The Compost Bin

Garden Update

2009-07-06T06:27:00.001-04:00

Here’s a great gardening tidbit that you don’t often see in gardening books. Frozen ice balls falling from the sky for almost an hour are really not a good thing to happen to plants. So you should try to avoid that if you’d like to have a great garden. Unfortunately I was not able to take my own advice and as I’ve mentioned before, a freak June hailstorm in New Jersey left my vegetable garden shredded.

But here it is several weeks later and some plants have started to bounce back. Now don’t get me wrong, I still totally consider this year’s summer garden to be a disaster but all is not lost.

Usually around the 4th of July all my tomato and pepper plants are rocking. They would be full of flowers and really starting to reach for the top of the tomato cages or stakes or whatever I decide to use to keep them upright. This year, I’m just happy to have a few leaves on the plants. I figure the storm set me back about a month.

I knew that my perennial berry plants would be fine for next year but this years blueberries and blackberries are actually looking pretty good. The June bearing strawberries were cut short by a week or two but the plants have recovered nicely. I’m also lucky that the smaller ever bearing strawberry plants that I have on my patio were spared from the ice storm.

And I’m really surprised that my zucchini and squash are growing nicely again and even flowering. I think I may have to grab some blossoms and make a nice omelet sometime soon. After the hailstorm these guys looked like they went through the garbage disposal. They’re really wasn’t much left. But I guess that having healthy roots planted with lots of compost was enough to keep them alive even though there were no leaves left. Good for you zucchini. I vote you as the comeback vegetable of the year.

The new rhubarb plants that I put in this spring are questionable. I was planning on letting them grow some deep healthy roots and not harvest any this season but the hailstorm decided it wanted some rhubarb and broke a bunch of stalks off for me.

Other than that, I’ve got tons of hostas that look like an army of slugs had their way with them. But hostas really are bulletproof. By the end of the month most of the ripped leaves should be replaced with new ones, so no worries there.

And the same goes with all of my hardy banana plants. Oh they look awful right now but given some time and perhaps a few doses of compost tea, new shoots should start outnumbering the tattered confetti like leaves that now have the majority.

So that’s where I am right now in the garden. I also bought a few seedlings to fill in some of the vast expanses of emptiness in the garden that I’m not used to having in July. Things could have been a lot worse so I’m thankful that I’ll still get a chance to enjoy a garden fresh tomato sometime this summer. Hey it might not be until August but I’m not better late than never.

Growing Kohlrabi

2009-07-04T10:56:00.003-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Since I’ve got a lot of free space in the vegetable garden lately, I’ve been on the look out for something interesting to try growing. Sometimes I’ll go to the store to buy tiki torch fuel and I wind up coming home with a new plant. That’s exactly what happened this week and now I’m going to try growing kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi definitely seems like an interesting vegetable to try growing. So what exactly is Kohlrabi? Kohlrabi is also known as a German turnip. It doesn’t taste like a turnip though. People say it has a taste that sort of is a cross between a broccoli stem and an apple. I think technically the vegetable is related to cabbage but it must be a third cousin or something because I just don’t see the family resemblance.

I planted them a few feet apart but only because of all that space in the vegetable garden that I’ve mentioned before. You can put them a lot closer together if you’re short on space. The rest of the planting instructions are pretty typical, well drained soil, amended with a lot of compost, heavy feeder.

So what can I do with this Kohlrabi? That’s a good question. I’ve looked up some recipes to try and they seem pretty simple. You can eat it cooked or raw. You can fry or grill kohlrabi with garlic and oil but that’s not very exciting. You can cook and old shoe with garlic and oil and it’ll still taste good. I also found some coleslaw recipes that use kohlrabi instead of cabbage. That sounds good. I’ll definitely give that one a shot.

Well I hope to be able to try these recipes, but that depends if the plants don’t get eaten by a woodchuck or get bombed with several inches of hail. It’s been a weird gardening season so far but hopefully I’ll be able to remember it as the first season that I grew kohlrabi.

Garden Damage

2009-06-17T08:05:00.011-04:00

Well here it is, the middle of June and I don't have a vegetable garden anymore. The day before the hail storm in New Jersey, I had tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, rhubarb, corn and more but now I have nothing but shredded wheat.

