Composting

Another busy weekend in the rear view mirror, where does time disappear to?

We had overnight guests, a funeral to attend, friends in for lunch,  dinner out with friends one night, then an unexpected trip up to Merritt to pick up my parents, but it all fit in somehow, as it always does. 

Inside the hoop house you can see the kale growing with it's frilly leaves.  I added more Endive and Lettuce to this bed.
 

I had two garden related activities that I really wanted to accomplish -  number one was to get some more endive, lettuce and peas planted out in the raised beds that have the hoop covers on them.   Done!

Our kitchen compost barrel was full to the brim about a month ago, and my handyman Chuckles made us a new one so that we could alternate them.  The old one (blue one) has been sitting on the ground for a month now, being rolled over each weekend to keep on stirring the contents.

The blue barrel, ready to be emptied, the new white one is on the stand behind.

 

Lovely rich worm filled compost ready for spreading.  All from kitchen scraps!
 

So number two garden chore on my list was to get this barrel emptied and spread the contents onto the gardens.  So, after having dinner with Mom and Dad at their place Monday evening, I went home and in the semi-darkness of dusk, and in the pouring rain I dug about two-thirds of the contents out of the blue barrel, into a wheel barrow and distributed it around all the flower beds in the yard around the house.  It felt good to get that much done, and I love my garden time, light or dark, rain or sun. 

Admittedly,  I like it more in the sunshine, but I will take it however I can get it!

A little about my kitchen composting -

We have been composters for many years.  Now many cities include kitchen compost in their regular recycling pick up, but we would never give this valuable stuff away!

On my counter I keep a fairly large plastic bucket with a good lid, into which goes all peelings, eggs shells, coffee grounds and filters, unbleached paper products and seeds, pits, leftover veggies, etc.  Never any meat products, bones, fat or anything of animal origin. 

Every day or two, I empty this into the big barrel shown in the pictures above.  The barrel in use has a metal bar through it, so it rests on the metal stand, and can be easily rotated.  Most times when I dump my kitchen bucket, I give the big barrel a spin, to keep everything mixed together. 

It's amazing how much veggie matter we generate!

We alternate the two barrels, so one can rest, fully compost and get emptied onto the gardens as we are filling up the other one, then we switch them, so every 6 months we have a fresh batch of compost to spread.  This amends the soil beautifully, and when it's ready for spreading it is full of fat worms ready to get to work in the beds.

Gardening is Cheaper Than Therapy

 

 

Tomorrow is the first day of spring officially, although here in the lower mainland of BC spring has been with us for a month or more!

I thought I should post you some new pics of the progress of the indoor Growlight Garden (IGG) and the mini hoop houses .

The IGG on March 3rd
 

The IGG on March 11th
 

These three photos I took this morning:

Closest tray is scallopini squash and roma tomatoes

Left tray is cabbage and peppers, right tray scallopini
and tomatoes

Peppers just germinating now, left tray compared to scallopini
squash in the right tray.
 

In order of germination I have started: cabbage, scallopini squash, early girl and roma tomatoes, ancho peppers and red horn peppers, and butternut squash.

It is obvious to me that I am going to want to transplant at least some of these seedlings into pots (peat pots?) soon as there is a real disparity in the heights of the different plants, and ideally I want to keep the grow lights about 10cm above the plants to discourage leggy growth. 

But since some of the plants (cabbages and squashes) are so tall already, and the red horn and ancho peppers only just germinated this past week,  10 cm above the squashes is a good 20 cm above the peppers!





























I also  noticed some very tiny white bugs two weeks ago, on the damp matting beneath each tray of plants.  They get quite agitated when the tray is removed and they are exposed to the light.  We looked at them through a magnifying glass (they are super tiny things) and then I Googled and found out that they are Springtails.  Called this because they have a hinged body with a powerful tail that propels them quite far, even these tiny ones we have are good jumpers!  Interestingly enough, much of the info I found initially was on marijuana growing blogs!

Magnified juvenile Springtail
 

I took the matting out of the IGG, washed it with really hot water, then dried it thoroughly, then put it back.  Since then, there have been very few Springtails, and I have been checking and squashing them daily, although by all accounts they don't really cause harm.  I am curious as to how they originated, it has to be from a) the peat pellets I put the seeds in b) the potting mixture I put aroung the peat pellets in the trays, c) the seeds themselves, but this seems quite unlikely or d) the matting that came with the IGG (also seems unlikely).

I have not taken a super recent photo of the hoop house interiors, it's been about 3 weeks.

Hoops were left open one day to expose to sunshine and fresh air

I am disappointed that the lettuce and endive did not germinate, so I plan to put more in this weekend.  I think the soil dried out a bit too much, which I didn't think would happen since the beds were wet when I covered them, and the interior of the hoop plastic always has lots of condensation on it.  I have watered them a couple of times, to no avail.  Maybe when I am there this weekend, I will find that they have finally sprouted.

Peas inside hoop house

Of course the peas are going like gangbusters, but they are doing the same in the bed that doesn't have a hoop over it, although I did protect it for the first few weeks with a sheet of corrugated clear plastic.   Now it is just totally exposed.

Peas in bed with no hoop house
 

The kale is now about 2-3 inches tall with the first of its frilly leaves. 



I have tilled the garden bed once, but I need to scrape off the grassy surface of the areas that I want to convert to garden this season.  I tried just hacking through it with the tiller, but besides being very difficult and hard work, it only results in a lot of grass roots being broken up and mixed into the soil which will lead to more work (weeding) soon.

We plan to fence the garden this season as well as expanding it.  It was pure providence that no little critters disturbed it last year, no bunnies, no deer, quite amazing! 




Garden Plan
 

The garden plan was laid out in February, shown here.  It has already been somewhat modified, and probably will be again before everything is planted.

I am going to try some companion planting to see how that works out this season, and I am especially excited about the corn/pole beans/squash combo, as the beans grow up the corn stalks.  But, do they choke the corn and stop it from producing I wonder? 

I am not going to subject all my corn to this just in case!

 

 I saw a cutesy sign in a home décor shop last night out walking Bogey, it said:

Gardening is cheaper than therapy - and you get tomatoes!