Two weeks in the compost bin

Now I haven't added anything to this bin except water. It was full to the brim two weeks ago. I am surprised how much this is cooking down. It is hard not to add stuff to it but I think if I do it will be hard to tell exactly what is happening.
Here is the picture from last Sunday...


And this one is from this morning...

Two months after the fact but here's blog 1 of 2 about how I plant tomatoes in the desert

This is my method. Don't know if it's right but it is what works for me. I use three things when I plant: root stimulator, a banana peel and coffee grounds. Sounds scary doesn't it?

So first I dig a rectangular shallow trench in the dirt.

Next I fill the hole with water to which I have added root stimulator according to the package directions.


I let that water drain away entirely.

I lay the banana peel down in there toward the side of where the roots are going to go. Then I sprinkle a small handle of coffee grounds in the hole.

And then I get ready to put the tomato plant into it's fruity, caffeinated home.


Banana peels add potash and phosophorous to the soil. Coffee grounds add nitrogen. I often do not fertilize my tomatoes at all during the season but simply bury another rotten banana (or peel) and add another small handful of coffee grounds periodically. I buy packages of rotten bananas at the grocery store for around 25 cents for 7 or 8 of them. It's only my husband and I at home now and it's hard to eat enough banana for the garden.

Next time I'll show you how I actually plant.

Compost update

This has cooked down from a jammed crammed bin in one week. I haven't been able to roll it very well because I need to go buy four bolts and drill holes through the lid and the lip of the bin. The bungee cord didn't work on the handles at all. There is no smell so far.

But there is this black-ish run off on the cement block under the bin. Ewwww....

So I thought I'd show you something prettier after that icky photo of black goop. And these are some of the berries on my brand new brazos blackberries. Yum.

Speaking of yum. My dog must like these Carmello tomatoes (one of my favorites from Tasteful Garden last year) There were four beautiful tomatoes on here yesterday. Sigh. I must have left the garden gates open.

And can you see my first teeny, weeny Zephyr (also from TG's)squash on here? There was a little one a few days ago but ummm, I ate it. Sorry. Although I did NOT eat the green tomatoes no matter what the dog tells you.

Cherry tomatoes and cream

Have you seen this recipe? It is delicious! While you're waiting for fresh tomatoes you might want to give it a try. It's modified from a Paula Deen recipe.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pints cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 cup heavy cream
Fresh basil if you like
Directions
In a heavy skillet, melt the butter with the sugar and salt. Add the tomatoes. Cook stirring until the tomato skins begin to split. At this point, add the cream. Stir gently. Sprinkle with fresh basil and serve.

Bad, bad Blogger

Things have been crazy busy at our house. I have lots of pictures to share as well as my planting stuff to still show you. But just so you know I haven't round-uped the garden - ha! Here's some pictures to prove I'm still hard at work in it! I love it!

Cooking with green and brown

It might be because I'm on a diet but whenever I read about composting and they talk about "cooking" it makes me hungry. And perhaps to divert my attention from eating I decided to make a new, easier to manage composting method. Composting has always felt a little like "too much" for me. If you don't have one of those handy-dandy rotating drum things and the composting "formula" correct will it work?

I read somewhere about using bales of straw and composting in the center of those. Adding the green and brown matter and removing a bale to go in and stir it up with a pitchfork on occasion. Part of the theory being the straw would disintegate as well over time and turn into compost so the whole compost pile would, in essence, bit an efficient compost-churning mechanism.

Ummm... not so much. Not only did I forget to stir it but all kinds of weeds and things grew out of the straw bales and it looked....well....decidedly not-efficient AND ugly on top of it. So I decided composting was going to be too difficult and abandoned the whole idea.

BUT then I read an article somewhere on an easier method of composting and cut it out and saved it somewhere safe so I could try composting again. Someone must have come into my house and stolen that valuable article (which is, of course, the only reason I couldn't find it to read the instructions) so I hope I'm remembering this right. Come along on this little experiment and we'll see what happens.

I conveniently found a $20 bill just laying around in my husbands wallet so I took it to Home Depot with me and bought a sturdy black trash-bin with a cover for 14 bucks. Woo hoo. Change left for Starbucks. I got a smaller one so that I can handle it easily by myself. If this works I will make several more.

Here's what I did. The first part is fun and involves power tools. Yee haw! Take your biggest drill bit and drill holes all over your trash can. Drill a few in the bottom and don't forget to drill holes in the lid too. You want good air circulation and some drainage.
Wow, look at all the holes. They look suspiciously like polka dots which are one of my favorite things in the world.

OK, now we need to use some brown stuff, some green stuff and some moisture. So I'm using some leaves.

And then some green stuff I thinned out of my garden. Cut up the woodier greens (such as sunflower stalks) to help break them down quicker. Don't throw weeds in there.

If you don't have a lot of dead leaves you can use shredded paper (which is made from trees and thus organic - but only use the black and white pages). I threw in some coffee grounds and some banana peels as well.

Put your little recycling project up on a cement block so it gets circulation all around.

Moisten the whole thing whenever you think about it. I am going to roll it around on the ground whenever I remember to mix everything up well.

I made this on April 25. I marked on my calendar to show you a picture again on May 2.

And yes, I truly might need to get a life.

I can't help it. I am a garden geek.

Oh, and if my husband asks you about the 20 bucks...it's our little secret.

And ... ta da... diverting the water into the raised beds.

Here's the little pump we use.


Can you see the hose snaking through the roses? It will flood that raised bed as well.

Then we will divert it into the bigger garden.