More Updates! (Due to the plague)

More catch up for me! Having a slow computer did not stop me from catching the creeping crud that my husband brought home from work. A week and 4 boxes of kleenex later, I am finally starting to feel human yet again.

Due to all the down time (and a kitchen rearrangement caused by getting a stove after 1 and a half years without one) I neglected my cuttings, to find this morning that pineapple sage is very sensitive to too much moisture. Every cutting had rotted to a rich, soggy brown while the lemon balm and anise hyssop were largely unharmed. Starting over tomorrow and this time with more care, the temperature is dropping like a rock so I won't have a plant to cut from soon!



I finally had some tomatoes decide to ripen from the mosh pit of my uncaged tomato patch. All at the same time of course. The bulk of my edible fruits came from a variety called Japanese Black Trifele. I bought the seeds from Baker Creek Heirlooms (fabulous people there and great community programs!) and they are indeed purpleish with green shoulders and pear shaped. The Black Trifele are not a sauce tomato, they are thin walled and juicy (think excelent with salad), but I had the flu and 20 tomatoes to use up so sauce it was! After all the peeling and seeding, 20 didn't go very far, even with mushrooms and onion added there was just enough to blanket 12 hearty meatballs over 1 dry pound of pasta. Still VERY good.



My other project this last week was to try and solve a garden mystery. In the seed trades I did years ago on GardenWeb, I recieved some seed for a hot pepper that the sender had called "la crime di cristo" the tears of christ. I have never been able to find any information on a pepper by that name and I am horrible at growing peppers so my seed stash slowly dwindled with no results. This year I put faith in my last 3 seeds (and the New York climate) and ended up with fruiting plants! (that I still can't identify). The husband tried one last week that was not mature yet (no ripe seeds) and it dang near blew his mouth off (and he is a nuclear buffalo wings type). I WILL have new seeds from these this year even if I have to dig them up and bring them inside, in the mean time it is off to the GardenWeb vegie forums to try and dig up a visual ID!



My Book Bag

Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero Anyone with half a garden can treasure the value of good Vegie ideas when it comes to the kitchen. No one does vegies better than a vegan. This book has a fantastic intro on different grains, rices, and vegetables and how to cook each one. Then it follows up with great dishes of all kinds. Simple foods like the lentils and rice with onion that I made 4 times last week (beats rhamen noodles on a budget!) to the extreeme! Excelent food that would easily lend itself to meat additions, but honestly, you will never miss it!

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Updates!

Whee! what a week! My "top-of-the-line gaming computer" took an impressive dive on Thursday, blowing the motherboard at the very least. It is in the shop for diagnostics. Until then I have an old loaner from a friend. Good enough for the internet and sure beats the 2 days of withdrawls I went through that nearly drove the husband insane. Besides, in the off time from Warhammer Online, I have actually achieved a lot around the house!

There are some updates and info I want to pass along in regaurds to previous post topics.

#1 I combined my worms into the large composter as a general community to make it easier to bury scraps. In theory it should have worked but the apple and banana bits I added produced a plethora of fruit flies. My kitchen had it's own swarm which converged on a cup of tomato pulp that was fermenting so I could extract the seeds. I have since created and then modifyed a trap that seems to be working well. I cut the sloped top off a 20oz soda bottle then capped the threaded end with some plastic wrap using a rubber band. Then I placed a fresh smashed tomato in the bottle, flipped the cut off top so it resembled a funnel, and placed it in the bottle so the cut edges lined up. Next (and this is important) be sure to seal the cut edges completely with tape. Poke a quarter inch hole in the plastic wrap to make an entrance. Fruit flies tend to crawl upwards when looking for an exit, they will reach the sealed seam and have a very hard time going back down to find the small hole (in theory anyway). Once a week or so, bag up the trap and toss it, replace with a fresh one. You can also vacume up fruit flies with the vacume hose if they tend to congregate in one spot.

