You might notice a plastic container every now and then that says COMPOStABLE on the bottom instead of HDPE. These containers are generally made from corn. Which should not be a surprise I guess.
I have quite a few corn plastic cups to compost, as well as the occasional plastic container from TJs.
When somethings says COMPOSTABLE, you would think you can just toss it into your compost pile the way you might add eggshells, corn cobs, or coffee grounds.
When I googled "composting corn cups" on the Internet to find out any special tricks, I kept finding sites where people were bitching about how you are supposed to compost them *commercially*. "Commercially" refers to someting like a city composting program that they only have in left-coast cities. These facilities heat their compost to HIGH temps, much higher than your average home compost pile. I saw numbers like 150 degrees (F) being thrown around.
Now, I have been working very very hard and have gotten one of my piles to heat up to 130. Woo! I think this will be plenty warm to break down corn plastic but we will find out. I can imagine that your run of the mill "cool" compost pile could take years to break it down. But 130 is pretty smokin'.
I'm experiementing a little with composting these cups. First off, I'm assuming that corn cups are "brown", i.e. are a high source of carbon. Corn cobs are a high source so that's what I have to go on. I have absolutely no idea what part of corn the cups are made from. Probably the kernels.
Anyways, I loosely filled the cups with coffee grounds and buried them as deep in my pile as possible. I'm adding them to the other pile. the one that is not yet 130 degrees. I added other stuff as well and made sure the pile was nice and large so it can start generating some serious heat. I can't wait to turn these clear plastic cups turn into rich brown compost.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Hail
This stuff is REALLY REALLY BAD for vegetable plants. OK, shallots and leeks, and chives don't mind too much and the parsley will be OK.
But squash, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard, pretty much EVERYTHING dies when ambushed with big ass hail. In fact, I could now write a extension agency circular on what plants will do OK with 1/2" hail, and what will do OK with 1" and up hail.
Pretty much the only things besides the onion family that can handle big hail are native plants. My yarrow, poppy mallow, sage, catmint, etc., all looks great. Maybe a few crushed stems here and there but it's hard to see the damage. It's amazing. Oh, and the carpet-like plants, woolly thyme and ice plant, both non-natives, pulled through marvelously.
Now you may ask, how did the hoophouse fare? One inch hail must do some damage I would think -- this is the same hail that broke side mirrors and windshields on many cars today, after all.
Well, all I have to say is the hoophouse plastic is a bad ass bulletproof vest. It is now pockmarked with hail dents but it did not tear. inside was a little oasis of green lush happy plants. Way to take one for the team.
But squash, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard, pretty much EVERYTHING dies when ambushed with big ass hail. In fact, I could now write a extension agency circular on what plants will do OK with 1/2" hail, and what will do OK with 1" and up hail.
Pretty much the only things besides the onion family that can handle big hail are native plants. My yarrow, poppy mallow, sage, catmint, etc., all looks great. Maybe a few crushed stems here and there but it's hard to see the damage. It's amazing. Oh, and the carpet-like plants, woolly thyme and ice plant, both non-natives, pulled through marvelously.
Now you may ask, how did the hoophouse fare? One inch hail must do some damage I would think -- this is the same hail that broke side mirrors and windshields on many cars today, after all.
Well, all I have to say is the hoophouse plastic is a bad ass bulletproof vest. It is now pockmarked with hail dents but it did not tear. inside was a little oasis of green lush happy plants. Way to take one for the team.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
hail
We had an amazing thunderstorm today -- actually we're having another one right now that is threatening to take out our electricity. The rain was coming down incredibly hard for a long time. Apparently there might have only been a 1/2" of rain or so but I swear it was more. A container out front had an inch of rain in it.
After it rained and rained and rained, it started hailing. First pea-sized. Then it got quiet. and I heard this random pinging sound. It was 1/2" diameter hail hitting the metal roof and bouncing around.
