I wrote in June about keeping a Garden Journal, which might include a map of your garden, what was planted and where, how often it was watered, even details about amounts of sunlight it received and the temperatures it experienced.  Written down should also be information on the yields you've experienced from your vegetables, what you liked and what you weren't so crazy about.  These bits of information can help you prepare your garden for winter.

This preparation should include planning for next year.  It doesn't have to be exact, but a general idea can help you decide where to put the bulk of your compost. Plants should be grown in different areas of the garden every year, most especially tomatoes, as they absorb different nutrients from the soil.  But most will benefit from a fresh place in the garden. Plants that need more fertilizer and water should be grouped together for most effective use of both; an example would be peppers and tomatoes; squash and beans. 

After pulling up annuals and weeding, the next step is a good layer of compost to condition the soil for next spring's planting.  Our tumbling composters have been busily making nutrient rich organic compost all spring and summer, so we have plenty of compost to spread around.  We'll put down a two-inch deep layer of compost to enrich the soil and act as a mulch, conserving moisture and reducing the odd winter weed.  We use our Fold-A-Cart to get the compost where it's needed. It's pretty easy to park our Fold-A-Cart under the compost machine, dump the compost in and wheel it to wherever in the garden we need it.  This cart is especially nice because it is so easy to clean up afterwards, and it has two ten-inch pneumatic rubber tires that give it a great center of gravity and prevent tipping like our old wheelbarrow used to want to do.  When we're done spreading the compost layer, we'll give everything a good soaking to provide the moisture that our garden worms need in order to do their jobs. Another spray with the hose and the Fold-A-Cart is ready to be folded down to 20% of its usable size and hung in the garage.

Even though I still have lots of vegetables in my garden (the warm weather still hangs on!): tomatoes, beets, beans, chard and spinach, I'll be updating my garden journal this weekend on what worked in the garden and where I need to move things next year.  When we finally do get cold weather, all the refuse from the garden will go back into the tumbling composters to help make more compost for the spring planting.

Happy Composting!

There was something I noticed pretty quickly about gardening organically, and that was the plant destroying pests: bugs, weeds and critters. I’d read about beneficial insects, the ones that eat the plant destroyers, and read about how they could be purchased online, through mail order, or sometimes from local nurseries.  I also knew that hot peppers could be used in some fashion as well.  And my organic farmer husband has long used a soap and water mixture sprayed onto plants in order to discourage infestations of insects. But an article in the weekend real estate guide from the Sunday, June 11th Denver Post went into glorious detail about organic pesticides, why they work and even provided a recipe to make it.  Also included were some tips for reducing the likelihood of infestations through healthy gardening habits..

First, the recipe:  3 garlic bulbs, 12 hot chili peppers, 2 TBSP vegetable oil, 5 squirts liquid dish soap and 7 cups of water.  Blend these together using an electric blender and then strain through muslin cloth, storing in a spray bottle.  I made a batch, and have initially found it pretty effective.  I also noticed that it smells bad, but dissipates quickly.  I think the garlic also helps makes it fairly sticky on the plants and cuts off the air supply to most pests.

Next, to attract beneficial insects, the Post article suggests that we should keep our gardens dry and healthy.  Wet plants are more susceptible to infestations and fungus.  Keep your garden mulched (you can use organic compost...easy to do with a tumbling composter from BestComposters.com!) so as to prevent weed growth and retain moisture for the plant roots, then trim leaves so that they don't lay on the ground.  Certain plants will also attract beneficial insects, like carrots, celery, parsley, caraway, Queen Ann's Lace, tansy, yarrow, daisies, blackeyed susans, asters marigolds and goldenrod.

I haven't tried the last steps to protect my garden yet in any quantity.  I do have the first three vegies, but I'm interested in adding some of the flowers around them to see what impact they'll have.  I surely wish I could get our Homeowner's Association to okay chickens.  I'm told chickens are a powerful ally in the war against slugs, (not to mention providers of fresh eggs) and I really need an ally for that war!

Happy Composting!

This time of year is so exciting with all the new growth going on in my garden!  I enjoy checking it every day - ok, sometimes two or three times a day - to watch for the first leaves of the beet plants, see how the peas are almost tall enough to start reaching for the bean poles set out for them to climb, and the flowers as they appear on the tomato plants.  Glorious birth! 

I can really tell a difference this year in the growth and health of my garden vegetables with the addition of home grown organic compost.  It ‘s my hope to have a bumper crop this year, and I plan on filling my freezer with produce.  I've also started to think about whom else might benefit from the abundance I've planned for.  The article in yesterday's Denver Post about school children in Denver who are learning about where food comes from made me think about how many families could benefit if every school had a vegetable garden. So many kids would be empowered with the knowledge of how to feed themselves and their families, as well as the nutritional benefits that they would reap with their harvests. Surely someone at each school could find the time to sponsor a garden; if not a teacher, then a parent, volunteer from the neighborhood or an employee of nearby nursery.  I’d like to donate my time to teaching students how to compost and it’s various uses in a garden. Some schools might even find themselves being able to donate their garden produce to food banks and co-ops.  With good weather, and the good soil that I’ve laid down this year, that’s what I plan to do!