#2 Progress in the cutting box. I openly admit that I am not the best "waiter" and that said, I pulled up samples of each herb from the cutting box today to check for roots. After a little over a week from cutting, with no hormone or other chemicals used, here are the results. Small roots were begining to form on the oregano and basil, nothing on the thyme, and I did not check the tarragon or sage as they seem fragile. I am also trying to root individual cuttings in small pots (plastic bathroom cups with drainage holes) inside an old aquarium. So far the Pineapple Sage and Lemon Balm are holding up OK, I give them regualar misting with a bottle. I added some Anise Hysopp to the mix a few days ago as well, no wilting yet. Still no idea what to do with all these cuttings. I am wondering if I can put them into cold storage once they are rooted, perhaps in the basement at mid 40s temps and keep them in stasis untill close to spring so they don't get all leggy long before winter is up.

#3 Other Projects. I was able to get the front lawn marked out for it's reclimation. I also started putting down the hay mulch to smother the grass and weeds. 4 fifty pound bales covered about 1/3 of the job. On a side note I will not be leaving the bales out in the rain for 3 weeks before using them again. They were covered inside with mildew and outside with mold, thank goodness for paper face masks. Hoping to get the rest of the bales this weekend and finish the job, then find a source of wood chips to cover the hay while it rots down over winter. On the bright side, when finished, I will have lots of space to plant all those perential herb cuttings in the spring...

My BookBag

The Plant Propagator's Bible by Miranda Smith Fantastic book. When they call it a step-by-step guide they are not kidding! This goes through everything you need to know to reproduce any type of plant imaginable with TONS of illustrations and photos to get the point across. Very easy to read and even easier to understand, it is going on my wishlist as soon as the local library makes me give it back!

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A Snip Here a Snip There

Perennial plants just make more sense to me. The idea of not only keeping the same beautiful plant year after year, but watching it grow and then turning it into more beautiful plants every 3 years or so really intrigues me! So I have been doing a little bit of experimenting lately.

The bulk of my current garden perennials are herbs, most were grown from seeds started this spring in my kitchen. There are a few common garden staples such as sage, lemon balm, oregano, thyme, tarragon and mint. I also have some more lively characters like pineapple sage and anise hyssop.

I am a little nervous to see how they over winter in the cold here so I have also picked up the new hobby of rooting cuttings. I found plans for a great, easy rooting box on GardenWeb and have been giving it a try. My first few attempts were on no fail plants, coleus and wandering jew. I picked up a few house plants over the summer at a yard sale I found on craigslist for a song. The lady said she does sales every couple of months of just cutting starts from her house as a supplemental income. A great Idea, but really only reasonable here during the summer which leaves me wondering what to do with the 100 or so babies I just potted up from round One. I have herbs in the box now and will do a full post on how to make it in a few days.

I have been trying to add to my perennial collection as well, whenever I can afford to. Normal garden center prices on them are not in my gardening budget so I keep my eyes out for opportunities. My first big break came last month when the local Day Lily Society held their annual sale. We got there late, which is no big surprise for us, and had just missed the raffle which was for $25, $50, $75, and $100 in lilies. I was kicking myself for being late when they next announced that all the bare root plants were now 50% off and all the potted 1 gallon containers were $1 because they didn't want to have to haul all the heavy pots back home. Jackpot! I brought home a dozen of each and spent a mere $24 total. The bare root lillies are overwintering in the vegetable garden, tucked into what empty corners I could find and the pots will be burried under mulch unless I can actually get the front landscaping finished.

I got another great deal on lilies last week thanks to craigslist again. I check the garden section and the free section every morning and found a post for a house right down the street that had divided up a bunch of yellow DayLilies and had bags of them sitting on the sidewalk for free. A short drive later and I had a plastic shopping bag full to add to my collection.

I also suggest never being afraid of the little potted herbs that have been showing up in the produce section of most large grocery stores. They usually run right around $2-$3 and actually take well to the garden after a short hardening off period. I picked up my pineapple sage that way and it has grown into a big, beautiful mound of fragrant goodness in no time at all.