A few minutes ago I went outside to take a look at everything between storms while it was bright and sunny but the dark blue-gray clouds were rolling in again. The summer squash, winter squash and melon plants are incredibly ripped up, and I'm not sure they will recover. The bean plants and beets were also damaged but probably not fatally.
Some plants were covered -- the broccoli and Brussels sprouts all survived as they've been covered with burlap to shade and protect them from the cabbage butterfly -- and apparently has a third benefit now. I covered up a couple of small acorn squash plants that might pull through.
I'm so, so, so happy(/thankful/relieved) I built my hoophouse. I have some zucchini that are about ready to pick -- had it been outside the plant would be destroyed. Most of my garden would be gone if it was out in the open. Half inch hail is pretty nasty. Obviously not golf-ball sized -- that would probably be putting holes in the hoophouse plastic. I've never seen hail that big fortunately.
The temperature outside plummeted into the low 50s, but inside the hoophouse it didn't go under 65. The temperature this morning as I worked in the yard was in the mid 70s. I'm glad I got out there and listened to Weekend Edition and hoed and weeded and transplanted wooly thyme while I could. I scrambled indoors at the first loud crack of lightning that seemingly came out of nowhere. The temp plummeted 20 degrees (outdoors) over a period of about 10 to 15 minutes.
Some tomatoes out front survived thanks to my ant-prevention technique. I set up a mini hoophouse (1 foot x 2feet) using metal hoops and floating row cover in a kind of pup tent configuration. This was to keep diatamaceous earth from washing away -- I put this around the plants to kill any ants coming in for the kill. The row cover protected the young plants against most of the rain and all the hail.
After it rained and rained and rained, it started hailing. First pea-sized. Then it got quiet. and I heard this random pinging sound. It was 1/2" diameter hail hitting the metal roof and bouncing around.
A few minutes ago I went outside to take a look at everything between storms while it was bright and sunny but the dark blue-gray clouds were rolling in again. The summer squash, winter squash and melon plants are incredibly ripped up, and I'm not sure they will recover. The bean plants and beets were also damaged but probably not fatally.
Some plants were covered -- the broccoli and Brussels sprouts all survived as they've been covered with burlap to shade and protect them from the cabbage butterfly -- and apparently has a third benefit now. I covered up a couple of small acorn squash plants that might pull through.
I'm so, so, so happy(/thankful/relieved) I built my hoophouse. I have some zucchini that are about ready to pick -- had it been outside the plant would be destroyed. Most of my garden would be gone if it was out in the open. Half inch hail is pretty nasty. Obviously not golf-ball sized -- that would probably be putting holes in the hoophouse plastic. I've never seen hail that big fortunately.
The temperature outside plummeted into the low 50s, but inside the hoophouse it didn't go under 65. The temperature this morning as I worked in the yard was in the mid 70s. I'm glad I got out there and listened to Weekend Edition and hoed and weeded and transplanted wooly thyme while I could. I scrambled indoors at the first loud crack of lightning that seemingly came out of nowhere. The temp plummeted 20 degrees (outdoors) over a period of about 10 to 15 minutes.
Some tomatoes out front survived thanks to my ant-prevention technique. I set up a mini hoophouse (1 foot x 2feet) using metal hoops and floating row cover in a kind of pup tent configuration. This was to keep diatamaceous earth from washing away -- I put this around the plants to kill any ants coming in for the kill. The row cover protected the young plants against most of the rain and all the hail.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Garlic
This is about a third or so of my garlic -- the rest isn't ready to be harvested yet. The bulbs are pretty small, but I did plant these ones in heavy clay so it's not too surprising. The ones in the nicer soil aren't ready yet, maybe they will be bigger. But it sure smells good!
Rainwater catchment part 2
My rainwater catchment system is very primitive. I have a number of 32 gallon trash cans and two "real" rain barrels: 60 gallon barrels that used to house Kalamata olives. These cost $60 from the county who sells them at wholesale prices.
