Worm Poop!

Nasty, slimy, foul little worms. I actually used to be afraid of worms. Really, I did. If I saw one squiggle by while gardening, I would tense up, my heart would pound and I would scooch back from the garden in panic. That was before two things: the first was having a son and the second was starting a compost pile. I learned how to handle a child who likes to cover one arm completely with worms. The compost pile was actually easy after dealing with that!

Last summer (2007) I decided to take this "green" thing more seriously and devoted myself to starting to compost. It wasn't easy at first. My family thought I was nuts, being the city-dwellers we had once been. I was accused of being a farmer, of being a nut job, or a hippie. Actually, I didn't mind being called any of those things, so the joke's on them!

The hardest part, really, was just figuring out HOW to compost. There is so much information out there and it seemed like there was only one 'right' way to do it, which I've since found out isn't true. In fact, the best thing about composting is that no matter what, if you throw all the stuff in a pile, turn it once in a while and keep it sorta wet, eventually all that crap is going to decompose and make compost, like it or not. It's simple biology.

There are recipes for compost on the web that tell you to add 'browns' and 'greens' for balanced compost. The grees stuff puts nitrogen into the compost, which is good for soil and plants anyway. The brown stuff can be dead leaves from raking, veggie/fruit peels and maybe sticks (though they take a long time to decompose).

Other items you can add are:

Egg shells
Coffee grounds
Coffee filters (unbleached)
Coronet paper plates (marked especially for composting)
Newspaper
Animal Manure***

***Do Not Add manure from meat-eating animals. Ergo, you cannot compost the dog poop from your yard or the kitty litter. Try barn animal poop, like chickens for example. Chicken poop is excellent for your garden, if you happen to have chickens running around. So is bat guano, but it's a little harder to find.

NO NO NO: In addition to carnivorous animal poop, do not throw meat into the compost pile.

I'm still not sure if it's okay to throw things like pizza crust in there, so I just feed that stuff to the dog (whose poop I still have to dispose of in plastic bags). No wonder she's so fat and poops so much.

Since poop is on the menu...

Worm Poop!!!!

That is a real attention-getter, to me at least. Worm and poop are two very funny words that are even funnier together, but that could just be me.

Worm poop is also called "castings." When worms move into your compost pile, you've got a good thing going on. They will aid in the decomposition of the pile by eating everything in it (they REALLY love coffee grounds, but it keeps them awake sometimes). After they digest, they poop out whatever and that is what the castings are; the castings are loaded with nutrients for the soil which helps make it plantable. In addition, tunneling worms make for excellent aeration, something needed in both compost and soil.

You can actually purchase worms to dump into your compost. I feel lucky that some homeless worms actually found what, to them, must be a worm condo because I now have hundreds of worms in there working it for the soil. If you're in a hurry for some good compost, you can add purchased worms and do things like heat it and spin it and stuff. But to me, a pile, a pitchfork and a hose are all I've needed to make great, healthy, totally ORGANIC soil for my plants. If I can do it, trust me when I say that anyone can do it.

And for my favorite book about worms...see Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin.
The cutest worms I've ever seen!

Working Like a Farmer - e-i-e-i-OOOOO!

There has been something of a lull in the veggie garden, which has been nice. But this past weekend it was time to tie up the wandering fruits and vegetables; the cukes, the watermelon, the squash and zuchinni, and the tomatoes - of course the tomatoes! In addition, there was the compost to attend to, which is now LOADED with worms! (more about worms later).

For the tomatoes, I used spiral cages that I've had for a few years. I think they're really cool. Since the Early Girl tomatoes are now bearing fruit, I anticipate they will be producing yummy tomatoes really soon. As for the other two, the Pineapple Tomatoes and the Romas, they still have a way to go and the Romas are really tall! The spiral cages are excellent to grow with the natural direction of the plant. See "Tomato Staking. "
I have marigolds, chives and basil planted with the tomatoes a la companion planting guidelines. So far, the basil is bearing the brunt of the beetle attack, which is fine. I just want to keep the tomatoes protected.
A lot of people talk about pinching or pruning their tomatoes, but I don't do that. Once the fruit ripens and is removed, I will pinch off that stalk, but otherwise I just let them grow on their own schedule. There are a lot of opinions about whether to prune or not, but I'll leave that to the experts and just do what works for me. I'm not trying to sell tomatoes or anything, so I'm not too concerned.

The watermelon and cucumbers are climbing up a nice, white trellis which makes the garden look very cottage-like. In between them are marigolds to keep cucumber bugs away (so far so good) Marigolds are generally a good companion for just about any fruit or vegetable garden.