Next on the To Do list is to try my hand at some woody cuttings. There is a raspberry in the corner of my yard I wouldn't mind trying to replicate as well as an old lilac my in-laws ignore that is rumored to have gotten it's start as a stick pushed into the ground to mark the grave of a beloved pet decades ago.

I have also been reading again and found some great ideas for plants to try and find. My new wish list: Mountain Sandwort, Pot Marigold, Lily-of-the-Valley, Monbretia, Globe Thistle, Snow Drops, Iris, Kerria, Creeping Jenny, Star of Bethlehem, Poppies, Virginia Lions Heart, Lungwort, Allegheny Foam Flower, and Periwinkles.


My Book Bag

Plants For Free by Sharon Amos How to create a great garden for next to nothing. This book focuses on plants that easily self seed, or divide, and how to use them in the garden. It has a lot of great ideas about placement, flow, drift and use. The bulk of the book, however, is made up of a colour guide to the best self-reproducing plants with high detail on needs, care, propogation and tips. This is where my new wish list came from, my favorite selections from the guide that are hardy to zone 4! The book also provides basic techniques for cutting, layering, etc. A handy light guide.

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Worms in my kitchen

You would be surprised how many odd looks you get when searching for worms. If you don't know all ready (and you really should) earthworms are the workhorse of any healthy, balanced garden. I love them. I have found nightcrawlers out in the yard that were over a foot long and looked more like hot dogs than your typical bait shop worm, just fabulous.

Reciently, however, I have been introduced to a whole new level of worm culture in the form of vermicomposting. Now everyone has seen worm bins in gardening catalogs, high priced bags of worm castings as well ($10 a pound or more + shipping). I never really gave either any thought, mainly because I am a low budget gardener and both were just way out of my league... until now.

Somewhere I ran into some links on composting and ended up at a vermicomposting site called redwormcomposting.com and had a look around. To my surprise it really did not sound too hard to keep some worms happy, and the idea of having my own source of rich castings year round did have some appeal. So I took it to the next step and went to GardenWeb for a little research. I am a great fan of GardenWeb, there is some priceless information in the forums there, but I must warn anyone who has not used them to take the posts with a grain of salt and use common sense. There are always those posts by people that are so far out in left field they are probably lost till next week. That warning aside, I definately encourage people to register, read up, and if you can't find your answer, by all means ask away, you wont find a more helpful community. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/verm/

Now down to business. I went down to the local Big Lots since it is about 5 miles closer than Wal-mart, and picked up the materials I needed to get started. 1 large rubbermade tote with lid, any opaque colour will do as long as it blocks out light. The size depends alot on how much space you have, how many scraps you want to compost, and how many worms you want to use. I got the typical blue tote that is about 1'x1'x2' ($4) and it fit nicely in the corner of my kitchen (basements are great alternatives if you have one that is easy to get to). Also grab a couple smaller plastic boxes, such as the shoebox size, that fit nicely inside your larger bin. These can be clear since the large bin will block out the light. Optional equiptment- a tube of clear silicone calk, some fine mesh screen, a pipe or tube that is moisture proof that has holes along the sides and is long enough to run through the bin.

Building the bin is easy. Grab a drill and any bit 1/2 inch or larger and start by drilling a row of air holes along the long sides of the bin near the top. 10 or so holes per side should be fine. If you also have the perforated pipe, drill 2 holes in the bin on opposite sides, large enough for the pipe to fit through snuggly. If the holes in your pipe are large enough that castings and bedding will fall in and block the air flow, wrap the pipe in a fine mesh screen held in place with thick rubber bands. slide the pipe into place, cap the ends with a bit more screen and another rubberband to keep critters out. This pipe is optional but it provides air directly into the bedding, helping to promote an oxygen rich environment. A strip of screen can be attached to the inside of the bin, over the vent holes with the silicone (I tried duct tape when I forgot the silicone, needless to say it did no appreciate the moisture of the bin) this will help keep any flies, fruitflys, gnats etc out of your bin (or in it should you have a bit of an infestation). Finally drill 2 tiny holes about 1/4 down in one of the corners of the bin. This is so you can run a thin wire in to hold a soda or beer bottle in place should you need to trap fruitflys with a bit of cider vinegar. Let the silicone cure for a day or 2 (whatever the package recomends).

