Category Archives: In the Garden

For arsenic-free water, pull up your compost socks.

January 9, 2009 by The Manic Gardener

I realize that this post-title sounds as if I'd lost both my remaining marbles, or else as though I were trying to imitate the inimitable off-the-wall titles of the great Blogger from Blackpitts, James A-S himself. But no. As you will see.

Let us begin with the subject of spreading compost. Easy, right? All you need is a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Well. Check out the photo below.

Source: Compost: Completing the Cycle
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ), 20

That, folks, is how they do it in Texas. Apparently, when they go for compost there, they do it big-time. (Why am I not surprised?)

Compost blankets like this one reduce runoff, making reseeding disturbed soil far quicker, more successful, and therefore economical than it is when using what are disparagingly referred to as "traditional methods." But that's not really the point here. The point is the machinery, which I'll return to in a minute.

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Posted in Composting, Environment, Research Spin-off

Aphid Alert! Indoor tomatoes–again.

December 7, 2008 by The Manic Gardener

BREAKING NEWS
Near the end of last winter the blogger known as the Manic Gardener, (a rather obvious play on her own name, Kate Gardner) wrote not one, but TWO posts about problems with growing tomatoes indoors and how she was never going to make that mistake again: she had learned her lesson, she had seen the light, she was a reformed person, a cured addict: “tomatoes belong outdoors, not in.”

Yet the aphids pictured above are on a tomato leaf, and the photo was taken today, in the home of the aforementioned Manic Gardener. What conclusions can we draw?

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Posted in Indoor Gardening, Organic Gardening, Vegetables

Compost tools: Rage against the machine

December 3, 2008 by The Manic Gardener

The compost-auger-that-has-to-be-attached-to-a-drill, subject of yesterday’s rant, is just the latest motorized gadget I’ve seen recommended for composters. Some manuals seem to assume that everyone keeps a garage full of gas-guzzling machines handy. Shredders, gas-powered mowers and roto-tillers top the list, but weed whackers and chippers get occasional mention, and now we can add electric aeraters to the list.

Composting happens most swiftly if materials are chopped into tiny pieces first, of course. So what to do with leaf-piles to “prepare” them for the compost heap? Just drive your mulching lawn-mower over them, many manuals advise, as if of course everyone has a mulching lawn-mower. Most such sites don’t say, “If you have a mulching mower, you can use it to….” No. They say “drive your mulching mower….” Do they have a contract with the mowing manufacturers, I wonder?

Newspaper, I read in my current composting book, can be composted; ‘but be sure to shred it first.’ With your handi-dandi shredder, of course. Even sticks and logs can be used if you toss them in the chipper and mix them with—But I don’t care what I’m supposed to mix them with; I’m ready to compost the book.

I’ve got two MAJOR problems with this sort of idiocy.

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Posted in Composting, Tools of the Trade

Compost auger: a rant

December 2, 2008 by The Manic Gardener

Well, that’s torn it.

Yesterday’s post, disclosing my “secrets” for winter composting, ended by saying that I’d turned my pile the old-fashioned way (with a fork) since my hole-poking technique hadn’t introduced enough oxygen to let the pile re-heat after its temperature started to drop.

James A-S (Blogging from Blackpitts Garden) emerged from his bundle of blankets long enough to advise using an auger. (Hey—I just figured out why the bonfire, James. Thinking warm thoughts?) Colleen of In the Garden agreed.

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Posted in Composting, Tools of the Trade

Secrets of hot compost in winter–I think. I hope.

December 1, 2008 by The Manic Gardener

How’d I get hot compost in winter? I’ll tell you: I cheated. I added lots of nitrogen-rich bloodmeal to replace the green stuff that provides nitrogen in summer. “Lots” here means a sprinkling over the whole pile—maybe a couple of tablespoons—after adding four inches or so of material. Cotton-meal should work just as well, but be sure it's organic: pesticides, which are used heavily on cotton, concentrate in the seeds, which are ground to make the meal.

Perhaps I should define "winter" here: for days last week highs were around freezing, but they've been warmer recently, with rain melting last week's snow. So it's cool rather than cold, but temperatures are predicted to drop again tomorrow.

The bin is of course central to successful composting, and I’m a little reluctant to reveal mine, since even a glimpse of it will probably reduce most of you to envious teeth-gnashing. However, if you promise to restrain your wails, I’ll bow to the inevitable. Here it is, a high-class affair cobbled together years ago from a few boards and some chicken wire, built near one of the West's loveliest fences:

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Posted in Composting