Maybe we need a grass roots movement to contact school districts and request that space be made available at each school for a classroom garden, rather than the lawns that most schools have surrounding their facilities.    Oh, how my mind does travel along a meandering pathway at times, leading me to consider ideas and dreams that crop up along the way!

And speaking of composting, I’d better get the latest batch of kitchen scraps into the composter, and put on my to-do list to shred some cardboard to mix in as well.  After all, can one have too much compost? 

Happy Composting!

Well, we finally got it done, in spite of all the weird weather we’ve had!  Our garden is planted!!  My husband got the new planter box made, we got our plants and seeds assembled and got them all planted.  Whew, what a relief!

The planter box was a big thing, even though there is a lot more area to plant in the ‘in ground’ garden.  We are experimenting with the box.  We’d gone back and forth for a couple of weeks trying to decide how best to fill that planter box.  We knew we were going to use a good quantity of our organic home made compost, straight from our tumbling composter.  But what other medium?  Top soil was my initial plan…shopping at our local hardware store had me doing the math.  The planter box is 12’ x 3’ and 16” deep…a lot of box to fill.  That’s some 500 cubic feet of top soil needed, at $2.50 per cubic feet equals $1,250.  Even if we mixed the top soil with compost 50-50, we’d be buying $625 worth of top soil.  Then I ran across an article about hay bale gardening.  This gardener takes hay bales, dowses them with nitrogen (fertilizer), digs a whole in the center and fills it with soil and plants.  Sounded intriguing, so I talked with hubby.  And he had his own idea.  This is what we did:  Two bales each of straw and alfalfa, run through a chipper to break it up and mix it well - $32.  Into the planter it went, with two gallons of BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost and warm water – under $5.  Mix garden soil excess that we had from last year, that wonderful black compost and a little perlite, add to holes dug down into the alfalfa and straw mix and plant.  The  BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost has already started the decomposition process, heating up the mix and starting to turn it into more compost.  Hubby and I are both excited to see what results we’ll have in our new planter box.  It was big enough to fit three tomato plants, six broccoli, and 16 onions, for under $100 inside the planter.  We won't talk about the redwood lumber that went into building the thing, but it sure is pretty!

By the way, readers remembering the blog about our newspaper planter pots will be interested to know that the single half sheet of newspaper held up just great!  I ended up peeling it off of the lettuces very easily when it was wet.  The spinach and broccoli seeds planted in them germinated; however, they did not get very big.  Next year we’ll get some real grow lights to start them under, and maybe get an earlier start….like February?!?

You may be astounded, like I was, to find that approximately 3 thousand TONS of garbage are added to our landfills each year!  The EPA further estimates that almost a ton of waste is generated by each person in the US each year, and that 70% of that can be recycled and composted. That's a heck of a lot of what could be wonderful soil amendment that's instead getting added to the landfill each year!

I know that it's easier to throw it out than to compost it, but the benefits, to me, far outweigh the drawbacks.  After all, nobody wants a landfill in their neighborhood; the smell, pests, the eye sore, decreasing property values, etc.  And most of us these days are fairly good at conserving our water resources, but don't realize that about 3 gallons of water is used each time we run the garbage disposal to grind up kitchen waste.  Instead of building better bigger landfills and wasting precious water, we could be making our own compost that will provide our gardens and lawn with a valuable boost of natural fertilizer.  We can also be sharing this activity with the next generation, spending time with the children in our lives and teaching them how to better care for our world and ourselves.

Composting can be accomplished many different ways.  My grandparents had a pile next to their garden that they added to each day.  I don't  remember them every turning it, so it may have taken quite a while to break down.  A three sided apparatus can be put together with almost any materials: cinderblocks, old pallets, cyclone fencing, almost anything that you can build with can be used to build an area for compost.  It just needs to allow for air circulation and a surface to keep things together.  This method is inexpensive, but you'll need to put your back and arms into it, turning it over with a pitchfork or a compost 'tiller'.  You'll almost most likely be dealing with pests...the kind that like decomposing food.  Ick!  Finally there are bins commericially available that can be sealed up pretty tight to keep pests out, but there would still be the issue of having to manually turn it at least once a week.

Or you can splurge a little and get yourself and your family a tumbling composter.  www.BestComposters.com has a selection of the finest tumbling composters available anywhere.  An easy turn of a handle and you’re providing your compost with the aeration that it needs to keep all those wonderful organisms happy and heated up. You'll be helping reduce the amount of trash added to landfills, reducing the water consumption and waste, and making some great soil amendment that will help your garden and lawn prosper!  Come on in and order yours today!