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Category Archives: compost

Big Wiggly Week

13 Mar

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In the past couple weeks the worms went big time. I mean huge. Shaq O’Neal huge.

Last week I sat down with Flowerman from Rock Garden Tour to talk compost. And I brought him some worms for the studio audience. He did a whole show on our interview, and starring the new RGT red wigglers. It’ll be on SD Public Radio eventually, I think (thought i would be this week, but looks like it’s a re-run coming up tomorrow night).  At any rate, it’s always good time to chat with Ted, and the worm nation spread it’s wings again.

They were going hollywood again this Thursday, starring in a SF Green Project “compost and rain barrels” workshop I taught with a couple of friends. We talked the beauties of gardeners’ gold and red wigglers with 20 eager students, and then helped them build their own take-home rain barrels. I sent a wiggler starter package home with three people. I’ll be repeating the compost portion of the class with Aimee Ladonski at the Sioux Falls Lawn and Garden Show next weekend.

What do they get in celebration? Back in the garage after a nice long winter in the warm(er) basement.

 
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Posted by on March 13, 2010 in compost, Work, worms

 

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Anyone can sh*t in a bucket

07 Jan

I compost lots of stuff. Have even tried a cup (it failed). But this! This is something:

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screenshot from Time.com.

“Humanure.” Has a nice ring to it. Better than “shit in a bucket.” Yes, there are actually neighborhoods in real American cities who collect their own poo and put it all together to make some “extreme” compost. My neighbors (and lovely wife) have put up nicely with unmowed grass, boxes of worms, bags and piles of rotting leaves, soybean stalks blowing around, and lots of dandelions. A community shit bucket might just be over the line.

A friend sent me the link a while back, and I’ve actually been contemplating the process. I doubt I’ll start a humanure club in the village, but it shouldn’t be that big a deal. Seems everybody practiced humanure up until a couple generations ago. Heck, I remember utilizing the old outhouse in our backyard many times as a kid too busy building tree fortresses or destroying ant colonies to go into the house. Thanks for the fun Mike.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945764,00.html

or a bag…

I would normally scoff at things touted “single use,” but this PeePoo bag is interesting. If I still need to dig a hole in the woods, not sure why I need a bag though.

http://springwise.com/non-profit_social_cause/peepoobag/

 
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Posted by on January 7, 2010 in compost, going green

 

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Worms, Witches and Wreckage

02 Nov

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We missed the Harvest Moon, but his weekend was worm harvest time. (It was actually well overdue, but who’s counting.) That means Zoey and I sorted the worms from the worm poo, then mixed up some new bedding to tuck those red wigglers in for the winter. We also expanded, adding another worm house, which makes it three total now. It’s really hard to separate the teeny tiny babies from the good stuff, so I’m letting it sit in a tub for several weeks, hoping those tiny worms get bigger and I’ll be able to pull them out of there.

Here’s the new bedding recipe, since I know you were dying to get your hands on it:

  • 1/3 peat moss
  • 1/3 soil (with some organic matter in it)
  • 1/3 shredded brown leaves
  • enough water to make it most and a bit sticky

I replaced shredded newspaper (an Uncle Carl trick) with the leaves, thanks to a tip from a worm-lover I met in St. Paul in April. It keeps the bedding more airy, and breaks down to give ’em some extra snacking. I bought myself a little toy last week–a leaf vac and mulcher. Jon and Nicole got some help bagging their 10 million leaves this weekend…

In case you missed it, Halloween was Saturday. Trick or treating started for us at about 5pm, and wrapped up around 8:30. That’s crazy long, but when you go trick or treating in the country, stuff takes a while. We had a witch, a fairy princess, and a box of popcorn heading out of our house this year. All costumes made from stuff we already had, except a bit of face paint. (Not pictured: me after Zoey painted my face last night.)

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And finally, we’re in the midst of a construction project. With baby on the way, it’s time to finish up the basement and add a couple bedrooms. Thanks to help from Brooks and Dad, I have it ready for sheetrock on Wednesday. One step this weekend was tearing out the temporary wall at the bottom of the stairs (we reused everything but the sheetrock). After I smacked a little hole in the wall just to startle Colleen, the girls’ eyes all got huge and a chorus of “Can we try that!?” cam soon after. So, take a look at this video to see the demolition crew in action.

 

 
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Posted by on November 2, 2009 in compost, Kids, worms

 

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Falling Apples

13 Sep

Mom and Dad have 2 gazillion apples hanging on two trees in their yard. There were even more, but Dad and the girls rescued the trees from broken branches by catching a whole bunch in sheets on the ground a couple weekends ago. They were so loaded down, a couple of good shakes took care of the problem. Everybody knows that’s not how you harvest apples. But sometimes it is. Just ask Newton.

There is dispute in the family about which tree makes tastier apples, but I’m sure I’m right about the reddish ones. If you want some, it’s a pick-your-own free for all. Dad might even let you use his ladder.

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Tonight I finally got around to making some applesauce with the last bag full the kids came home with. We used the fancy shmancy apple peeler Santa brought for Jaimie last year. It slices. It cores. It peels. And it makes the kitchen floor very very sticky. But, it works awesome and it’s fun.

apple peeler in action apple peels in a bucket cooking applesauce finished applesauce

Jaim whipped up some apple crisp too, as you can see in the last pic. Now, what to do with those neatly cut peelings…It’s a good excuse to give you a worm update. I’ve been skimping a bit on the feeding the past week, sending most kitchen scraps to the compost bin outside instead of wormtown. It’s time to harvest the worm poop, so I’m using a trick from Uncle Carl: let them totally clean up the top layer, then only feed them on one small end of the bin for a week so they all congregate in one spot. That way, when I’m sifting through that rich compost by hand, the worms will be easy to pick out. I just tossed this watermelon in yesterday, and they’re hammering it.

compost worms and watermelon

Speaking of apples, last weekend we headed on a road trip for Jon’s bachelor party. Along the way, we stopped by cousin David’s place to check out his newly-built apple cannon. It launches pretty much anything roughly baseball-sized with alarming power. Even baseballs. Trust me.

apple cannon

If you shop at Hy-Vee in Brookings, you might want to throw a bike helmet on in the parking lot. Just saying.

 
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Posted by on September 13, 2009 in compost, Food, gadgets, worms

 

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Weeds and Neighbors

22 Jul

Both are growing at our place.

We’ll have new neighbors next door by Fall. The footprint of the house is staked out already, and word is the basement will be dug this week. It’s a great thing for our community–our soon-to-be-neighbor is a young and wonderful music teacher that we all figured would be whisked away by some other school district with better pay and bigger band budgets. Thanks for planting some roots in our little village Mr. Whitcomb.

rows of weed

rows of weed

And then the weeds…I had more weed than crop. No, not the kind Justin likes to plant in the hidden confines of the backyard cornfield. I’ve been ignoring my gardens (and my family, for the most part) the past week and a half. We launched a trashy new program at work, and it piled up a bunch of long hours for me lately. So, my neglect packaged up with boatloads of rain mean the gardens were green, and plumb full of weeds. I went on a ruthless killing spree last night out there. No undesired plant stood a chance…

Oh, and check out what my radishes did during the week of neglect. Skyscraper root veggies.

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Those are a couple of homemade compost bins cookin’ in the background. I invited Rani to add to my newest pile any time she wants. Since she politely listened to my detailed DIY compost bin instructions before telling me she’d rather give the stuff to me instead. 🙂

 
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Posted by on July 22, 2009 in compost, etc., garden

 

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