Building your bedding is the fun part, but it gets a bit tricky, especially in a plastic bin that will hold in excess moisture. Bedding is a composting project in itself, and can be made up of any nontoxic, color-free scrap "fibre". The bulk of your bedding will probably be shredded newpaper. Some people use shredded office paper but I don't completely trust laser printer toner so I avoid it. Now mix in some texture. Bits of brown cardboard, a couple cups of peat or preferably coconut fiber (the kind that comes in compressed bricks, you can find it at pet stores where it is sold to be used as reptile bedding, it has tons of uses in the garden!), a few ground egg shells or a dash of mineral suppliment if you happen to have some for a pet lizard. Once you have it all in your bin add water very very slowly (I use a spray bottle) mixing it up then letting it rest for a bit to absorb the moisture before adding more. You want the bedding to be damp but not soaked. It should ALMOST drip when squeezed tightly but it should not actually drip. Once the bedding is perfect, put the lid on your bin and let it sit for a week and let nature work on the bedding and mellow it out.

Now for the hard part, finding worms. Composting worms are not earthworms, period. You can not go out in your yard, dig up some worms, and throw them in your bin and expect them to do well. You are going to have to find a batch of litter worms, these are worms that live in the leaves, dead grass, and other loose material that sits on the surface of the soil. In short you want redworms, and no, 99% chance the redworms sold in the bait machine at your gas station are not the right ones, I bought some at mine to check. Redworms can go by several names including tiger, trout, red wiggler and manure worms. They are small, a few inches long at best, fairly thin, and have bands of light and dark running down their body. No one in my area sells composting worms (or at least I could not find them). Even a wanted ad on craigslist resulted in no hits. You can buy your worms online, a pound is a good start for a bin the size of mine, but the initial investment is $20-30, a little too rich for me. My big break came when we drove out to a farm to pick up some organic hay to use as mulch in the garden. the farmer happened to have an old manure pile and a pitchfork. The manure was well composted, not overly wet and not stinky, and had a good number of red worms. I had a paper coffee cup full in no time and ignored my husband's comments about what "normal people" don't do. A coffee cup, however, doesnt hold all that many worms, This is where those smaller plastic bins come in, if you only have a small number of worms to start, nest them in a smaller bucket inside your big bin. The worms will breed better if they can find each other so you want to keep the population dense, which is why you wouldn't want to let 50 worms loose in a large bin that can normally hold 1000+. If you do harvest your own worms, carefully sort and rinse them before you add them to your bin to help keep other critters from hitching a ride inside.

Feeding is what we have been waiting for. The first thing I want to make clear is that worms do not eat your kitchen scraps, they do not eat vegies, fruits, or grains. Worms have no teeth, they can not bite or chew. So what DO they eat? Worms suck up the slimey goo that decomposing foods turn into. They adore a coctail of bacteria, fungus, mold and whatnot. A worm can process half their weight in food a day. If you buy a pound of worms, you can bury half a pound of food a day, or 3.5 pounds a week. If you have a small number of worms you can feed only a small amount of food. Too much food causes odor, which is a bad thing to have in a kitchen, it can also cause the bedding to become too wet. Most fruit comes standard with fruitfly eggs, if you want to try and keep fruitflys out of the bin (usually a lost cause but a zap with the vaccume hose as you open the lid solves fruitfly issues) you want to freeze your scraps for a few days, or microwave them till hot before you put them in the bin. To feed, be sure to chop up your scraps to create more surface area for microbes to work on. If the food was frozen let it thaw to room temperature before you bury it, if its hot let it cool. Dig a hole in the bedding on one end of the bin, large enough to fit the scaps and be well covered to deter pests like fruitflies. Fill this pocket with your scraps and cover with bedding. If your bin tends to be over wet, wrap the scraps in a sheet or two of fresh newspaper before you put it in the bin, this pouch will absorb some of the excess moisture as the food decays. For the next feeding move over a bit from the last pocket and make another, rotate through the entire bin this way untill you get back to where you started.

