Monthly Archives: March 2009

Shake yo’ compost screen

Sifter hard way:nifty stuff

As part of my almost criminally long article on composting (125 pages and counting) I have been looking at compost screens and sifters. Mine is something my husband knocked together in a few minutes—a wooden frame reinforced at the corners fitted with ½” hardware cloth (read: wire mesh). It’s big enough to set down on the big new wheelbarrow I got last summer. I just shovel finished compost onto it and shove it around with my hands; what doesn’t go through goes back into the bin.

It never occurred to me that some people shook theirs–it sounds like way too much work– until I ran into that guy in the photograph above. But apparently he saw the error of his ways, and found the plans for a two-part sifter where the screen rides on top of a secure frame. Directions for building it are available here, on the Glendale, California website.

Continue reading

Shake yo' compost screen

Sifter hard way:nifty stuff

As part of my almost criminally long article on composting (125 pages and counting) I have been looking at compost screens and sifters. Mine is something my husband knocked together in a few minutes—a wooden frame reinforced at the corners fitted with ½” hardware cloth (read: wire mesh). It's big enough to set down on the big new wheelbarrow I got last summer. I just shovel finished compost onto it and shove it around with my hands; what doesn't go through goes back into the bin.

It never occurred to me that some people shook theirs–it sounds like way too much work– until I ran into that guy in the photograph above. But apparently he saw the error of his ways, and found the plans for a two-part sifter where the screen rides on top of a secure frame. Directions for building it are available here, on the Glendale, California website.

Continue reading

Plant Power: Phytoremediation (Arsenic in soil, Part III)

Fern4 malibuwater.com
Chinese brake fern (Pteris vittata L.) Source: Brake fern remediation

Today I get to write about one of my absolute favorite gardening topics, and for once I’m not being ironic. Phytoremediation isn’t going to make it onto most people’s gardening hit lists, and it’s not a fad that’s going to take the nation’s gardens by storm the way a new rose or hellebore might. But for me it’s proof positive of the extraordinary power of plants; it’s hope in a polluted world; it’s a spot of green in the brownfields of industry; it’s good sense in the midst of madness.

Continue reading

Readers’ Questions: Arsenic from pressure-treated wood, Part II

Welcome back, everyone, and in case you just tuned in, we’re talking with Jen about her vegetable garden and the unpleasant possibility that she may be growing toxic vegetables and feeding them to her family.

Unfortunately, the best place for the garden turned out to be right by an old telephone pole, which was probably treated with the wood-preservative copper chromate arsenate (CCA), and we all know what that means: it means that arsenic (along with smaller quantities of copper and chrome) could be leaching from the pole into the soil, where it would get taken up by vegetables. Which are eaten by her children. That’s pretty scary.

Continue reading

Readers' Questions: Arsenic from pressure-treated wood, Part II

Welcome back, everyone, and in case you just tuned in, we're talking with Jen about her vegetable garden and the unpleasant possibility that she may be growing toxic vegetables and feeding them to her family.

Unfortunately, the best place for the garden turned out to be right by an old telephone pole, which was probably treated with the wood-preservative copper chromate arsenate (CCA), and we all know what that means: it means that arsenic (along with smaller quantities of copper and chrome) could be leaching from the pole into the soil, where it would get taken up by vegetables. Which are eaten by her children. That's pretty scary.

Continue reading