The Compost Bin

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

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.

This weekend I transplanted some salad greens out to the hoop house. I started them from seeds last month in the warmth of my basement underneath some shop lights and now I've sent them outside to grow up and become a salad.

They've been outside a few days and even though it went down to 29 degrees last night, they're still doing fine. The 10 day forecast is showing warmer weather so these little guys won't have to endure freezing temperatures again at least for a little while.

Now if I was a full time garden blogger and had the time in the world to run all kinds of experiments the first thing I would do is add some sort of thermal mass to the raised bed. Perhaps I'd try a really large stone (like a 30 pounder) or a few 5 gallon buckets. I'd partially bury them on the North side of the bed where they could absorb the rays of the sun all day long. Then at night the stored heat would help to slightly raise the temperature inside the hoop house.

Another thing I'd would like to do is move the wireless sensor on my Weather Station into the hoop house to see how cold it gets in there at night and compare it to the outside temperature. Without a thermal mass though the temperature is probably the same. But at least the plants are protected from the wind so the hoop house is doing it's job.

Since the bed is already full of salad greens and a few root seeds that I sowed over the weekend, the thermal mass idea is definitely not going to happen. But there's a good chance I'll get around to moving the sensor to get some temperature readings. Wish me luck!

Just wanted to share this TED video with everyone. It's about dramatically improving indoor air quality to the point where it benefits your health. And it's done very easily by adding three very common houseplants to certain rooms.

• Areca Palm
• Mother-in-law's Tongue
• Money Plant

You'd think that someone who does a blog about composting would have the perfect composting system but I don't. As you can see in the picture some sort of critter (probably a raccoon) was able to rip through one of the screen covered air holes on my homemade compost tumbler and have a snack.

A well maintained compost pile should have no odor. I tell people that all the time. I have added that sentence to many of my posts. I wouldn't be surprised if my wife told me that I repeat it over and over while I sleep. Well I should pay more attention to myself.

You see, I added a ton of kitchen scraps to the pile over the weekend including eggs shells and green onion scraps. Now if I took my own advice I would have added more leaves to the bin at the same time and maintained the proper green:brown ratio. But I didn't. I didn't even roll the can around to mix the ingredients. I don't know why I didn't get to it. I was probably busy making green onion quiche or something.

After cleaning up the mess (and I'm lucky that it's a pretty small mess) I covered up the busted air hole and added about six inches of shredded leaves to the can. Then I gave it a good blast of water from the hose and rolled it around to mix it. The tumbler doesn't smell anymore and I've learned my lesson.

If you live in bear country or just don't want to worry about pests at all then I suggest sticking to mostly leaves and coffee grinds. You'll still get a nice compost and it shouldn't attract any attention from four legged friends.

It's always nice to see things sprouting after a long winter. Here's a photo of a hydrangea starting to grow that I discovered after cleaning out a flower bed this weekend.

Grow Hydrangea Grow!

I discovered something that I thought was pretty amazing in my garden this past weekend. It seems that some of my cool season greens have lived through the winter. The plants looked dead as a doornail all winter but once the overnight temps started staying above freezing, they started sprouting again.

The Swiss Chard, the Arugula and the Bok Choy were all buried under snow for a good portion of the winter but I guess that may have helped insulate them from the cold. Either that or they're some sort of super vegetables.

This is great news because these are three of the plants that I picked to put outside in a hoop house before the danger of frost has passed. I guess my seedlings will be fine.

Well I didn't time my seedlings perfectly but I'm not that far off. If I started the seeds for the cold tolerant greens about two or three weeks earlier then I would have spent my weekend transplanting them to the hoop house.

So since the seedlings aren't quite ready to go outside yet I spent the weekend cleaning up the garden and prepping the hoop house. Here's a photo of the inside of the hoop house and it's totally weed free. The soil has been amended and I'm ready to start planting. Now I just need some plants that are ready to go into the ground.

Looks like it's time to start thinning the seedlings.

The other day I posted about how the methane produced by landfills was much worse for the environment than CO₂ was. I still think we'd be better off if more people had a compost bin in their yard but I also came across this video and learned about another alternative.

In this CNN Video they show how SC Johnson is using landfill methane to generate enough power for half the energy needs of it's largest US plant. Here's how it works. Trash decomposes underground and turns to methane, the methane gets collected, treated and then used in their co-generation system. This process is creating over 500 KWs of power.

So you see, even though methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas it still has some good uses. Landfill sequested methane would be a great way to prevent greenhouse emissions and get some energy out of it in the deal. I'm still in favor of keeping most of our household waste out of the landfill by composting but there's already a lot of dumps out there. So we might as well put them to good use.

If you have trouble viewing the embedded video, then click here to view it on the CNN Money site.

Image via Wikipedia

Did you know that composting releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Yes, it's true. So you may be wondering how is this an environmentally friendly thing to do.