For the squash and zuchinni, I didn't have any more cage-type, trellis-type things, so I made one out of sticks and hemp string. Really, I did.

After all of that was done, I prepared to spread the compost. I have a brand new batch which has been cooking since last summer and it's good and ready and full of worms! The next post will be more about vermicomposting.

Wretched Beautiful Pain

This gardening gig is starting to get a little dangerous. After several weeks of limping around with a painful shin bone, I think I've finally figured out that, NO, I don't have cancer. I'm pretty sure I bruised my bone.

In the garden.

Of course.

And it hurts like a bitch.

I was crawling over the bricks which line my garden and hit down hard on my shin. Since then, I've smacked it pretty good a few more times. I'm surprised that I don't have bone chips floating around; I remember when I was little, my dad would threaten me when I refused to get a splinter out: "If you don't get it out, it will get into your bloodstream, go to your heart and pop it!" Little five-year-old me really believed that a 1/16 inch shard of wood could actually POP my heart and so, I was more amenable to having a flaming hot needle jammed into my skin. (for reasons still unknown to me, my dad always 'purified' the needle by burning it instead of simply washing it in alcohol). Now I'm wondering if bone chips can come out and float around in your blood...sound like a Google.

Everything about gardening seems to tempt injury. At least for me. Just getting to the hose in the front garden is bad enough. The hose is surrounded by huge rose bushes and so it's like the hose has developed its own defense mechanism; of course the spigot has to be located underneath the giant monster roses (which, by the way, are up to the roof of the house). I'm actually a little bit afraid of the roses...

Do other people sustain these types of injuries while gardening? Falling into the trash can (from an earlier post), constantly slamming arms and legs on bricks, falling face first into mulch and worm poop. Well, that last one isn't really an injury, only to my pride. Maybe I'm in too much of a hurry or maybe I need to be more methodical. How did I become so clumsy?

Bloom Time

Right about this time of year, as spring is dwindling and summer is ready to burst onto the scene, gardens take center stage full and lush. Except mine. It occurs to me that because this is the planting year of my perennials that they will not exactly look abundant. In fact, they look a little anemic. My black-eyed Susans are still barely more than seedlings even though they've been in the ground since March. Hmm, maybe that's not a good example, but all in all everything looks slightly --- thin.

The vegetables are another story. The early girl tomatoes are not only blooming, they are producing fruit which is copius and ready to ripen. Yipee!

I also discovered my lilac bush has doubled in size since planting. For this, I thank the worm poop sticks that I shoved in the ground with it. Hooray for worm poop!

Most wonderful, however, are the blooms, simple flower blooms that I feel like I've worked so long to see. The purple coneflower, grown from seed, is now a bountiful bloomer (see photo). The colors are so bright and so intense that they make me happy just looking at them; they give me such a great vibe.

Now the next thing I'd like to learn is how to use the medicinal parts of the plant, since purple coneflower is, after all, echinacea. Next step -- plant wizardry!

Zen Zone

I'm visiting my parents in Philadelphia this week. They seem to think that I really am a very good gardener for some reason, since they asked me to go outside and deal with theirs. It's in need of love, but given that they are both in their 70s I think they are doing just fine. My mother asked me to put a shepherd's hook in the ground for her and hang up their petunias. I continued to spend 30 more minutes dead-heading her petunias, for which she was not exactly grateful, more like stunned.

"How could you have taken so long doing that?" she wondered.

It is sort of a zen thing for me, this dead-heading. I just zoned in on this one thing in this one moment, removing dead blooms from the plants by pinching them off at the end of their little stems. Soon the ground around me was littered with little stems and pieces and I was extremely sticky from the plants. (Why are petunias so sticky?)

This is the very thing about gardening that I love. It's so zen. Once I get started on a project I do not get distracted easily; and woe to you who may interrupt a garden-jag! I will take your head off!

Mom learned this today when she kept calling out the window to me, "Eileen! Are you finished? What are you doing? What's taking so long? Is the hook in the ground? Is something wrong with the plants? Where are you? Why aren't you answering?"

OH MY GOD! BE QUIET!

I am in the zone...

Beannacht by John O'Donoghue - for whoever needs it

Beannacht("Blessing")

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay danceto balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behindthe grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life..

..John O'Donoghue

Three Questions

In the last five minutes my kids have asked me the following three questions:

1) While standing in front of an open refrigerator, where a LARGE bag of peaches sits on the top shelf, my 9 year old son hollars to me in the next room, "Mom! Where are the peaches?"

2) My 5 year old daughter asks me, "Mom! Will you wipe my bottom?"

3) Again, my daughter after washing her hands and standing in front of the towel rack lined with four fresh, clean, fluffy towels, "Mom! Where are the towels?!"

