progress report and lasagna gardening

by now, all the seeds are in their pots on my front porch and several are up and sprouted. cold weather crops like radishes (the fastest germinating veggie, mine were up in two days), beets, carrots, kale, arugula, lettuces, cabbages, and spinach need the cool, damp days and chilly nights we are having right now to germinate and be tasty. these crops will be pretty much done by the time june or july rolls around, so enjoy them at their peak in a few weeks! if you haven't planted them, it isn't too late. buy a bag of good potting mix (get metro mix, secret garden, (502) 426-2216), a couple of fun pots (plastic is lightweight and cheap), and a few packets of seeds. follow the directions on the packet, keep them very well-watered, and in a few weeks you'll be eating baby carrots in salads and yummy beets and spinach too. i never liked these veggies until i tasted them fresh out of the dirt...i have all my pots on my tiny front porch, so you really don't need much room at all.

second topic: lasagna gardening. i like lasagna. i like gardening. i had to check it out. so, what is it?

think a layer-cake, except instead of cream cheese frosting and strawberries, you have compost, hay, and straw. layering your organic materials in piles on top of the ground are great for gardeners with bad dirt (the concept originated in australia and is popular out west in desert climates), gardeners with a small space who want a large yield of plants, or gardeners who are renting or might not be in a permanent location. i took these instructions from an excerpt in Organic Gardening, Dec/Jan 2010/2011 from an article titled "A Layered Approach" by Debra Prinzing:

How to Grow Without Digging:

add these ingredients in a raised bed (chicken wire, untreated wood, concrete blocks, etc)...

2 to 3 lbs bloodmeal and bonemeal

newspaper

1 bale herbicide-free alfalfa hay

1 bale herbicide-free bedding straw

10 cubic feet of compost

1. moisten your ground level soil and dust with the bloodmeal and bonemeal. you will repeat this step of watering and dusting after each layer of anything is added to your pile

2. cover with 1/2 " newspaper

3. add 4" alfalfa

4. add 8" straw

5. add 4" compost

remember the bloodmeal, bonemeal, and water between each layer.

sow seeds in the compost and mulch with straw. between your crops, add more compost and straw to your "lasagna" garden. keep the pile moist, especially while seeds are sprouting and small. this "recipe" makes one 4-by-8 ' raised bed.

enjoy huge, healthy veggies in a tiny amount of space!

next blog: garden design and layout

                 heirloom veggies

                 houseplant springtime tips

dirty rotten...

...compost!

how's, why's, when's, and where's:


Why compost? compost helps retain moisture, attracts worms and bugs into your soil (that's a good thing), provides gentle and easy-to-absorb nutrients for the plants, hosts beneficial bacteria and microorganisms, acts as a mulch by stabilizing soil temperature and suppressing weeds, AND is a great way to recycle your kitchen and yard waste and some paper products. organic gardeners (the only way to be, in my opinion) live by the mantra, "grow the soil, not the plants". this means that by putting most of your time and energy into creating healthy soil, you have naturally strong and disease-resistant plants as a by-product (without nasty pesticides, chemicals, and synthetic fertilizers).

Where to compost? pretty much anywhere you don't mind a little bit of a mess (certainly not next to your patio where you entertain, for example). many gardeners use the three-bin system, which entails using a set of three bins or even just piles of compost, in succession of least-finished to mostly finished compost. as you add waste to the first pile and turn it to let it break down and decompose, the second bin you add the partially degraded compost to the second bin, and then in turn the third bin receives the mostly finished or completely ready compost. by using this method, you always have a fresh pile to receive your yard waste and kitchen scraps, and a finished pile ready to be used in your garden and pots. i add a continual supply of kitchen scraps to a covered plastic tumbler, similar to a trashcan, which will result in one big "crop" of compost at the end of the season, rather than a steady supply of compost like the three-bin system. you can have a heap enclosed by fencing, chicken wire, old recycled wooden pallets, whatever. just make sure it is able to be covered (compost needs heat and only a minimal amount of rainwater) and that occasionally you can access it to turn it (with a pitchfork, shovel, whatever.) compost can be fast, made in a few weeks under a high-heat aerobic pile, or very slow--basically a slowly rotting pile of leaves-- that takes several seasons to finish.