The front of the house is a story or so higher than the back. There is a long sloping driveway that goes all the way down alongside one side of the house. Near the top are two barrels (one real, one trash can), that catch water from the roof gutter. There is no downspout so sometimes the water misses them.
In the backyard, the cans & barrel are lined up under the roof as there is no gutter. This is less than ideal, as it is kind of ugly and is inefficient. It is not helped by the fact that I spread out the trash can lids before a storm to catch more water, but it does help collect as much as possible.
Because the trash cans do not have mesh tops I use this thing called a "mosquito dunk". It keeps mosquitoes from breeding in the water.
When I need water, I generally just fill up the watering can or a bucket and haul it to whatever plants need it. Some of the barrels have spigots installed, so I have connected up hoses and drip irrigation to them, but I don't do this too regularly. I did test it out on the hoophouse one day. The barrel at the top of the driveway is about 6 feet higher than the hoophouse. The water flowed through at a very low pressure, and worked OK except for the end of the line where the flow was very weak. If all the drippers are adjustable to work at a very low gallon per minute (GPM) rate it would probably work better. The other thing I could do would be to put in a T split to make two lines going to the hoophouse so the lines are shorter. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the ends would still not get as much water.
I've thought about putting barrels up on our deck -- the top deck is probably 16 to 20 feet higher than the hoophouse, and the lower deck is 8 to 10 feet or so. The decks are very close to the hoophouse, so the flow would be all vertical really.
The issue with this is twofold: first of all, you don't want to keep super heavy barrels of water on the deck -- you need to figure out the weight and what the deck will safely support; and two, the downspout would have to go direct into the barrel, and then overflow has to be handled, as you do not want a waterfall off the deck.
When I do get a gutter on the roof in the backyard I will need to handle overflow at that time regardelss of where the barrels are. Otherwise it would just pool up in one area and that would be bad for the house or deck foundation. Ideally I'd stick in one of those dry creek bed type things -- you know, a rock stream bed type thing that meanders through the yard. I'd plant lilies or something in it. There's a house up the road that has this and I think it looks awesome.
The front of the house is a story or so higher than the back. There is a long sloping driveway that goes all the way down alongside one side of the house. Near the top are two barrels (one real, one trash can), that catch water from the roof gutter. There is no downspout so sometimes the water misses them.
In the backyard, the cans & barrel are lined up under the roof as there is no gutter. This is less than ideal, as it is kind of ugly and is inefficient. It is not helped by the fact that I spread out the trash can lids before a storm to catch more water, but it does help collect as much as possible.
Because the trash cans do not have mesh tops I use this thing called a "mosquito dunk". It keeps mosquitoes from breeding in the water.
When I need water, I generally just fill up the watering can or a bucket and haul it to whatever plants need it. Some of the barrels have spigots installed, so I have connected up hoses and drip irrigation to them, but I don't do this too regularly. I did test it out on the hoophouse one day. The barrel at the top of the driveway is about 6 feet higher than the hoophouse. The water flowed through at a very low pressure, and worked OK except for the end of the line where the flow was very weak. If all the drippers are adjustable to work at a very low gallon per minute (GPM) rate it would probably work better. The other thing I could do would be to put in a T split to make two lines going to the hoophouse so the lines are shorter. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the ends would still not get as much water.
I've thought about putting barrels up on our deck -- the top deck is probably 16 to 20 feet higher than the hoophouse, and the lower deck is 8 to 10 feet or so. The decks are very close to the hoophouse, so the flow would be all vertical really.
The issue with this is twofold: first of all, you don't want to keep super heavy barrels of water on the deck -- you need to figure out the weight and what the deck will safely support; and two, the downspout would have to go direct into the barrel, and then overflow has to be handled, as you do not want a waterfall off the deck.
