Good by Summer

Now that the growing season has been called off by a cold October freeze the fall tasks are upon us. All tomatoes have been brought inside, red, yellow and green. Creative new dished for green tomatoes are in the works. A the frozen flowers have been pulled down and the compost pile is growing. The nice days are not yet behind us but they are the short days of fall rather than the long days of summer. Now is the time to plant bulbs for the spring and mulch tender plants for the winter. Take the time to make a garden inventory so you can remember what you planted and the location for the spring. Make some pumpkin plans to celebrate the autumn season.

End of summer

The nights have begun to get brisk and my summer flowers are beginning to fade. This time of year everyone starts to wonder "where did my summer go? it seems to have slipped right out of my fingers." While I share these sentiments this is one of my favorite times of the season. The hot hot days are behind us leaving more time for me to spend out side working in the dirt. I begin my planning for a whole new season, autumn flowers can be stunning also. Now is the time to plant replant the cool weather crops like spinach and carrots if you are patient. My head is filled with big plans for the yard but no time to complete them this year. I have begun work on yet another landscape sketch to make grand plans for the changing layouts. I have started to pour over the bulb catalogues planning my purchases in time to get them in the ground in october for spring flowers. Time to work over the compost pile again to make room for the fall leaves that always come to soon and spend a little more time guarding my tomato harvest from the squirrels that would steal them.

Recommended Reading

I am a book worm at heart.  Aside from the practical hands on knowledge that there is no replacement for my next favorite stop for info is a good book.  Here is a list of some of my favorites for garden reading, they range from the how reference style guides to humorous historical tid bits to another great the personal essay collection.  And now in no particular order-

Teaming with Microbes A gardener's guide to the soil food web

by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis

This book is a clear cut easy read detailing the essential microbiology of our soil.  Beginning with a basic refresher on the structure and function of various microorganisms and continuing with the role each organism plays in the breakdown, transport and storage of soil nutrients in the system.  The structure and composition of soil is discussed as well as the role played by larger organisms such as worms and other insects.  The book finishes with several chapters devoted to your role in this cycle both directly and indirectly, the actions we can take to encourage beneficial microbiological activity and reaping the benefits.

Eat More Dirt Diverting and Instructive Tips for Growing and Tending an Organic Garden

by Ellen Sandbeck 

This book is a great combination of personal essays, how to, and gardening axioms.   In addition to lots of practical instruction on tasks from seed starting to pruning and wild life management the tips for saving the gardener are indispensable, including stretching exercises and proper raking techniques to save your back.  The advice information covered in this book is both amusing and useful keeping things in perspective.  Take as much time to enjoy your garden as you take to build and maintain you space! The varied content in this book makes for a fun afternoon read.

The Curious Gardener's Almanac Centuries of Practical Garden Wisdom

By Niall Edworthy

Mostly an amusing collection of historical quotes and anecdotes there are a few facts and some advice mixed in this book.  Useful mostly as light backyard reading it is also full of really cool victorian typographic ornamentation and pictures.

Second Nature A Gardener's Education 

By Michael Pollan

An excellent collection of personal essays separated into sections according to season and touching on the authors personal experiences at his home and from his youth and musings on the concepts behind why we do what we do.  Michael Pollan's style is easy to relate to and leaves you thinking "hey, yeah, I never thought of it that way!"

The Botany of Desire A Plant's-Eye View of The World

By Michael Pollan

Another great by this author.  This details 4 plants and how they have influenced the world by capturing the hearts and minds of man kind.  Including the tulip, apple, potato, and marijuana the discussion ranges to ideas of evolution to our dependancy and manipulation of the plants in world around us.

The Garden Primer

By Barbara Damrosch

A complete how to book from planting and growing techniques to tool guide and individual plant listings. The newest edition is revised to be 100% organic.  Including sections on trees, lawns, annuals, perennials, vegetables, vines, fruits, house plants and more the advice in this book is practical and easy to follow.  Including garden layout plans to spur you into thinking about your own lay out this is a great resource in any season.

