My adventure with compost

Firstly look at my happy tree! :) My tree survived the winter! I think it needs a name... any ideas?

I woke up this morning and decided to go on an adventure. This morning I had no idea it was going to be an adventure, this morning it was all planned. I left the house around 11 am to go to the Bordeaux Mulch Facility to get another truck load of compost. So, I find directions and set out on my adventure. When I arrive to the area where this mulching facility is, I could not find it! I drove through the ghetto where all the houses and food markets have metal bars over their windows and doors and the drivers are really aggressively bad. I found a safe public place and parked the truck. I was a little freaked out because I was lost and did not want to venture any further, especially alone. So, I called my sleepy brother and he told me I had gone too far and to turn where the hospital was. Easy enough, I thought, I checked my maps again and what my brother said and what the maps said matched. I arrive at the hospital and like 3 of the roads around the hospital were for walkers. I ended up going the wrong way down a one way street on the back side of the hospital. Then like a glowing treasure were the big mounds of mulch! The only road I found leading to the mulch facility was a gravely half covered in grass bumpy road. I was a little scared. So I had to leave the hospital and turn down a different road. I was ssoooo confused! I did finally find the Bordeaux mulch facility and I got the truck load of compost! It was soo cool! A big yellow tractor with a huge bucket on the front dumped a load onto my truck bed. I was really excited!

Driving home was a little tricky because I didn't want to drive on the interstate and all my compost fly out. So, I drove back roads.

When I got home and started unloading the compost it was only leaves!!! Once again, I freaked out a little. I thought, "Oh no?! What am I going to do! This won't work, will it?!" So, to the corn bed I added a layer of spent coffee grounds, thanks Nick! Then I started piling on the mulched leaves. After finishing that I thought, "crap this won't work... what should I do?! OH YEAH I HAVE MANURE!" :) I think it's going to be awesome... Nick and Amanda helped me add the mulched leaves to the remaining straw bale bed. We mixed the manure and leaves all together and filled the bed to the top. :) Finally, Nick and I propped up the headboard trellis for the beans. The construction is finally complete... Time for planting!!

After finishing all of that ridiculousness that took 3 hours, ugh. Nick and I planted corn seeds together. Then, I planted the bush beans between one of the corn rows and cucumbers between the other corn row. I planted the sunflowers and pumpkins on the eastern border of the bed aka the right side. Later I moved onto planting the watermelons and pole beans in the remaining straw bale bed. Then just to make sure that possibly some of the cauliflower and collard greens might grow I sprinkled some more seeds around in their bed as well. I covered everything with a nice layer of mulched leaves including the round flower bed to help retain water.

Now that the garden is mostly complete, Paul and I love our backyard... I am so excited! I can't wait to see everything growing! Sweet delicious fresh corn with raw tomatoes.... aaaahhhhhh!!! Paradise!

So, I have a question... is it bad that I did not really keep track of how many seeds I planted?! I mean... I followed the spacing rules I'll thin the plants out later. I have no idea how many beans/corn/cauliflower/collard green/okra/carrot/etc seeds are in my garden. Whatever, it's going to be cool.

I hope Amanda will post soon about the many transformations of the brick encased flower bed and the cutey things we found in the bed! :) :)

Gotta keep going!

I'm going to start off by saying I was in a horrible, no good, very bad mood today. All freakin' day! I wanted to destroy things. So, when I got off work I came home and I decided I'm going to plant these seedlings. I think we're safe now I do not think there is going to be another freeze. If there is another freeze now that I have transplanted, I might explode. You see, the seedlings had totally out grown their little peat moss pellets. The seedlings were starting to die so I knew I had to do something quick.

While I was turning up the only bed I can plant in, I desperately need more compost or manure or top soil something. Anyway, I found SO MANY FAT HEALTHY WORMS! Oh how happy they make me, I love those little guys!

Also I found this really cool fungus

growing in the garden! I know that this fungus is breaking down the straw bales, but it still makes me sooo happy!

I am pretty sure this is cup fungus from Phylum Ascomycota.

There's actually two different kinds of mushrooms growing. The other kind is called an ink cap mushroom.

I'm a little crazy about mushrooms and I really want to grow some shiitakes, portabellas, or oyster or

morels. I don't even really care to eat mushrooms very often, I just think they are so interesting and cool! I probably think they're so cool because they're so trendy now. Kinda crazy about owls too.. :)

Thanks Wikipedia! Sometimes these are hard mushrooms to catch.

