Adventures in Vermicomposting

Last month I made my first attempt at composting with worms. I wrote it up as an article at an online social-networking site called "Gather." The Worm Saga: Further Adventures in Vermicomposting became a featured article! It is pretty funny; I did almost everything wrong.

I have started over again, however, with all of the lessons I learned. I'm going to write that up, too. I wonder if it come out as funny, describing something going right?

At least so far it's going right!

June 3: Better photos!

There's a higher-resolution setting on my digital camera! And I finally stumbled on it! So here's some better photos of the garden, starting with, above: an overview of the veggie-bed. Our first crop of mesclun is now bolting enthusiastically. We're going to have a BIG salad this next Wednesday: I'm pulling up the bolting plants and we'll eat them flowers and all!

Next is a shot of the "lavender patch." We have three kinds of lavender now. The tallest is "Goodwin Creek" grey lavender; the middle-sized one is Grosso; the two smallest (picked on by birds before the netting went up) are Provence. That's going to be a lovely-scented corner of Pioneer Square! Little bits of sacred basil are coming up all over, too.

And here's the glossiest cucumber in the garden. Nasturtium, borage, and marigold are supposed to be good companion plants, and this cucumber has all three as companions. Maybe there's something to this.

Photos from May 29

Lots of action lately, not much blogging! Here's catchup, with some photos.

The garden is filling in nicely. We put bird netting up last Wednesday (May 23); with David, Claudia, and I working together it went a lot faster than I expected. We also got some tomato cages for the three biggest plants; there's no room for cages around the smaller ones (planted too close).

To the right: that corner of the garden a month ago.


Along with the netting, we bought replacements for the cucurbits that the birds ate: three pots of "burpless" cucumbers (which came to five plants total), some vining zucchini and a bush-type zucchini, some new Sugar pumpkin plants, and a couple of the "Sunburst" type scalloped squash. I have another half a dozen of those (called "Sunny Scallop") coming up from seed, but when I saw two great big ones in a pot, I saw earlier gratification and had to have it!

This time I put some bone meal at the bottom of each hole before I set in the plant, and I also worked some bonemeal in around the surviving zucchini and pumpkin from the April 28th planting.

Two of our zucchinis on May 5; I thought they were doomed.


Here is one of the new zucchinis I put in on May 22 -- and one of the two little zucchinis I thought were dying on May 5th! Bonemeal did it! (The other one didn't make it, though, even with bonemeal.)




I also set out some seedlings I had started indoors to protect them from the starlings: ten lemon cucumber seedlings, a dozen spinach seedlings, and two dozen beet seedlings. They hadn't gotten much sun indoors, though, and were pretty weak. None of the beet seedlings made it; a few of the spinach seedlings took hold; and four of the lemon cucumbers are still thriving. Here on the left are two
of the strongest lemon cucumber seedlings.

My friend and fellow Raging Granny Shirley Morrison gave me some chard Saturday morning, the 26th, after our Seattle Raging Granny meeting. I went home by way of City People's Garden Store and bought two lavender plants to fill out the corner where the birds nibbled our first lavender; an Italian basil, because I just can't wait for our basil seedlings to get big enough to start harvesting; and three pots of arugula, which were absolutely the last salad greens they had
out in pots.

To the left there is some of the Swiss chard, filling out one of the vacant spaces in the Salad Patch.



Left is the new Italian Basil; right is a closeup of some of the Sacred Basil I planted from seed.



And here to the left is the lovely new lavender: two kinds, "Goodwin Creek Gray" and "Grosso."



Here's some new arugula set in on May 26 near some of the mesclun plantings we put in on April 28. You can almost make out the yellow flowers of the mizuna plant starting to bolt. The first arugula is starting to get leggy and bolt, too.

Playing in the ketchup...

Lots of things happening, except blogging. Quick catch-up on the high points, then on to some photos:

• While out in the garden on the 12th, I spotted our culprits, the ones eating so many of our plants: birds! Two big, sleek black birds with iridescent wings and yellow beaks flew down not five feet in front of me; one plucked off a branch of that big new sage, while another snatched a whole sprig of rosemary from almost ground level. Jean said they are most likely starlings. We got bird netting May 23rd; put it up on the 24th.
  