It's really amazing how a bad hail storm can destroy a garden. I was so worried about the woodchucks eating my plants that I never considered that I should worry about ice falling from the sky.

Its definitely too late to start over using seeds. I may pick up a few tomato plants at the nursery just so that I can get something from the summer garden. But mostly I'm just going to move on and focus on planning the late summer/fall garden. There's lots of great cool season crops and root veggies that I've been meaning to try.

Well I'll start planning it once I clean up this mess.

June Hailstorm

2009-06-16T07:46:00.008-04:00

Just when I think I've got the yard word under control mother nature decides that there's a lot more to do. Northern New Jersey was pummeled by a freak hailstorm yesterday that not only left several inches of ice on the ground but also shredded all of my plants and trees.

I took these pictures 4 hours after the storm when I got home from work and you can still see the ice in my yard. It was really weird to be outside in June and be able to see your frozen breath and we usually don't have ice on the pool toys.

Looks like I'm going to be pretty busy with the clean up for the next few days. Check out this local news video for more on this crazy weather.

Mandatory Composting

2009-06-14T11:51:00.002-04:00

Image by Walter Parenteau via Flickr

San Francisco recently approved the most aggressive recycling law in the United States. Residents will now be required to separate their garbage into three color-coded bins, blue for recycling, black for trash and green for composting. You read that right. San Francisco now has mandatory composting.

I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. Keeping this waste out of the landfill will cut down on landfill methane.

They’ve found that around 30 percent trash that goes to the landfill is compostable. But in landfill conditions, that waste is composting the same way it would in a home compost bin. In the landfill the piles don’t get to breath as much and the decomposition is Anaerobic. And the number one by-product of anaerobic decomposition is methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. If the production of methane can be reduced it would definitely help reduce our carbon footprint.

Solar Moler

2009-06-11T08:06:00.003-04:00

Baby Ducks in the Pool

2009-06-10T06:15:00.000-04:00

Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. Somehow my yard has become a hotel for ducks.

As long as they stay out of my garden, I'm okay with my new tenants. It's the woodchuck that has to go.

Plants vs. Zombies

2009-06-09T22:01:00.004-04:00

Have you ever wanted to kill zombies by strategically placing pea shooting plants all over your yard? Nope, me neither. Well that is until I started playing this addictive little game called Plants vs. Zombies. Now all I can think about is killing zombies.

You may be wondering what gardening has to do with the undead. To tell you the truth, I don't really know. But the makers of this game had a cool idea and then ran with it. You place pea shooting plants, mushrooms, cherry bombs and lots more stuff all over your yard and collect as much sunshine as you can while you wait for the zombie horde to start marching towards your house.

And the cartoon zombies will amuse you with their crazy ideas on how to protect themselves. Some wear a traffic cone on their head, some hold screen doors and like to pole vault. In the later levels, they even wade through your pool with inflatable floaties.

Plants vs. Zombies is an easy to learn Flash game that will have you hooked in no time. This is one of those games that you'll start playing and then the next thing you know it's two in the morning and you didn't get anything done all night.

Check out the game demo video.

It even has a free demo version that you can download to try before you buy.

I was just going to play the free version myself but I wound up buying the full version after playing it for a while.

So load up on peas, frozen peas, flaming peas and all the mushroom spores that you can because "a huge wave a zombies is approaching."

Growing Berries

2009-06-09T07:40:00.005-04:00

My pest control motto for berries has always been to stop worrying about the birds, chipmunks and squirrels that are eating some of the berries and just keep planting more of them. Eventually there will be enough for everyone.

This year that might actually be true.

Blackberries

Strawberries

Blueberries

Strawberry Thief

2009-06-08T07:43:00.005-04:00

I think that over the winter all of the wildlife in my yard got together, had a few meetings, and they have declared war on my garden. Here's one of their agents of evil stealing a strawberry.

Well listen here wildlife, you know how I had the yard certified as a Natural Wildlife Habitat all those years ago? Well if you keep eating all of my food, I'm going to have it un-certified. No more food, water and shelter for you greedy little critters.

Seriously, I think this year's vegetable garden is going to consist of nothing but peppers and tomatoes. The latest victim was a bed full of kohlrabi. Thankfully, none of the little creatures have messed with the peppers and tomatoes. But I had better keep a close eye on them.