How to compost? bear with me as i get (slightly, slightly, SLIGHTLY) chemistry-ical on you. compost needs both a carbon source and a nitrogen source, as well as air and water. air prevents anaerobic (i.e. stinky) conditions from forming and water nourishes the bacteria and keeps them moist (aka alive). your carbons, or "browns", are things like sticks, twigs, old mulch, bark chips, newspapers, paper bags, etc...anything dead-ish or dry. your nitrogen source-- the "greens"-- are the fruit peels, old rotting veggies, grass clippings, rabbit poop (...thanks, Mopsie)...basically anything alive or mushy, wet, etc. what else can you compost? any paper that isn't glossy (picky composters check on the ink...soy-based is best), eggshells, guinea pig or hamster bedding, expired plants from your garden, leaves in the fall, your christmas tree once chopped up, etc etc etc... what can you NEVER EVER EVER compost? human waste, cat or dog or pig feces, meat products, dairy, mayonnaise, magazine papers, plants treated with pesticides, plants with diseases like mold, fungus, powdery mildew, invasive plants or weeds with seed heads (unless your pile is running at a super-high temperature)...you get the point. aim for a 60:40 ratio of nitrogens to carbons. keep the pile moist, sprinkling with a hose if you need to, and keep it covered (black plastic works great) to accelerate the heat and keep rain from slushing it all away into a moldy mildewy mess. turn it occasionally (about six times a season). compost, if maintained properly with the balanced ratios, should not stink or attract any pests. it actually smells quite sweet and earthy when finished correctly.

and, finally....what for?

i use my compost to top off houseplant soil, to mulch beds in need of a boost, to mix into new containers' dirt, to rake into new beds i'm digging, to brew compost "tea" and spray on plants' foliage, and to cover beds in the fall to help them winter over. use it in place of any mulch or fertilizer that you would normally use.

that's all there is to it! add worms to your beds along with your compost and you get bonus points.

...if you are an orchid fan...

forewarning: no warm fuzzy feelings and no sprouts in this post.

so, i was skimming the garden supply catalogs my mom gets at work when i ran across an extremely weird thing. it kind of disturbs me.

remember in elementary school when you would put a nasty white carnation in blue food-coloring and water and the next morning, your white flower had turned blue? so, they are now doing that to orchids. except it is apparently a "patented" top-secret process.

there is a new phalaenopsis orchid out (those are the common kind you see all over Lowe's and supermarkets) called 'Blue Mystique' that is the most horrifying unsettling shade of electric, Crayola-blue you will ever see on a flower. (hopefully. it can't get much worse than this, i'm assuming.) according to the nursery that "invented" this flower, the white orchids are "infused" with "naturally derived" blue "medium" in a "patented" process that takes 48-90 hours.
 ...what?
i researched this process and essentially they are injecting the roots of white orchids with blue dye, so that the flower blooms blue. once. if you ever get your orchid to rebloom, it will rebloom pale blue or probably white.

the grossest thing about the whole elementary-school-experiment-gone-awry? my kroger in germantown is selling them.

what is the world coming to?

yuck.

reading material:

it's getting warmer but still not quite time to be actually planting, which means reading up as much as i can with some delicious jasmine green tea. (teavana = delicious, by the way.)

i like these books, and you should, too, if you have any interest in growing your own, yummy, organic veggies to eat all summer long:


organic crops in pots, by deborah schneebeli-morrell. this one has great really easy plants to grow in containers if you don't have much space. peppers, tomatoes, herbs, even potatoes on a patio?? who knew!

creating your backyard farm, by nicki trench. if you like to pretend you actually have the space to do this. (i am in firm denial that my yard isn't actually five acres of farmland waiting for me to fill it full of chickens and bunnys and watermelon vines. in actuality, i'm pretty sure my walk-in closet is larger than my backyard. oh, well. my delusions continue.)

the dirt cheap green thumb, by rhonda massingham hart. really good tips for starting up your garden without sinking a ton of cash into it, recycling materials and containers, choosing the best plants for what you are able to spend on them, dividing and propagating plants, etc. a very small cute book...my bathtub book currently.

and, finally, gardening for small spaces, by john cushnie, has really good basic designs and the framework for you to fill in with whatever plants you want. things like figuring out if your site is north-facing, south-facing, what plants are best for small spaces, lists of dwarf varieties. this is a good reference book for small yards, in general, and you can apply a lot of his tips for flower beds to veggie gardening.

i am getting my seeds started, have the grow light on them. heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, and beans are already sprouted and stretching towards the light. very exciting. also got tons of packets of zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers...all to sow directly into the yard in about a month. 

look: coconut ice sunflower. this is a new hybrid. i am obsessed. the only thing i have never cared for about sunflowers is the yellow. burpee fixed a new sunflower for me! :)

on that note, happy almost-spring! (so happy the daffodils are coming up, i saw some this morning.)