• I had just bought and spread some Sluggo, which is iron sulfate; nutritious for humans and other animals (at least in small quantities!) but poisonous to slugs and snails. When I saw the birds I thought, "Darn! I just wasted ten bucks!" When I came out the next morning, though, I saw a little tiny dead slug on one of the wooden raised-bed railings. So we did have slugs, too.
• I identified the five varieties of "mesclun" we got from the nursery as: mizuna ("potherb mustard"), tatsoi ("spoon mustard"), Red Giant mustard, Red Russian kale, and arugula. We had garden greens in our salad (along with marigold petals) for the Wednesday community meal on May 23 and May 30. The mizuna, tatsoi, and arugula is already starting to bolt. I have been sowing more mesclun mix, and have also put in some more nursery-pots of arugula, to keep the salads coming.
• I made my first attempt at worming. That will be a saga all by itself. My husband Wes has already posted his take on it.

Next: photographs!

I'm Ba-a-a-ack!

Jean kept an eye on the garden, and thought it needed no more water even without rain. Everything is fine except the tangerine gem marigold seedlings.

I made a quick trip to the garden store and bought new cucumber, zucchini, and pumpkin plants, some well-grown sunburst-squash to supplement the sunny-scallop squash seeds I sowed earlier, plus a few more lettuces and a healthy-looking young borage. Putting them in I found that although the soil is dry on top, it is moist (not damp, but cool-moist) under the surface, and six inches (or more) down. It will hold until I get the compost tea tomorrow.

Only a few of the tangerine gem marigold seedlings are still there; the radish seedlings are thriving; a few more spinach seedlings have sprouted; it looks like a few borage and calendula are coming up; and some of the basil are coming up! The nasturtiums I got potted are struggling along, and it looks like a couple are coming up from the seeds -- including one in the border outside the raised beds.

I don't see signs of new nibbling, but the golden sage and the peppermint haven't recovered from the nibbling they got, so when I go to get the compost tea I am also going to get some new sage and peppermint; and some nasturtiums I saw that are already in flower.

I'll take some more pictures tomorrow, when everything new is in. See you then. :)

Cayenne works!

No more new nibbling! Whatever it was, the cayenne border around the garden seems to be repelling it.

Sunny and warming.

I'm going to Yakima tomorrow morning and I won't be back until Friday evening. I've passed the word: If the weather continues hot and sunny the garden will need more water; if we have rain, that garden will need more cayenne.

One of the zucchini plants appears totally dead. The second is sprouting new leaves. Even the one chewed down to the stem seems to be sprouting new leaves!

There are a few grass-like shoots coming up where I planted the spinach. Yup, that's what spinach seedlings look like.

The rhubarb is definitely dying, and I'm not too sure about the pumpkin; it looks like it's sprouting new leaves, but it also looks like the older leaves are dying. I'm going to check the ground in that end of the garden before I leave, make sure it's retaining water.

The mesclun plants are standing up proud and practically gleam with health. We may have salad next Wednesday!

I ordered more Sacred Basil, Mesclun mixes, some purslane and some white clover, and had them shipped extra-fast, with the manic intent to sow them before I leave for Yakima. They came today, but so did a bit of my sanity. I'll hold off any more planting until I come back, when I can see more of what's coming up, and I can keep any newly sown seed evenly moist.

I'll post again next Saturday!

More nibbling

The plants I sprinkled cayenne pepper around yesterday seemed to have no new nibbles today. The sage, the peppermint, and the orange balsam thyme had been gone after! So I sprinkled cayenne around the most vulnerable plants AND all around the border of the beds.

There is almost nothing left of the cucumbers, but the pumpkin seems still strong:


The oregano looks downright photogenic:


Radish seedlings and tangerine gem marigold seedlings are definitely coming up. I planted a few more beets & radish in a blank spot between the radish seedlings and the yellow onions. Spinach seedlings have not yet come up. I planted a few more spinach anyway, with a couple of borage, and this time marked where I planted them with a few radish seeds.