I finished everything around 8 pm. I'm glad the sun took so long to finally go down. Sometimes it's hard for me to find free time, I'm thankful for the longer daylight hours.

Oh, I almost forgot!

I planted the cauliflower seeds, carrot, and green onion seeds this past Sunday. I hope they germinate. :) I transplanted the collard greens a couple weeks ago as well.

The plan is complete!

First off, things are starting to pick up! Today after work I decided to clean up the yard and put the garden back together. It wasn't as difficult as I expected! I got one bed raked up, put back together, and even shoveled some manure onto a tarp to mix with topsoil. Amanda and Nick came out and helped by cleaning up the other bed, put it back together, picked out some sprouts, and crumbled some old coffee grounds Nick brought from work on the bales. I feel happy and accomplished with everything we got done today! :)

Amanda has already made a great post about all of the plants that we are growing this year. On our recent cold, rainy Sunday I went to www.motherearthnews.com and with their garden planner I made a really awesome plan!

The planner program allows me to customize everything, I can manage the spacing between plants, rows, and plants in rows. I also can customize the sowing, planting, and

harvest times. There's also a feature that will alert me by e-mail about when to sow, plant, and harvest the plants! It's so cool. I was able to measure everything out to the exact inch. :) Of course, I'm Evelyn, so I don't worry too much about the exact measurements. I do not think that being exact is completely necessary, especially since all of the bales are a few inches off.

unfortunately, the plan is kinda tiny... :(

I made the plan following companion planting guidelines. For instance, Marigolds and nasturtiums together are great at deterring aphids, nematodes, bunnies and so many other pests. Another really cool thing is, Pumpkins, Corn, Cucumbers, Sunflowers, Beans all benefit from one another! Cucumbers will grow up the corn like a trellis, Beans also grow on the corn like a trellis as well as return nitrogen to the soil for the corn once the beans are done. Pumpkins act as a ground cover for the corn to help retain moisture and Sunflowers are good for attracting aphids and pollinators! Ahhh companion planting is sooo interesting I could go for days. Did you know catnip naturally deters FLEAS?! Amazing!!

for more info check out this site! There are tons of sites, this is the one I found that had the most information.

** http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html **

Let's just say I'm one happy gal. :)

oh and the sprouts Amanda and I started on Friday are already sprouted and photosynthesizing! (is that a word?)

The lavender even sprouted! I was really nervous that it would not grow.

I am nervous for the milkweed seems like it's having a hard time.... Oh well...

The soaker hose...

I started the day bright and early today with my sweets, Paul, by getting yet another FULL truckload of manure this morning. Still, these beds are not filled. Sheesh... After I unloaded the truckload of crap I was ready to make this soaker hose. I feel silly but I was really excited about the hose. I've never used a soaker hose before and I thought it would be an awesome easy thing to make! I did a little web surfing and I found this article.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6550336_diy-soaker-hose.html

Let's see I have a drill... I have old unwanted hoses... Sounds like a good free DIY up cycle project to keep me outside for a while! :) By the by, Today was amazing! Soo pretty outside! I was pumped!

So, I sorta followed the instructions.. I never follow directions exactly, I make my own rules. Anyway, I decided I wouldn't drill holes in the hose between the beds and I left about 2 feet from the connection end so again I wouldn't just water the straw. I also just guessed the 3" mark, I didn't think it was necessary to be exact.

2 weeks ago Amanda went to home depot and got end caps for the hose.

I borrowed a cordless drill from my big bro. I used an old drill bit and started drilling holes.

Everything was fine then the drill ran out of juice when I was half way done! Ugh... So I got an extension cord and brought my old plug in drill outside to finish the job. This project was more difficult and tiring than I expected.

I put the soaker hose back on the beds in the correct places, I connected the hoses, turned on the faucet and excitedly followed the water down the hose and when I got to the garden beds I waited patiently for water to flow out of my brand new one of a kind soaker hose!!

IT WORKS!!!

kind of... :(

***

Ugh... what a disappointment. I hope I don't have to buy a new one, that's so wasteful.

What's the deal? I was not expecting this not to work. I need to figure out a way to make the water pressure from my spicket stronger or I need to figure out a better way to water these beds. I suppose I can just use the old garden hose spray head thingy.

HRMPF!!

I won't give up... I just need to do some troubleshooting.

P.S. Yeah I made trellises. They might be over kill but I wanted to be sure they were tall enough for the yummies... :)