A-Z encyclopedia of Garden Plants

Published by The American Horticultural Society

The tome of garden tomes.  This is 1080 pages of plant information all printed in color 15000 plant listing with 6000 photos.  Also included are sections with general botany information on plant identification and classification.  Naming conventions and characteristics of the various genre are explained.  Included in the back are full indexes with both common and the botanical name and a full glossary.  The beautiful color photos, cultivation and propagation info in this book make it both a useful resource and amusing way to spend winter afternoons.

Back yard wild life

One of the side effects of creating an outdoor setting that I love is the fact that animals also love this habitat.  Some are wonderful and I would love to encourage more, others are annoying and destructive and should live else where.

The beneficial animals include birds and snakes.  The birds are beautiful and it is so cheerful to hear their singing,  I try and encourage them to make my yard home.  The snakes are more rare and I tend to see only one or 2 per year.  The basic garden snake is completely welcome in my yard.  They keep the mice down they eat large insects and are good sign of a healthy eco-system where they choose to call home.  They are somewhat reclusive and not likely to make for regular sightings.  

The less desirable animals include squirrels and rabbits.  Squirrels are on the top of the list of bad, the tree rats strip the bark in the trees and girdle the branches effectively killing them, they drag trash from around the neighborhood and deposit it in my yard, and they decimate my produce.  Their main produce target is my strawberries and it is a constant battle to keep them out.   The rabbits are cute.  They also eat all of my favorite things and there are LOTS of them.  Cute hoppy cotton tails make quick work of new flower shoots and are quite cunning and manage to squeeze into the smallest spaces.

Trying to find a balance between me and them is an on going challenge so when a neighborhood cat decides to prowl my yard I say HOORAY!

Spring Garden and Home Improvements

This spring has been a busy one for me.  I started off building a raised vegetable bed to complete my small patio, the plants are all off and running.  In the raised bed I planted, 4 varieties of tomato, spinach, lettuce, peas, 3 kinds of peppers, carrots, cilantro, basil, oregano, thyme, radishes, mustard greens, chives and scallions.  

With the addition of a picket fence in the front yard last fall that defined much more space for additional flower beds in the front and I have been working hard to fill the spaces created.  Last summer I also pulled out an extra 192 square feet of lawn to make room for more flowers and have been working hard exceeding my budget to pick just the plants to grow.  Who needs disposable income when there are local nurseries stocked to the gills with great perennials!

The home Andrew and I have been in for the past 4 years has up until this point been owned by my parents.  This spring in preparation for our ultimate purchase of the house (coming in a week or so) we had a new roof put on and a new paint job on the house.  I am very pleased with the results.  Picking a new color for a house is a lot harder than I imagined, but I love the outcome.

My early spring flowers, tulips, daffodils etc have long since come and gone but the late spring and early summer flowers are going great guns.  The effect is quite charming, especially the lupines.  Here are the latest photos, enjoy.

For the love of Compost

What is compost?  Compost is the broken down remains of organic substances like fall leaves, yard trimmings, and kitchen scraps by various organisms in the decomposition cycle.   Through a process involving heat, moisture, oxygen and a host of microorganisms including, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa and some larger players like insects, worms and animals the materials added to the compost pile are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces making humus for addition of water retaining organic material to soil.  During this process the microbes are busy digesting and making available essential nutrients previously locked up in the plant matter in its whole form.

What can I do with compost and what is the point?

Composting is one of the greatest and most natural forms of recycling available.  Given enough time all organic material will decompose but composting speeds this process.  Why fill landfills with those leaves you raked in the fall or that apple core left over from your lunch when you can compost them into a reusable material?  

Finished compost is the end result of all of the breakdown.  It is a moist, dark brown, light weight nutrient rich loam that when added to the soil in either the garden, lawn or container setting helps retain soil moisture provides nutrients and beneficial microbes to the plants which grow there.   A thick layer of compost can be laid down on the surface  of the soil or mixed in during planting.  When spread on the surface compost can help act as a weed barrier and the dark color will soak up the sun and warm the ground resulting in an earlier start for spring plants.

