That Compost Tumbler

I thought I should explain about the compost tumbler I mentioned in the previous post.  There are large ones with a crank handle to rotate a large drum on a frame and there are smaller ones you just roll around on the ground to keep the materials mixed.

I have the large one on the stand.  It seems like a great idea.  The kitchen waste is safe from scavengers and the handle makes it easy to thoroughly mix the contents.  The frame holds the drum just above the height of a wheelbarrow, so it ought to be easy to unload the contents when "cooked".  There are vents for letting air circulate for aerobic microbial breakdown.

I don't know about the small portable ones, but the big ones don't work!

1.  The vents are too small for good air ventilation, so the breakdown occurs mostly anaerobically ("without oxygen").  Anaerobic decay is cold and slow, which means weed seeds aren't killed and it takes forever.  It also smells bad (anaerobic microbes produce ammonia).

2.  It is awkward and messy trying to get the material out when you want it.  The drum is too high to shovel the stuff out, and turning the opening to the bottom to let it fall into the wheelbarrow doesn't work well.  It doesn't want to fall out on its own, and rotating the drum back and forth over the wheelbarrow spills half of the "compost" on the ground.

3.  You would think a metal drum in the sun would heat up on its own.  Nope!  The vents are large enough to prevent that.  The door does get hot enough in Summer though to approach "painful to remove".

4.  The thing is a haven for insects.  Clouds of fruit flies come out each time I open it.  And there is some sort of black fly that loves the rotting (yes rotting, not composting) material as breeding grounds.  I've had to take the vents apart several times to empty out all the dead bodies because that's where they try to escape through.

Do yourself a favor if you are considering one of these things.  Build a normal compost bin instead!

Avoiding Last Year's Mistakes

I made 2 really silly mistakes last year and I am pleased to say that I remembered them well enough to avoid them this year.

The first mistake was my compost.   I have a tumbler compost bin.  I add all my kitchen scraps and shredded paper to it.  It doesn't work like they advertise.  It never heats up, but it breaks down eventually.  Most important to me, the fresh high-quality kitchen scraps are not available to scavengers like raccoons.  I use the tumbler only for that reason.  As soon as the stuff is beyond scavenging, I move it to my real (normal") compost bins which work very well.

Well, last Spring my real compost bins were all full of cornstalks, flower canes and other stuff which was slow to break down.  So I used the material directly from the compost tumbler and dug it into the soil in my long trellis bed.  I know about sheet-composting, where you just bury all the fresh scraps straight into the soil.  So, no problem, right?

The second mistake was my fertilizer.  I have 2 kinds of organic fertilizers.  One is "W.O.W." (8-2-4) which is a corn gluten product.  It is great for lawns because on the nitrogen and because the corn gluten inhibits seeds from growing the initial root.  That really cuts down on the dandelions and other weeds if you time the application properly.  The corn gluten doesn't harm established plants at all and it is a fine source of nitrogen.  The other is "N Lite" (2-5-6).  I like having the 2 of them because I can use either separately or blended (10-7-10), according to what the plants want.

OK, so here's what happened last year.  First, I got a 1,000 melon and cuke seedlings sprouting from the lousy compost tumbler material!  I couldn't distinguish MY melon and cuke seedlings from the ocean of hybrid melon and cuke seedlings.  I tried to guess which ones were mine for a month, but finally pulled them all out.  I replanted.

That's where the second mistake came into play.  After scuffle-hoeing the whole area several times to make sure all the scrap melon seeds were spent, I carefully added a blend of the fertilizers to the soil and planted all my regular small crops.  Most of my good crops are seedlings grown indoors and transplanted out.  But I also have all those radishes, carrots, beets etc that are direct-seeded.

The fertilizer included the corn gluten.  That stuff that inhibits seeds from sprouting...  It was a month before I realized why nothing was growing!  ARGGHH!

Things are growing better this year...

Asparagus

ASPARAGUS!  I have an 8' by 3' asparagus bed.  I'm proud of it.  I harvested over 60 spears this year before letting the plants grow to replenish for next year.  It was great!  Last year I barely got a dozen (and they were late to emerge) and I thought they were dying.  I LOVE asparagus!  Fresh asparagus tastes better than grocery store ones!  And they are tenderer while still crisp when steamed...

I started with 10 crowns 15 years ago, but am down to 7.  I should replace the lost ones.  Or maybe I should just replace them all this Fall.  I haven't decided.  2 years ago, I covered the entire bed with black plastic to kill all the weeds.  That didn't work.  The weeds survived and the voles went crazy under the safety and warmth of the black plastic.  They killed several crowns entirely and damaged others.

But because I wasn't sure where the new spears were emerging (so I didn't want to chop them with the shovel) and didn't want to dig weeds out around the bed, the weeds are taking over.

Anyone want to come over and weed my asparagus bed?

I seem to have a lot of tree saplings and grass...  Yes, they grew THAT high just in this year!

