The White Dot Situation

My sister pointed out that I never followed up on the white fuzz - after rolling the compost, I have not seen the white fuzz! However, not too long after the white fuzz incident, there was the Tiny White Dots Situation - - I opened up the compost to switch lids to roll it and there were strange tiny white dots all over the inside of the plastic bucket (see the above picture). I wasn't sure what it was then (and I'm still not sure what it is) my first two thoughts were: 1) tiny dots of mold and 2) insect larvae of some type.

Nothing has hatched... so I'm pretty sure it's not larvae. The last time I opened the lid to roll the compost, the dots were still there, but they didn't seem as... intense, for lack of a better word. However, I wouldn't not call the White Dot Situation resolved.

Herbs, Day 1

Since outdoor gardening failed (and we had the first hard freeze of the year) I moved the carrots inside - they're doing well, but I don't want to freeze them to death. And I planted herbs today! Hopefully I'll have more luck with the herbs than I did with my plants this summer. I still had some of the humus from this summer left over, so these herbs are planted in a mixture of potting soil and humus. Let's see how they grow!

And then there were .... carrots.

Well, the spinach did not survive the flood. And the zuchini did not survive either... it, I am afraid, died from neglect more than anything. Though the zuchini bloomed, the blooms never turned into little zuchinis... Here's the current state of things:

Growth... and the opposite

Well, the no compost carrot plant didn't make it. BUT, everything else seems to be doing pretty well. It has been raining a bit here and I had to save my spinach from drowning. When I checked on them yesterday, they were under about an inch of water. This is what they looked like AFTER I dumped out at least a gallon of water. You can still see the water seeping out of the soil on top.

The zuchinni are in hanging pots and they didn't seem to get as much water when it rained, they actually were looking a little dried out when I checked on them, but they seem to be doing well. The carrots with compost are also doing well!

Zuchini - Compost

Zuchini - No Compost

the fledgling carrots...

Not sure how well you can see it, but there is one little sprout in the carrots with no compost pot. Which is a stark contrst to:

There are probably about 7-10 little seedlings in the pot of carrots with compost! There isn't such a stark difference in the zuchinni - it looks like the zuchinni with compost might be growing a bit bigger but the difference isn't quite as obvious as this... I'll post some pictures of the zuchinni later!

Germination!

About a week after I planted my seeds the zuchini sprouted - and it looks pretty good! There was also a tiny spinach sprout and an even tinier carrot sprout. Yay!

WTF!?! (What the FUZZ!?!)

After using my summer compost to plant some new seeds, I decided to start a second bucket of compost (I have a little of the old compost left so I can plant a second batch of spinach a few weeks after the first batch). I drilled holes into another paint bucket lid (though I didn't drill holes in the side of this bucket - it gets a little messy when you role the bucket, though it's not too bad).

I started much like I started the last compost - a little bit of old dirt, corn cobs, and some other veggie peelings.

Looks like a good start, right? That's what I thought. I covered it and put it out on patio to keep adding stuff to it for a few weeks. I added some more veggie peels the next night, under the cover of darkness. I didn't get a good look in the bucket but I did notice a smell...

The next day I opened up the bucket and:

There was a giant white fuzz attacking my compost! As a modern girl, I googled 'white fuzzy mold'. One website suggested that heat might kill this white fuzzy mold... so I left the compost alone out on the patio in the August desert heat.... and well, it's still there. I called my dad today (better than google) and he suggested that I just continue to rotate my compost and the heat should kill the mold. So I rotated the compost today and now we shall see I suppose. I also ordered a used copy of The Rodale Book of Composting in the hopes that I will be able to read up on this mold and understand it better (and thus, never see it again).

Growing Veggies with my Compost!

I came back from my summer internship to this beautiful humus so I decided to start my fall planting. I decided to plant spinach, zucchini, and carrots. Since I'm a researcher in my day job - I decided to test my compost.

I planted two pots of the zucchini and carrots. For each I made a base mix of old potting soil and fresh potting soil. Then I put down either a layer of compost or a layer of fresh potting soil. I planted one pot of spinach and I used the compost for that. I also counter-balanced position, so that there is one compost and one no-compost plant on each side of the porch (with the spinach in the middle).

Carrots (Red pot: w/compost)

And the zuchini

Top picture: w/ compost

And the Spinach

I started gardening about a year ago and I haven't had much luck growing from seed - so we'll see how this goes! The seeds were all planted on Aug. 22nd.

Apartment Composting

I like to think of myself as someone who cares about the environment and growing up we always composted. Once I moved into an apartment of my own I found myself throwing out a lot of compostables and it's driving me crazy. I was raised not to waste - and I feel like throwing out compostables is wasteful! So for the past few years I've been feeling bad - but I live in an apartment - what can I do?

Last spring, I finally got fed up and I called my dad. He suggested that I make my own apartment-sized tumbling composter. The formula was pretty simple.


First, I got a 5-gallon paint bucket and two lids from Home Depot - one lid was leak-proof and the other lid was not leak-proof. Using my biggest drill bit I drilled 3 holes in the side of the bucket a few inches apart (you might not want to do this step) then I drilled several holes in the black (not leak-proof) lid.

Then I put some compostables into the bucket. I used some potting soil that had be leached of its nutrients, I cut up several spinach plants that had gone to seed and I clean out my fridge (I was about to leave for a summer internship). During the week, the bucket sat out on the patio with the back lid on (so air could get in). Once a week, my lovely roommate switched to the leak-proof lid and rolled the bucket 3 times back and forth across our patio (which is probably about 10 feet in length) and she added water (about a cup a week) to keep the compost moist - I'm currently living in the desert so it's pretty dry.

I left a bucket full of dried out dirt and plant stuff on my patio in May and came back to this:

in August!