Duck in the Pool

2009-06-07T10:24:00.003-04:00

It can't officially be summertime until after the dogwoods flower, the rhododendrons bloom and my pool gets visited by one or more of these wacky New Jersey ducks.

Go home duck!

Whole Foods Compost

2009-05-26T20:19:00.004-04:00

Let's take a break from all the Woodchuck madness and talk about one of my favorite subjects, compost.

Just because I do a blog called The Compost Bin, doesn't mean that I never run out of compost. Even though I sometimes have three compost bins going at once, I always wind up buying a few bags of the stuff at the garden center. It's takes planning and some effort to have finished compost at a specific time of the gardening season. Now if I was a totally organized gardener with all the time in the world, I'd use my homemade compost tumbler to cook up batches of compost that were ready every month. But that would mean that I'd have to turn the tumbler everyday and constantly check the moisture and get the green/brown ratio perfect. When it comes to compost, I'm more laid back and willing to wait longer if it means less work.

On one of my recent lunchtime walkabouts I found myself in Whole Foods. I'm a brown bagger when it comes to lunch but I'm always searching for a free snack. I head over to Costco a lot. They have free samples of food, plus a book section and patio furniture. I can't think of a better way to spend lunch than reading a cooking book on a chaise lounge eating food on a toothpick. But anyway, sometimes Whole Foods has some free samples out as well, so I hit them up occasionally.

My last Whole Foods trip wasn't very successful in the free food department but it wasn't a total waste. I noticed that they were selling a few varieties of compost. So on a whim, I bought few bags to check it out.

Now if you've bought bags of compost at a big box store then you know that the quality can be hit or miss. A lot of times the bags get soaked in the rain and the compost gets an ammonia smell to it. Yuck! Or you cut open the bag and the compost is just a big brick of soil that you have to chop up with a shovel. No fun!

Whole Foods compost is like the Cadillac of bagged compost. The bags are filled with slightly moist, dark brown, perfectly finished, crumbly compost. And I even saw some tiny worms in there. The only bad thing about Whole Foods compost is the price. Like everything else in that store, their compost is expensive. Because of the high price, I definitely wouldn't use it to fill a raised garden bed. But I had no problem tossing a few handfuls into the planting holes of some new perennials that I bought.

Despite the price, I'm going to have no problem recommending Whole Foods compost to friends and family.

Woodchuck Pest Control

2009-05-24T11:12:00.003-04:00

To stop (or at least slow down) my woodchuck invasion the first thing I did was retrace his steps. There was an obvious hole in the vegetable garden fence (buried bird netting on 2x2 posts) that he must have bit his way through. So I knew how he got into the garden area. But where did he get into the yard?

Ah-ha! Here's the hole. Now if this was where he lived, all I would need is some dynamite and the woodchuck problem would be over. But this is just a short tunnel that goes from my neighbor's yard, under our fence and into my yard.

Now over the past two weeks, I've filled this hole in at least 4 times. And if you look closely, you can even see the chicken wire that I buried in there too. It's right next to the buried hose that I use to get water up to the garden. Every time I fill in the hose or block it with chicken wire, a big heavy bag of dirt or anything else I can get my hands on, the woodchuck just keeps digging until he gets around my obstacle. Sure is a persistent little varmit.

It seems like I'm going to lose the battle to keep the woodchuck out of my yard so I'm going to fall back and concentrate on protecting the vegetable garden instead. This war is not over yet.

Woodchuck Pest

2009-05-20T18:56:00.003-04:00

There's nothing worse than losing a loved one. In this case that loved one was a bumper crop of bok choy.

I started the seeds under lights in my basement at the end of winter. Then I went to the effort to build a makeshift hoop house to keep the bok choy warm when I transplanted them outside. They even survived a couple of frosts under the hoop house and now that it's bok choy eating time I will have to go to the produce store. I have nothing to show for all of that effort because of a woodchuck.

Whether you call them woodchucks or groundhogs they are the mortal enemy of the vegetable gardener. And this woodchuck must be opening up his fortune cookie by now because he ate an entire raised bed full of Chinese take-out.

Putting up a stronger fence around my vegetable garden has been moved up to the number one priority on my To Do List. The current fence (that the woodchuck bit through) worked fine for the past two years. I just took a roll of bird netting and attached it to 2x2s around the garden. I also buried it under the ground so that nothing could tunnel underneath it.