Did you also know that when things decompose in the landfill, methane is produced? Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The difference between the landfill and your home compost bin is air. An aerated compost bin is getting the oxygen it needs to undergo aerobic decomposition. The lack of oxygen in a landfill is causing anaerobic decomposition which as a byproduct produces methane.

That means that by composting your food and garden waste, you're keeping it out of the landfills and decreasing the amount of methane that going into our atmosphere. Not bad for a pile of garbage.

Obviously this is a very general explanation that doesn't take into account a lot of variables but you get the idea. A well tended compost bin is much better for the environment than sending all of your waste to the landfill.

Well I set out to build a hoop house this weekend but I wound up with Snoopy's Dog House instead.

I know I could have taken a few PVC pipes and bent them into arches and covered it with plastic like most people do, but I really don't want PVC anywhere near my vegetables. Call me paranoid but the whole BPA, baby bottle situation has me rethinking my plastic use.

And besides, that paranoia also led me to build this unique looking hot house for my garden. I built it with 2x2 lumber for the frame that I screwed into the raised bed for stability. Then I covered it with this Garden Fabric that I bought a few years ago and never did anything with.

The fabric is stapled to the frame but I left a large flap so that I could get inside when I need to. And hopefully I'll need to get inside it a lot so I can harvest very early spring vegetables.

Next thing I have to do is weed inside the raised bed and add some compost (of course). Then I'll bring my Min/Max thermometer out there and check the temps for a few days. It's been warm enough lately that I should be fine but since it's still early March I'm still on the lookout for more frost.

The last step will be to transplant the cold tolerant greens. The spinach, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard and bok choy that I started under lights in my basement are doing well. In another week or two they'll be ready to go into the Snoopy Dog House.

One thing that’s on my garden to do list is to get rid of my blackberries. Look at this giant tangled mess. To give you an idea of how big this plant is, the raised bed that these blackberries have completely taken over is 12 feet wide by 3 feet deep.

Besides being out of control, another reason why I want to get rid of them is the thorns. My whole family loves eating them but the thorns are usually responsible for one of my kids crying every time we pick some berries. They go right through my thickest gloves too. Cutting this plant down will be no picnic.

And the last strike against this blackberry is that it’s sending runners all over my garden. I’ve got blackberry canes popping up in the nearby raised beds and I’m tired of pulling them out. As I said the thorns stick me right through my gloves. Ouch!

I’m going to cut and dig out everything that I can in the raised bed. And then when new runners continue to pop up all around the garden, instead of pulling them out, I’ve got another plan. I’m going to make a paste of salt and vinegar. Then I'll cut the invading cane and apply the paste to the wound. I’m hopping this will kill the runner back to the source. It may not work but short of digging up my entire garden, this is the best idea I came up with. Obviously I'm not going to spray something like Roundup in my vegetable garden.

The last step in this blackberry removal project is to buy some more blackberries. I’m thinking about going with a Prime Jim from Stark Brothers. This thornless variety produces fruit on first year canes and it sounds great to me. As I said, my family loves fresh blackberries every summer so who am I to let them down.

There’s six inches of snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Even though the local woodchuck came out of his hole it, seems New Jersey hasn’t seen the end of winter yet.

That’s fine with me because or the first time in years, my seed starting efforts are actually organized and going pretty well. I love starting my plants from seeds and have been doing it for years. But truthfully it's never been a smooth operation.

The act of putting soil and a seed into the seed starting tray is the easy part. For me, the hard part is getting the shelves, the lights and the trays ready for that act. I’ve mentioned it quick a few times on this blog that my garage is a giant pile of crap. I have tons of tools, ladders, gardening equipment, all of the kids summer toys (bikes, skates, scooters, bubble makers, hoola hoops, etc) overwintering plants (9 musa basjoo and a fig tree) all in a one car garage. During the winter, you really can’t walk in there.

Digging out the shelves and finding everything I need to start seeds is a big hassle that I usually put off until the last minute. And when you don't have a lot of time you focus on the essentials. For me that's mostly tomatoes and peppers.

This year I managed to get started in February. As you can see, it’s March 1st and I’ve already got three trays of seeds started. Yesterday I added some Simpson Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Spinach and Pak Choi to the already started arugula and mesclun.

Since I’m on a roll, I’m actually going to start flowers for once. I’ve always wanted to start my annuals from seed to save some money and this might be my chance. And conveniently sitting in my seed vault are just the seeds that I need.

• Marigold – Boy O Boy Mixed
• Gloriosa Daisy – Double Gold
• Shasta Daisy – Alaska
• Gaillardia – Amber Wheels
• Zinnia – Cut & Come Again Mixed
• Zinnia – Zowie! Yellow Flame Hybrid
• Chinese Lanterns
  

I always wind up buying seeds that I never start and for once I’m happy that I did. So let it snow. I’m doing just fine inside.