Push Mower

Our latest green investment is a push mower from Clean Air Gardening. We sprung for the attachment to catch grass clippings. We will use some of the dry grass clippings to mulch the beds in the fall and for the compost.  It is nice not to have to buy gasoline, and now there is no noise pollution coming from our yard on Saturday.  You do have to mow every week, otherwise it is super hard to push.

Rain Barrel

I picked up a 55 gallon recycled rain barrel today. One half inch of rain will fill the whole barrel! It is a New England Rain Barrel that we were able to get at a reduced rate through our town. It is kind of an unsightly blue color, but the inside color resists algae and prevents the water from getting too hot. Both Krylon and Rustoleum make spray paint that is for plastic so we plan to paint ours green.

Strawberry Soup

Occasionally I cook . . .
This week I made some chilled Strawberry Soup. It came out pretty good, but I’m not sure if it counts as cooking since I didn’t have to turn the stove on.

Strawberry Soup
2 quarts fresh strawberries
1/4 cup yogurt
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup fresh Orange Juice
a bit of fresh mint

Grind up strawberries in Cuisinart or blender with yogurt, orange juice and honey. Serve chilled. Garnish with fresh mint. (Serves 4 – 6)

I have some strawberries in the garden for the first time this year, but they don’t have any fruit on them yet. Due to some impending work in our yard I have them in containers for now, but hope to find a permanent spot for a bed of strawberries by the end of the season. I have always drooled over this Berry Terrace at Gardeners.com, but we don’t have a way to permanently connect it to a water source.
*I’m sure this will be a non-issue since I can’t seem to have any fruit in the yard without the squirrels enjoying them before I get a chance to harvest.

The Worms in the Basement

We finally set up the worm bin that I mentioned in a previous post last week. We got our red wigglers online from a place called Planet Natural. You Grow Girl suggests that you make sure you ask for the worms by their scientific name (Eisenia foetida) to be sure you have the right kind of worm since these worms go by many different names. I made my first Rock You slideshow to show the process:

| View Show | Create Your Own

Other notes: We put our bin inside a laundry basket this catches any liquid that might come out of the holes in the bottom and allows us to move it easily if necessary.

Helpful resources:
Composting with Worms Article, Martha Stewart Living, March 2007
The Worm Book, by Loren Nancarrow and Janet Hogan Taylor
You Grow Girl, by Gayla Trail

Seed Folks

I recently read the book Seed Folks, by Paul Fleischman. This story is about the start of an inner city neighborhood garden from the perspective of 13 neighbors from many ethnic backgrounds. It is a young adult book, but was a great short read about a community that is transformed by a garden.

Companion Planting

I saw this nice Cucumber Trellis in the Gardeners.com catalog. It is a great solution for small spaces allowing you to plant behind/under the trellis. Too bad we already set up our trellis for the season.  We did do some creative carrot planting around our trellis this year.

Worms!

We saw An Incovenient Truth last night and we were inspired to start to change the world one worm at a time. The March 2007 Issue of Martha Stewart Living had some great information about how to Compost with Worms. We currently have a Compost Solution, but are going to take a trip to the Arlington, MA Bait and Tackle shop to get started with some Red Wigglers. Here is the Martha Stewart info via Tree Hugger. The article has easy to follow pictures and a nice trouble shooting chart. Unfortunately it is not available on the Martha Stewart website so I will be sure to take careful notes when we make our own vermiculture bin.

Other helpful resources:
Worm Woman
Worms Eat my Garbage, by Mary Appelhof
Worm Solutions
You Grow Girl 

Speaking of worms, pictured below is what could be the biggest earth worm on earth. We saw it last week with our own eyes while in Ecuador. I bet he could eat a lot of our trash!

Almost Done

We are finally using the kitchen full time again, although there are still some bits and pieces to complete. More pics of the progress and the kitchen warming parties.

So far, I am loving our American Craftsman garden window and all my plants are thriving. It gives a great amount of light from above and keeps some moisture in the window.

The Mystery Root

Each year I plant some carrots from seed and this year I decided to add a row of yellow radishes in the same bed. They started to grow in a normal way and then these huge bean-like stalks started to grow up. It seemed like I’d planted some pole beans on accident, but when we broke open the “beans” they clearly weren’t edible. Last weekend I noticed one pushing out of the ground like a carrot so I pulled it up . . . and it was a radish after all . . . A cardboard tasting radish. Hopefully the next one tastes better.

Composting

We have been composting with a compact unit that we got from The Gardeners Supply Company. It doesn’t take up much space and it is handy to have soil ready whenever you need it. This compost pail and the cornstarch biobags make it convenient to keep kitchen scraps under the under the kitchen sink for a bit.