But I guess after two years out in the elements, it got weak enough that it became the appetizer for this fat woodchuck. And by the way, this happened a few weeks ago but I'm a bit behind with my blogging lately. In my next few posts I'll describe what I've done to keep this pest out of my garden.

Ornamental Cherry Tree

2009-05-07T06:44:00.001-04:00

This Ornamental Cherry Tree was a one year wedding anniversary present from my Aunt. It's now eight years old and has come a long way from that little one gallon pot that it came in.

Originally went I planted it, I did a terrible job. I guess I didn't pack the soil down well enough because it started leaning and looked pretty crooked. But it still grew nicely for about five years. Then a few years back we did a major pool renovation and it had to be moved. The landscaping crew wrapped it up nicely and put it in a nice safe corner of the yard away from all the heavy machinery.

And months later, when the landscapers were done robbing us of all of our money, they used one of those heavy machines to replant the Ornamental Cherry Tree properly where it sits today.

Growing Garden Greens

2009-05-05T07:22:00.001-04:00

Looking good garden greens! I think there's going to be some delicious salads in my future.

By the way, all the white flowers pedals all over my raised beds are from my apple tree. They blow all over the garden every spring. It's really a shame that I have this great old 30 foot apple tree that produces apples that are so pest ridden that I just put them right in the compost bin. I just don't have the free time to organically care for this tree and I definitely will not spray anything on it.

Garden Greens

2009-05-03T10:58:00.003-04:00

For the first time this year, yesterday's lunch came from the garden. Most of the garden greens that I planted in early spring under the hoop house are doing great. So great in fact that I grabbed some scissors and did some harvesting yesterday.

I'm always feel a tinge of pride whenever I pick those first vegetables from my garden. It's pretty much in vogue now a days to grow your own food but how many of those people who decided to grow their first Victory Garden after watching Oprah or the morning shows actually had a nice bowl of garden greens for lunch yesterday? In your face newbies!

So this salad consisted of some simpson lettuce, mesclun greens, arugula and some red leaf that I don't remember planting. It must be from the mesclun seed packet. Along with the salad my wife made a zucchini and onion quiche. The zukes and the onions didn't come from the garden but check back in about two months and I'm sure my garden will have some veggies for the quiche too.

Strawberry Flowers

2009-04-30T23:39:00.003-04:00

Spring is finally in full bloom and I've got flowers or at least buds all over my yard. These flowers in the picture are going to grow up to become strawberries one day soon. Go ahead and ask them what they want to be when they grow up. I'm sure they'll tell you that they want to be strawberries.

You've got to love how our gardens come through for us every spring. I recently asked my six year old son what he wanted to be when he grew up and he asked me if it was okay if he did nothing.

Now my son may not have all the answers yet but he's a lot funnier than a strawberry plant.

Simpson Lettuce

2009-04-16T01:19:00.000-04:00

2009 Peppers

2009-04-15T08:38:00.003-04:00

I had a really productive seed starting week. Not only did I get all of my tomatoes started, but I also got my peppers started too:

Poblano
Thai Dragon
California Wonder
Jalapeno M
Jalapeno False Alarm
Giant Marconi Hybrid
Corno di Toro
Hot Lemon
Habanero
Caribbean Red

And this year I plan on getting a real smoker for when I try to make chipotle and ancho peppers. Last year was a disaster when I turned perfectly good peppers into dust by drying them out in my dehydrator and then trying to smoke them on my chimenea. The flames were shooting out of the top of the chimenea like a jet engine and within a minute there was nothing left of my poblano and jalapeno peppers but black powder. Definitely not one of my finer moments.

2009 Tomatoes

2009-04-13T06:53:00.000-04:00

As usual I plan on growing lots of tomato plants in my vegetable garden this year. And also as usual, I’m late to start my tomato seeds. So since I haven’t even placed a seed order yet this season, I’m only going to grow tomatoes from the seed that I already have.

After going through my seed stash, this is the list of tomatoes that I decided that I’m growing this year:

Mortgage Lifter
Black Krim
Brandywine
San Marzano
Bush Early Girl
Super Steak Hybrid
Big Mama
Little Mama
Sun Gold
Tomande Hybrid
Brandy Boy Hybrid

If I have time, I also want to try out two tomato related projects. Number one is a self watering container made from a Rubbermaid storage container and the other is a homemade upside down tomato container. I’ve seen those Earthboxes and those Topsy Turvy upside down tomato things available in stores but I think I can get the same results by using some of the junk that I have in my garage. More on this later in the season.