When I do get a gutter on the roof in the backyard I will need to handle overflow at that time regardelss of where the barrels are. Otherwise it would just pool up in one area and that would be bad for the house or deck foundation. Ideally I'd stick in one of those dry creek bed type things -- you know, a rock stream bed type thing that meanders through the yard. I'd plant lilies or something in it. There's a house up the road that has this and I think it looks awesome.
the squash are coming
The first squash are growing on the zucchini plants. I can't wait! I've gotten better over time of not getting too sick of a vegetable during the summer. I imagine in the "olden days" people ate a lot of the same thing during summer -- squash, tomatoes, etc. Then winter was all root veggies. If you want to eat local you need to get used to this -- well, I suppose it depends on where you live to a certain extent. In southern California you can probably grow some stuff year round.
At the end of last summer I was getting a bit sick of zucchini -- anyone who's ever grown it knows what I am talking about. It's kind of like the end of ski season, you start getting a bit tired of skiing. But then I think about how it will be months and months and months until I can ski or eat zucchini again and it keeps me going a bit longer. :-)
Calabacitas is a great way to use summer squash. I've never gotten sick of this dish.
Calabacitas:
1 onion, chopped
Roasted green chile, chopped (for all you outside of the SW you can either roast Anaheim or poblano chiles on the BBQ (and then rub/peel the skin off), or buy a can of Hatch green chile)
Zucchini/Summer Squash, chopped (pick them when they are small for the best flavor)
Corn (fresh or frozen)
Sorry I do not have amounts for squash, corn and chile. You want everything to be kind of equal, I'm sure you will figure it out, the recipe is flexible.
Saute onion over medium heat in olive oil. Once it is softened toss in chile, summer squash, and corn kernels. After 5 minutes or so, you can toss in 1/4 cup or so of broth and cover and simmer over low heat until squash is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper.
You can embellish this dish if you like -- add in chopped tomatoes. Herbs at the end like cilantro. I can't remember if I usually add cilantro -- I probably do. I think basil would be good too -- a bit untraditional perhaps but most certainly delicious.
At the end of last summer I was getting a bit sick of zucchini -- anyone who's ever grown it knows what I am talking about. It's kind of like the end of ski season, you start getting a bit tired of skiing. But then I think about how it will be months and months and months until I can ski or eat zucchini again and it keeps me going a bit longer. :-)
Calabacitas is a great way to use summer squash. I've never gotten sick of this dish.
Calabacitas:
1 onion, chopped
Roasted green chile, chopped (for all you outside of the SW you can either roast Anaheim or poblano chiles on the BBQ (and then rub/peel the skin off), or buy a can of Hatch green chile)
Zucchini/Summer Squash, chopped (pick them when they are small for the best flavor)
Corn (fresh or frozen)
Sorry I do not have amounts for squash, corn and chile. You want everything to be kind of equal, I'm sure you will figure it out, the recipe is flexible.
Saute onion over medium heat in olive oil. Once it is softened toss in chile, summer squash, and corn kernels. After 5 minutes or so, you can toss in 1/4 cup or so of broth and cover and simmer over low heat until squash is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper.
You can embellish this dish if you like -- add in chopped tomatoes. Herbs at the end like cilantro. I can't remember if I usually add cilantro -- I probably do. I think basil would be good too -- a bit untraditional perhaps but most certainly delicious.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Rainwater catchment
Colorado just finally overturned their ban on rainwater catchment. Apparently it was illegal because most of the land in CO has water rights. In the West, a lot of people own rights to water on land -- they might not own the land, but they own the water. It can be very contentious. I had no idea water rights was why rain water catchment was illegal in CO but it makes sense. People can get very worked up about their water, especially when it is in short supply.
Some people figured out that 97% of the runoff roof water that could be collected was evaporating or going to feed plants instead of going into the water table for the water rights people to suck up.
Utah and Washington still have this rule against water harvesting. It's kind of like being one of the last ski areas to ban snowboarding. Get with it people!
