in my mouth so I could gather the fallen fruits. Fortunately the flashlight was clean, although it did leave a metally aftertaste in my mouth.  Oh, and I also found some fallen lemons under his lemon tree. So with the pomegranates, lemons, an old box of potatoes in my garage, the leaves, and the manure, I am satisfied with the knowledge that I have enough ingredients to start my compost pile. Which I will do tomorrow.

Until next time,

Samantha

Samantha’s New Garden

This is a new blog, and it is my very first blog that I have ever attempted to create.  This blog will serve as a virtual record of the very first garden that I am about to grow.  I have never successfully grown a plant from a seed, nor have I been able to keep one alive for any length of time.  Although my thumb is certainly not green, I am going to create this vegetable garden,and only time will tell whether or not I will be successful.  Over the course of the growing season, I hope to shed myself of the ghosts of plants killed at my hands, and at long last acquire the  coveted green thumb. Furthermore, I am going to grow this garden as thrifty as possible, spending money on only the most essential tools and materials that I will need.

I have never been an active blogger, or blog reader for that matter;  and I have never done any sort of gardening in my life. And now, in late December just in time for the new year, I am simultaneously starting both.  Why am I doing this? Quite simply, I am hoping that writing a blog will keep me motivated and active in my gardening endeavors, and that my gardening will help inspire my blog.  I am not an extremely talented individual where people might want to read my blog based solely on my insightful or clever comments of my ordinary day-to-day life. And the prosaic activities of a stay-at-home mom are  not that interesting.   I definitely would not read a blog that consisted of a grocery-type-list of happenings of even my closest friend; let alone expect people I do not know to read them. So it is my hope and goal that this will be an interesting a fun blog; although, I am not sure just how interesting and fun gardening can really be.

Furthermore, I believe that nobody else has children that are as entertaining or as cute as my own; and that every mother feels the exact same way. Therefore, I am going to keep this blog focused on my garden as much as possible and try to keep my family life separate (although I may sneak some comments in from time-to-time, after all, I am only human).

Well here I am, it is almost January and I am taking my first step into the mysterious world of gardening by starting a compost pile.  I am a virgin composter as well as gardener and so I think that it is appropriate to include this undertaking as part of my blog.  By all accounts I have read, composting is an effective way to recycle organic waste from your garden and kitchen by turning it into nutrients that new plants need to grow. There is not much to be said about my compost pile at the moment because it currently consists entirely of  leaves that I raked up from my back yard and piled away from my house.  I do have grandiose plans for my little pile however.  I need to acquire and assortment of new materials before my pitiful little leaf pile can be considered a robust compost pile.  Earlier today I actually solicited for poop on Craigslist! Actually just horse, pig, or cow manure that we could pick up and haul away.  I was considering writing “Will not pay for sh*” as part of the add, but instead wrote, “Will not pay.”  Just doing my part to keep the ‘Wanted Poop’ section on Craigslist a classy place.

Until next time,

Samantha