That is the crash course in worm composting! Remember, don't stir up your worms once they are in the bin, it will stress them. Worms dont like light or standing water. Worms do need a damp environment in order to breathe through their skin so it is a fine balance. Yes you will see other things in the worm bin such as molds, fungus, mites, pillbugs, soldier bugs etc, all of these play an important role in the composting process and will eventially find their way into a good environment. I don't suggest adding anything from outside such as leaves as they are already exposed to insects and other critters that may come in too.

Now I just have to experiment with how to separate the worms from the castings when it is time to harvest! I will post all about it when I have tried it!

In My Bookbag

Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof The go-to bible on vermicomposting, this one is a great read with all the information you are looking for in one place. Easy to understand and easy to read I went through it in a couple of days, while on the bike at the gym. I can't think of anything missing from this, it is the only worm book you would need.

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Lets start this again

Ok, so picking up a new hobby in the middle of summer when I have so much other stuff going on may not really be the best idea. I am back, however, and determined to keep up on the blog!

3am random thoughts before bed came up with the idea that I need to do more than just read the dozens of gardening books I bring home, but review them here. Easy enough to do.

Here is best wishes going out to all those effected by hurricane Ike, we got just a taste of leftover wind up here in New York the other night and it was still enough to flatten my Hopi Black Dye Sunflowers and the husband's patch of sweet corn. I cant even imagine what I would do if that was a common event all summer! I am sure it would take alot more than some strips of old fabric and a few wooden stakes to right the damage though!

I have to make up for a lot of wasted time in the next couple days so my appologies for the flood of posts that will be coming, things should even out to a regular pace after I catch up!!

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Falling into place.

If there is one thing I have learned in the 30 years of my lifetime, it is that I am extremely tasty to bugs.

It is an undeniable truth that I have come to terms with, though reluctantly.

If there is an insect that bites, sucks, gnaws or stings within a half mile radius it WILL find me. And they are smart, laying in wait and planning their ambush for the perfect moment, when my hands are full, trying to stake tomatoes or unhook a small mouth bass. Then they strike in full force!

I thought perhaps I had it bad back in the Mohave Desert of Arizona where I grew up. Summers were spent dodging yellow paper wasps, checking the mailbox for black widows BEFORE reaching in for the mail, kicking over wood and bricks that needed moving to dislodge scorpions before picking them up.

Ants were my personal Nemesis, the little tiny piss ants (at least that's what we always called them) that would be all over your sandaled foot in the hundreds long before the first one stung. Getting into the house and infesting the dog's dishes or the crumbs under the toaster. Armed with Simple Green (the oily, non-toxic de-greaser works wonders on tiny ants) and paper towels, it was a seasonal battle with few victories.

Then I moved to Western New York last May. From the blissful ignorance that was a life in a dry climate. The nearest standing water was 100 miles away and with 4 inches of rain fall a YEAR, there were no puddles or creeks to run. And I learned that there are far worse things than ants in the world... Mosquitoes.

I am allergic to mosquito bites, they swell up as large as a quarter and can last 5 weeks or more. I am also what must be known as gourmet in the mosquito world, because they swam at every chance. I wore shorts outside once, last summer, for about 10 minutes. It is not a mistake I am likely to ever repeat. Working in the garden requires special equipment, no more flip flops or tank tops. It is knee high trouser socks, under long pants, T-Shirts covered by a long sleeve silk shirt, a bandanna over my ears and the back of my neck....

I patrol the inside of my house like a sentinel, scanning the white walls for signs of intruders. A resounding and vengeful THWACK marks a successful hunt as the dogs run for cover. Each patrol is followed up with the swipe of a damp sponge, though sometimes I wonder if leaving the aftermath of my attack would serve as a warning to my enemy.

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