But in my lovely adopted state, not only is rainwater harvesting legal, but it is mandatory for new construction in the City Different -- to you all not from New Mexico, that would be the city of Santa Fe. The new southside library there has pretty awesome rainwater containers -- they look like big galvanized metal silos and I WANT ONE. I love rainwater harvesting. You'd be amazed at how much you can collect off a roof during a short storm. Our storms tend to result in about .05 inch of precipitation, but we often can fill up the barrels with that meager amount
Some people figured out that 97% of the runoff roof water that could be collected was evaporating or going to feed plants instead of going into the water table for the water rights people to suck up.
Utah and Washington still have this rule against water harvesting. It's kind of like being one of the last ski areas to ban snowboarding. Get with it people!
But in my lovely adopted state, not only is rainwater harvesting legal, but it is mandatory for new construction in the City Different -- to you all not from New Mexico, that would be the city of Santa Fe. The new southside library there has pretty awesome rainwater containers -- they look like big galvanized metal silos and I WANT ONE. I love rainwater harvesting. You'd be amazed at how much you can collect off a roof during a short storm. Our storms tend to result in about .05 inch of precipitation, but we often can fill up the barrels with that meager amount
Friday, June 26, 2009
Hoophouse porn
I snapped some pix yesterday of the hoophouse. This photo shows the chiles off in the left (in the corner of the hoophouse), as well as a pathway that is (partly) covered in baby clover. On the far right are the edges of some tomatoes and an eggplant.
The clover (NZ dwarf white to be exact) is to add nutrients to the soil and break up the clay soil The clover has deep taproots -- I'm not sure it will break apart the tuff a foot down but who knows. (Tuff -- rock that is made out of petrified volcanic ash -- think pumice -- we have a solid layer of this stuff 12 -18" under the dirt.).
Here's a link to all pix tagged "garden" on my Flickr page.
The clover (NZ dwarf white to be exact) is to add nutrients to the soil and break up the clay soil The clover has deep taproots -- I'm not sure it will break apart the tuff a foot down but who knows. (Tuff -- rock that is made out of petrified volcanic ash -- think pumice -- we have a solid layer of this stuff 12 -18" under the dirt.).
Here's a link to all pix tagged "garden" on my Flickr page.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
temperature triggered irrigation (i wish)
I wish I had a drip irrigation timer that was temperature activated. Why? Because when it hits 90 in the hoophouse, I could let loose with the foggers, little gizmos that lets out a fine mist that felt really good, kind of like running through the sprinklers. Of course the point would be to cool off the plants a bit and pump up the humidity. But really I should avoid it I suppose as it's totally against the water restriction. If I wanted to do this I could set up a separate irrigation timer for the fogging system -- but it would be time triggered, not temp triggered. So it would go off hot days or cool days. However conveniently enough, I am pretty much always at home during the afternoon.
Monday, June 22, 2009
crop rotation
I'm reading "The New Organic Grower" by Eliot Coleman. When I first skimmed through it I didn't think it would offer much new information above and beyond the other book I have by him, "Four Season Harvest." I wasn't ready to go ahead and buy it off Amazon so I checked it out from the library. Now I definitely am going to buy it. This is one of those books I will refer to over and over again, like The Garden Primer (by Barbara Damrosch, she and Coleman by coincidence are married to each other). I read it from beginning to end -- not because it was such a page turner necessarily, but I had started off skipping around and reading a few pages here and there, and then decided it would be more informative and less scattered if I read it in order. And it's really a great book and now that I'm done reading it I'm still going back and re-reading certain chapters to try and come up with a list of stuff to do.
There are definitely some chapters that are irrelevant for the home gardener, but the majority of it is applicable to my home garden as well as for a farmer.
So the book offered great information on how to get some great fertile loamy soil that plants will thrive in. Of course we all know you need great soil. But he's saying you will avoid the issue of "How do I get rid of aphids/ants/disease" in my plants in an all natural way. He's saying if you provide a low-stress environment for the plants you won't really have these problems. I hope all that road-work noise isn't stressful for the plants. We were joking about putting speakers in the hoophouse and blasting classical music for the tomatoes but that's another post. :-)
He isn't into using organic fertilizers or pesticides. He does use some soil amendments for sure -- greensand, phosphate. But he's not into fertilizing plants while they are growing except perhaps with some compost or something. He emphasizes using crop rotation which is not growing similar crops in the same plot. Crop rotation also is beneficial as some plants do better when they are planting where a different family was the year before -- for example, broccoli after onions.