Well, when I dig all the saplings and grass clumps up, I will do what I USED to do that helped.  Place folded up sheets of newspaper between the asparagus stalks.  It works great.  I just kind of overlooked it the past two years...

Memorial Day

Garden Started Outside 2

I thought I would provide more information about the trellis area of the garden.  While I enjoy growing my tomatoes the most, the trellis is the place I enjoy most.  First, let me describe it.

It is 30' long by 2' wide by 12" tall.  It is that long because that's the total length of the individual adjacent beds when I first constructed the garden.  It is 2' wide because I grow the trellised crops on the front foot and plants that can use some shade on the back foot.  Plus, I built it after the rest of the beds as an afterthought and if it was any wider, my push mower wouldn't fit between it and the fence.

There are 4x4" 8' posts at each end and one in the middle.  The trellis itself is concrete remesh wire with 6"x6" openings.  The remesh is 6" off the ground and 5' high.  Attaching the remesh was quite a project in itself about 15-20 years ago.  My best friend and I decided that remesh was the best tomato cage material (and I still agree, but if I could get vinyl-coated remesh, I would buy it).  We researched sources and costs and the price was dramatically better past a certain length.

Well, that was more than we needed, but I had been thinking of a sturdy trellis.  Serendipitously, that length got us close to the "good price" and we ordered that.  There was 20' extra, but I found a good use for that 2 years ago (more on that in the future).

So, we made our tomato cages and I used most of the rest for the trellis.  It was difficult to attach to the posts.  Well, we were inexperienced at such things.  The vertical wires didn't line up with the posts, so we had to bend the remesh around the outer corners to fit (just try that sometime; the wire is really strong).  And we couldn't get it to pull tight along the length and from top to bottom  (like a bedsheet with wrinkles).

I figured out a way later, but it was too late and that's beside the point.  But I'm keeping it in mind because after all these years, it needs to be replaced soon.  The remesh is still sturdy, but the posts are rotting.

Anyway, I told you all this to talk about what I grow there...

I garden by the Square Foot Method (Mel Bartholomew) as best I can.  I do it for small crops.  I don't agree with it for large crops (can't help it, I just like large cages for big heirloom tomatoes).  But the trellis area is seriously "Square Foot". 

I planted garlic in the front foot last Fall 15' long (2 garlics per square foot).  On the back side, I have alternated individual square feet for carrots, scallions, beets, radish, shallots, spinach, celery,  chinese cabbage, leeks (and I am probably forgetting a couple) in succession planting.  When the first are harvested, I will replant with the same crops but in different squares (Square Foot gardening makes for automatic crop rotation).  I am adding parsnips this weekend.

I harvested my first radishes of the year yesterday.  SPICY!  Not like that bland stuff you get in grocery stores.  And I should start harvesting the garlic next month or early July.

Here's the only picture I have at the moment.

You can see the garlic, the beets and the radishes.  The other stuff is still way too small to see.  Well, the celery is large enough, but its not in that picture.  You can see the remesh wire if you look carefully.

Poison Ivy Woes

I have constant problems with poison ivy.  It's partly because this neighborhood was developed from mature woods in the 80s/90s and partly because I left most of the backyard wooded.  It took a decade just to get the scrub trees (like thorny locust) cleared out.  I like the semi-natural look I have.

But it is partly because 2 adjacent neighbors totally ignore their yards next to mine.  One has a drainage easement through their back yard (10' from my fence) and they basically ignore everything on the side near me.  The other has 10' of brambles near my fence and just never bothers with that area.  A 3rd neighbor is basically absent for some reason (I think the property is involved in a divorce dispute), and while he mows the yard every couple of weeks, he pays no attention to the edges.

So I am constantly fighting off poison ivy coming in through the fence.

I used to have little reaction to it, but several years ago, I got a full body rash from it.  It was a miserable 2 full weeks.  Some of the poison ivy in the neighbor yards is mature enough to produce berries and the birds evidently drop the seeds all around the yard.  New plants spring up out of nowhere even near the house.

I saw the first new poison ivy plants leafing out 2 weeks ago.  They are now fully leafy.   I am an organic gardener.  But that garden/flowerbeds/lawn.  For poison ivy (and also rampant honeysuckle, wild grape, and some vine I haven't identified), I turn to Brush-B-Gon!

So today was "Spray Day".  I filled up my large pressure sprayer (portable, but just barely) and made the rounds.  I was shocked at how much poison ivy was around the yard and how mature some of the plants were!  That's partly because I have been clearing problem spots and revealing places I haven't looked into for years.  For example, I discovered (to my horror) that there is a huge poison ivy vine coming up over the fence and growing 20' up a tree in MY own yard! 

I can pretty much kill off most of the plants in my yard, but I can't get rid of the sources.  I spray carefully (short controlled spray individual plant by plant) through the fence as far as I can (the neighbors have no landscaping near the fence), but there is always more growing back the next year.