Compost can even eliminate the need for commercial fertilizers providing an organic sustainable feeding system.   Commercial chemical fertilizers are expensive and wasteful.   Many of these products can kill or inhibit the natural organisms in the soil, these microbes are fully capable of providing and renewing  all necessary components for healthy soil.  After all, it has been through the actions of the microbes breaking down and recycling organic matter that all the forests on the planet have maintained themselves (without human meddling).  Chemical fertilizers are also washed away into rivers, streams and ground water increasing algae growth resulting in oxygen deficient waters inhospitable for fish and other animals reliant on these habitats.  Plants can only take up so many nutrients at one time many chemical fertilizers applied are not absorbed by the plants by the time they are washed away or drained so far in to the soil as to be out of the root zone of the intended recipient.  Adding compost or compost tea (a liquid concoction made with compost and water) provides nutrients in quantities more congruent with the plants uptake abilities. The extra that not immediately used by the plants?  Yes some of this can also be washed away, but most of it is used and recycled by the microbes living in the compost and will be made available again to the plants as the microbes die.  The amount that is washed away is small enough not to cause the damage of the chemical run off.

How can I compost?

There are a great variety methods available.  Bins, trays, boxes, rolling drums are all sold and they all work.  I have not found it necessary to employ any of these devices.   I am a 4th generation vermicomposter. Vermicompost is composting using worms to do much of the breakdown in addition to the other microbes.   My compost is just a pile surrounded by stones to keep it from spilling into the rest of the yard.  With the addition of the redwigglers (worms) the decomposition time is reduced with their added help eating and breaking down the decaying material.  These worms are different than the common earthworm as they usually stay  in the compost since they need actively decomposing material to survive.   All compost piles need moisture to work, the pile should be about as moist as a well rung sponge but not soupy.  My pile is situated where the lawn sprinklers will hit it.   I add all my yard wastes with the exception of branches and sticks (they take too long to break down) and weeds with seeds (the seed will germinate and make more weeds).  I also add all of my organic kitchen scraps like egg shells, potato peelings, moldy bread, dinner leftovers, used napkins etc...  I do not add meat because it attracts animals and I don't want them digging around and creating a mess.  Whether or not you add worms to your pile the process is the same.  A regular compost pile will reach greater temperatures than one with worms (high heat can kill the worms).  

Does it stink?

A properly managed compost pile does not stink or attract flies.  It smells rich and earthy.   The primary decomposers are the aerobic bacteria in the mix.  They need oxygen to survive and are the healthy beneficial friends of the garden.   If  a compost pile does stink or attract flies it does not have enough oxygen and the anaerobic/pathogenic bacteria have taken over.  A pile like his should be turned more regularly to improve aeration.   As the aeration improves the aerobic bacteria population will increase and out compete their stinky counterparts for food.

How much work is it?

Not much.  Add your scraps, add some water and turn with a pitch fork half a dozen times a year (more if you want).  When it comes time to harvest some of your finished product move the large pieces aside with the pitch fork and use a rake to rake through any un-decomposed material.  What is left is the dark brown soil like humus and is ready to go in and on your garden.   The more you do this the greater results you will see!  After years of this your garden soil should be, rich, lightweight, dark in color and smell fresh.  Your plants and your planet will thank you!

Dirt Girl

Why choose to be the Dirt Girl?

I chose the moniker of Dirt Girl since this is how I regularly refer to my self after a long day of yard work.  When your face is smudged and your fingers are caked in soil, your socks, shoes and pockets are all full of dirt and you couldn't be happier about it you are a dirt girl/boy.  When you stick you fingers and toes in the soil just to feel it your skin you are a dirt girl/boy.  When you take a shower at the end of the day and watch the brown water run down the drain and come out feeling lighter, you are a dirt girl/boy.  

Happy digging!