He also uses green manure to improve the soil. Green manure are plants like clover and alfalfa that offer soil improving benefits. Sometimes they have deep roots that improve the subsoil tilth, or bring up nutrients higher up in the soil, or add nitrogen or other nutrients. You also can use the green biomass to compost or till into the soil to add more nutrients. He also uses short plants like clover to underplant with plants like tomatoes so they add nutrients while the other plant is growing, and basically grow more in less time as you don't have to wait until harvest to plant the green manure.
These things are probably common knowledge among experienced organic gardeners and farmers. He covers a wide range of issues in both a general and specific way. For example, at what stage you should till in a green manure for maximum soil benefit, or which plants will grow well using the multiplanting technique which is ideal for the lazy gardener/intensive garden.
There are chapters on tools (he's always figuring out how to make better tools to make farming less work), winter gardening, greenhouses and cold tunnels (hoophouses), tips on vegetables that I hadn't heard of before, and his way of starting seedlings that was also new to me. I'll post on a few of these things in the future as I try them out.
As you can see, there are a lot of ideas in this book I'm going to take a go at. The hardest one to get started on for me is planting up part of the garden with green manure. Like actual garden plots. I keep wanting to plant empty areas with lettuce or beets or tomatoes. But improving the soil now will payoff over time. And planting alfalfa is a lot cheaper than buying soil amendments and less work than pitchforking tons of compost every year.
There are definitely some chapters that are irrelevant for the home gardener, but the majority of it is applicable to my home garden as well as for a farmer.
So the book offered great information on how to get some great fertile loamy soil that plants will thrive in. Of course we all know you need great soil. But he's saying you will avoid the issue of "How do I get rid of aphids/ants/disease" in my plants in an all natural way. He's saying if you provide a low-stress environment for the plants you won't really have these problems. I hope all that road-work noise isn't stressful for the plants. We were joking about putting speakers in the hoophouse and blasting classical music for the tomatoes but that's another post. :-)
He isn't into using organic fertilizers or pesticides. He does use some soil amendments for sure -- greensand, phosphate. But he's not into fertilizing plants while they are growing except perhaps with some compost or something. He emphasizes using crop rotation which is not growing similar crops in the same plot. Crop rotation also is beneficial as some plants do better when they are planting where a different family was the year before -- for example, broccoli after onions.
He also uses green manure to improve the soil. Green manure are plants like clover and alfalfa that offer soil improving benefits. Sometimes they have deep roots that improve the subsoil tilth, or bring up nutrients higher up in the soil, or add nitrogen or other nutrients. You also can use the green biomass to compost or till into the soil to add more nutrients. He also uses short plants like clover to underplant with plants like tomatoes so they add nutrients while the other plant is growing, and basically grow more in less time as you don't have to wait until harvest to plant the green manure.
These things are probably common knowledge among experienced organic gardeners and farmers. He covers a wide range of issues in both a general and specific way. For example, at what stage you should till in a green manure for maximum soil benefit, or which plants will grow well using the multiplanting technique which is ideal for the lazy gardener/intensive garden.
There are chapters on tools (he's always figuring out how to make better tools to make farming less work), winter gardening, greenhouses and cold tunnels (hoophouses), tips on vegetables that I hadn't heard of before, and his way of starting seedlings that was also new to me. I'll post on a few of these things in the future as I try them out.
As you can see, there are a lot of ideas in this book I'm going to take a go at. The hardest one to get started on for me is planting up part of the garden with green manure. Like actual garden plots. I keep wanting to plant empty areas with lettuce or beets or tomatoes. But improving the soil now will payoff over time. And planting alfalfa is a lot cheaper than buying soil amendments and less work than pitchforking tons of compost every year.
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