Apparently I have failed to instill some crucial skill in these children. Now they have fodder for future theapy.

Storm Surge

Once again I've had to chase my plants across the lawn after another storm. This is so frustrating! In addition to plants, there were more roof tiles flying around the lawn, which fell with a splat on my car hood.

I'm somehow going to have to adapt to these weird climate moments. I've lived in Virginia off and on over the last 15 years but this is the strangest weather I've seen yet. It's gloom and doom for sure, global warming tossing my flowers and my roof out to the winds!

The surge hit its stride around 9:00 last evening. For my kids, that was just too much and both of them ended up in bed with me at some point or another. Yes, that bares the secret that I was in bed and ready to sleep at around 9 pm, which is where the pain comes into play. Some days I completely melt into a puddle right after the kids fall asleep. Hopefully this is not some harbinger of things to come in later life, for I myself still feel rather sprightly and youthful, regardless of the pain. So, yes, there we all were snug in my bed, all three of us - and the dog! - bearing out another endless storm. The winds were pretty bad and the tree limbs out back were cracking and falling, TIMBER, down onto some of the fragile, newly-planted areas below. At this, all three bodies with various amounts of hair, jumped into my lap and pretty much stayed there all night. Needless to say I woke up with a serious pain in the neck! Not to mention, I realized that the dog really, really needs a bath (and some mouthwash).

Digging the Doctor, Dirty Girl!

I have developed the wildest crush on my chiropractor. I feel a little guilty because I think he's oblivious that I'm totally digging him. But I would hardly be human if I wasn't attracted to someone who makes me feel so good. I wonder what he would say if he knew I was thinking about him like this.

Since he's been treating me, the garden work has been much easier. My body is already under assault from a variety of weirdness. But he has been there to relieve my pain and stress. His hands are so warm and strong and he rubs me all over my back...good God! No wonder I'm helpless! (Don't know what you do but you're doin' it well, I'm under your spell. I'm begging you for Mercy! You have me on my knees! - see posted YouTube video of Duffy - Mercy)

Alas, he is amazing.

So the garden girl is digging, just not dirt today. Garden girl is digging her doctor.

Thanks, doc, for making me feel so good! If I can ever return the favor, it would be my pleasure...

In Every Life, A Little Rain

No sooner had I returned from Burke Nursery than the sky opened up and dumped on our area. Northern Virginia spent many hours of June 3rd under tornado warnings, severe thunderstorms and the like. I saw the storm approaching as I was unloading the car. Not realizing that the storm was armageddon-like, I thought I was being clever by distributing the plants, still in their flats, around various places in the garden to be planted. "Oh," I reasoned, "they'll get a nice dose of water."

Needless to say, with tornadoes and 70 mph winds, not to mention copious amounts of rain, many of my new plant purchases were smashed flat and flung around the yard. Luckily no damage was done to my home or any of the people. Our American flag wasn't so lucky. The wooden pole cracked in half and we found the flag wedged into a tree about 20 feet away. In any case, as the plants dried out today in the 90-degree sun, they looked much better.

Since the ground was, shall we day, damp...I found today a very good day for planting new plants, regardless of their general shabbiness. The soil was easy to work which was a nice break for my arthritic hands. Actually, I used a pitchfork to turn over large areas of soil just to get a running start on hole digging. Shovels and I do not get along, but that pitchfork is my new best garden buddy. With the sogginess, the fork and I made quick work of the plants.

The muscles are paying the price, but all in all it isn't too bad. The humidity was high and the work was difficult; but I finished before 11 am and before the heat got too bad. Rest was the key for keeping the joints from shutting down or locking up. I didn't even topple over into the garden, not even once!

Birds and Worms and Fur

I think I need to do some more research on Lamb's Ears. For some reason, mine are just sitting there looking soggy. Too much water? I know they don't like water on their leaves because of the fur. Is that the technical name? Fur? I'll have to check that, too. But they don't look too happy.

Yesterday I put out a bird feeder near the garden and a bat box in the back yard hanging on a tall tree. I know if bats eventually come that they will benefit the garden by eating "bad" bugs as well as mosquitoes. But I'm not so sure about the bird feeder. So far, the only customer seems to be a well-fed chipmunk, who is very cute. But no birds. I also wonder if birds are really something I should try to attract to a garden where I am trying to grow things. It's possible they might eat the berries (my blueberries, blackberries and strawberries that are looking good) or some other plant that is on the bird menu. Lots of robins hopping around my lawn, which I'm interpreting as a good thing in that it shows I have a lot of worms underground and, ergo, a healthy, aerated lawn. Right?