So I have a dilemma.  If I ask the neighbors to control/spray the poison ivy in their yards, they will spray wildly right through the fence on a windy day and kill all my plants and flowers.  If I don't mention the problem, I will have poison ivy forever.

Maybe I should ask them if I can spray in their yards and do it carefully...

Anyway, I went around the yard spraying poison ivy plants with great pleasure.  I can't wait to see them turn brown and die!  It was a sunny and nearly windless day, so it was safe.  And only an hour later, all the leaves were dry, so I know they soaked in the spray.

I'll try to remember to post pictures of the dead poison ivy next week...

Perennial Day 2, Part 2

Well, I went to plant the new hostas I received a few days ago and got a real surprise!

The existing hostas are all fully grown.  So I just assumed that where there weren't any, they had died, and I had ordered replacements.  At every spot but one today, I found vole holes around the roots, but each one was still surviving and just now sending up new shoots!

Now I have 9 hostas to find new places for.  I have 2 hosta beds.  The backyard one has hostas placed far enough apart so that they are individual specimens.  I don't want to add more there.  The front yard bed has them crowded and overlapping (poor planning on my part, but the effect IS lush), so I CAN'T add more there.

Guess I'll have to make a 3rd hosta bed.  I certainly have enough shade...

Garden Layout

This is a reasonably good view showing the garden layout.  It is mostly six 8' by 3' by 12" high framed beds, plus a 30' long by 2' wide trellis bed and two 3' by 3' beds.  The trellis gets the cukes, italian flat pole beans, snow peas, and sometimes I try growing cantaloupe up it (without much success).

The 2 red beds have 4 tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, and a bush watermelon each.  I'll be adding basil and marigolds soon.  The red is a plastic that is supposed to reflect the light frequencies tomatoes use most efficiently.  When you don't get full sun in your garden, you try anything.  LOL!

The bed between them has broccoli, cabbage, and radichhio (a red chicory).  It is half-full of beebalm (Monarda) that I moved there "temporarily" 3 years ago.  I've left them there because it seemed a good idea to have a great bee attractant in the middle of the garden.

The nearest bed is the one I moved from a shady spot to this sunnier one last month.  In most of the garden, I have black plastic covered with old carpet to suppress weeds between the beds.  So, the lawn growing between the rest of the beds and the new one is temporary.  As soon as I get ahold of some more old carpet, I'll eliminate that.  Meanwhile, it is spaced just far enough to allow my lawn mower to fit.

The 3' by 3' beds are for herbs. 

I have thyme, tarragon, oregano, chives, cilantro, sage, and parsley. And there is a rose draping over to liven up the colors.   The 2nd 3x3 bed has the rose in it right now.  I really need to move that rose.  I just don't know exactly where to put it.  And since it is the last remnant of my 1st landscaping project here (24 years ago), I don't want to just toss it.

Perennial Day 2

Yay, I got more of the plants I wanted to fill in most of the spaces to make BIG patches of the same plants.  I ordered some of the plants I needed to fill out large patches (about 8' circles) but not enough to really do it.  I just can't get myself to spend enough money at one time.  So I had to place 2 orders of plants to do it in 2separate orders.  LOL!

But the fill-ins are here ($200 later).  I don't really mind the cost, it just can't be so much in a single order.  I'm weird that way.

Well, they ARE perennials.  They will live for many years.  And I have chosen ones that have long lives and do well here.

Happy Birthday To Me

Turned 60 today.  Heh.

I didn't care when I turned 30.  Or 40.  Or even 50.  But I thought I would care when I turned 60.  Somehow, I thought turning 60 would be a major change, like turning 21.

Nah.  I feel the same as 40.  That's actually weird.  I feel like I SHOULD feel different.  I think I SHOULD feel older at 60. I just don't though.  I'm just as competent or not competent at the same things as I was 20 years ago.  I know more science than I did at 40, but that's only because there is more science to know now and I do keep up with it.  I don't understand people any better now than I did at 40, but that's probably just me.

I guess I'm still in that "middle-aged" limbo.  Somewhere between "stupid young adult" and "losing-it old guy".

I'm not doing anything today to celebrate it, but I'm not doing anything to mourn it either.  I just don't feel like today is all that different from yesterday or a day 10 years ago.  Maybe 70 will start to feel "old".  I'm just not there yet.

Which is maybe a good thing...

Last year on this day, my parents were visiting.  Once, my Mom asked what the date was.  I said "May 21st, my birthday".  She asked again an hour later and I said the same thing.  That didn't even get a reaction from either parent.  Dad was there at the table.  Neither one recognized "my birthday" as having any meaning among us.  And that's when I knew they were "losing it".  Because Mom never forgot my birthday before.  And Dad was supposed to be the "memory" for both of them.  She has lost her memory and HIS memory no longer serves them.  And they don't realize it.  That is so sad...

So today, and each year on this day, I mostly now mourn the "loss" of my parents.  They are still alive, but their memories, their "selves", our connections, are gone...  I will never have "them" back.

*SIGH*