Garden Update

2009-04-11T12:41:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

When it comes to getting things done in the yard and garden this year, I am by some strange miracle doing really well for once. I always get a lot done but it’s usually not in the neatest or most organized fashion. You see every year I plan on doing a lot more stuff than I have time to actually get done. And that means that I wind up with lots of unfinished garden projects, unused seeds and usually a messy yard. But this year, I really got an early start and I’m making sure things get finished before I move on to something else. What a concept!

I have already started arugula, bok choy, swiss chard, spinach and simpson lettuce from seed in my basement and transplanted the young seedlings out under my makeshift hoop house. I’ve even removed the hoop house because the overnight lows have been in the 40ies lately. And I’ve direct sowed some peas, beets and carrots outside as well.

Another project that’s going pretty well in the yard is the spring cleanup. One of my compost bins is about the size of the office cube that I spend most of my life in and it’s filled about 5 feet high with leaves. My bordered beds are clear of debris and the mulch is fluffed. For once the daffodils in those beds don’t look like someone accidentally dropped some bulbs in a pile of leaves.

My ornamental grasses and perennials have been cut back and fed, my apple tree is pruned and I’ve trimmed the dead wood out of the dogwood and the ornamental cherry.

Even my impulse purchases of 18 bare root hostas and 8 purple cone flowers have already been taken care of. Not only did I plant them in the ground but I amended the planting holes with some fresh compost and some organic fertilizer.

Since I’m doing really well with spring chores so far this year, you’d think I sit back and enjoy some extra free time to relax, right? Well not exactly. I’ve actually decided to set even more goals and start planning more projects. I have an overgrown thorned blackberry plant that needs to be removed and replaced with a thornless variety. I can definitely split most of my giant hostas and daylilies. My annual mountain of mulch is being delivered soon too. That’s always a fun weekend that I spend with my wheel barrow. And my wife is making a list for me too.

Oh well, it wouldn’t be my house if there weren’t some unfinished projects out there.

$99 Costco Compost Tumbler

2009-04-04T11:57:00.005-04:00

I'm always on the look out for cool composting stuff and I definitely spotted a bargain this week.

Costco is selling compost tumblers for $99 now. And they aren't bargain basement fall apart when you get home tumblers, they actually look pretty well made. Similar tumblers usually sell for about $150 - $250 online and then you have to pay for shipping on top of that. So $99 is really a steal. If you have a Costco in your area, just plunk down your $100 and you could take one home and start making compost that very same day.

It can hold up to 75 gallons of composting ingredients and it's made from recycled plastic. The steel legs are very sturdy too. I gave this thing a serious spin in the store. I haven't bought it yet but I think it's definitely in my future.

If you've never composted before, this is a great way to start. A tumbler is easy to maintain and you don't have to worry about pests getting in your compost because it's up off the ground. And very important for people who worry about nosy neighbors and home owner associations, it's really nice looking.

Even if I don't buy this tumbler I'm still happy to see it out there. A year ago composting bins just weren't widely available in stores. Now with the Obama organic vegetable garden all over the news and every morning show on TV doing segments on growing your own food gardening and composting are becoming mainstream. And that's definitely good news.

First Bloom

2009-03-27T06:31:00.002-04:00

Here's my first bloom of 2009. Happy Spring!

Ornamental Grass Care

2009-03-26T07:04:00.001-04:00

Early spring is a busy time of the year for most gardeners. You're trying to start seeds, cleaning up leftover leaves in the yard and just generally getting ready to start growing stuff. One of the spring chores that is kind of fun is trimming the ornamental grasses.

It's important to trim ornamental grasses to get ready for the new growth. Plus they also look a lot better with a crew cut as opposed to the crazy long brown 'do of the winter.

My only advice for doing this is to use a sharp tool and wear gloves. Ornamental grass can wreck havoc on dry chapped winter hands.

And here's a video from TheCompostBin archive about how to trim your grasses. I made this last year and it's amazing to see how much the plant has grown since then. If I get growth like that again I may split the grass to make two plants out of one. And I may even make a video of it.