Herbs are Growing!!!

The herbs are looking good! It took longer for the parsley (second from left) to sprout, but they've finally poked thier heads out! Only one sage plant has sprouted, but I still have a few sage plants from my last attempt at an herb garden. I think that it's getting close to being time to transplant or harden some of these - especially the cilantor (second from right) and basil (middle).

Herbs... again

Planted herbs on Sunday (April 3) and they've already sprouted! The sage is just barely poking its head out... but the basil and oregano are on their way!!!

We'll see how it goes this time... hopefully no frost!

Compostable Bottle Experiment

I was at the airport a couple of weekends ago and I had the opportunity to be 'eco' without thinking about it! I got a compostable water bottle. So... I put it in my compost on Sunday (April 2nd). I'm moving in July... so we'll see how this looks when I move! I'm curious!!

Herbs, Day 32

El Paso has been hit by uncharacteristically LOW temperatures... and I fear for my herbs. It got down to about 30 degrees INSIDE my apartment! This is a picture of the herbs that I took yesterday. As you can see - everything has finally sprouted, but the extreme cold seems to have caused the plants to start to fade a bit. My apartment is back up to a bearable temperature and I think it looks like the herbs are starting to bounce back a little. Before the "indoor frost" it looked like the sage (far left) was ready to be transplanted. I'm going to give it a little extra time to recooperate before I try to transplant it.

I'm a little concerned about the oregano and basil. The basil (in the middle) looks really bad, I don't think it will make it. The oregano (far right) looks bad. The stems aren't very strong and several of the plants are practically on thier side, not sure what to do. I guess I'll just keep nursing them to see if they'll rebound.

Herbs, Day 10

There has been more growth! The Sage (far left) and Basil (top middle) have also sprouted! The Oregano (far right) continues to grow!

Survivor Spinach

So, remember the spinach that drowned in the fall? I had given up all hope - but again, life will find a way. When I was outside today rolling my compost, I noticed that one little spinach guy had sprouted up again and he seems to be doing pretty well! I'll see how it goes. The water is still damp - so I'll have to keep an eye on it so I can water him when he needs it.

Herbs, Day 7

My oregano has sprouted! They are very tiny... but they are on thier way! Most of the other seeds take a minimum of 10 days to germinate, so we'll see how the other herbs do.

Life Will Find a Way...

Okay, so I've been a little lax about rotating my compost. It's been a couple of ... months. So I resolved myself to rotate my compost today. I have two compost buckets right now. The first one has a little leftover humus from this summer (on the right), the second is the compost I started this fall.

When I looked at the second bucket a little more closely, I realized there was something growing in the compost (in addition to some mold). When I pulled on the stem, I realized it was attached to a piece of potato!



The stem didn't look great - it was kind of a greenish-grey color, but I was impressed none-the-less. This potato managed to grow in a bucket with a lid on it and not much light getting in - and little in the way of water.

It reminded me of a quote from Jurassic Park - Life will find a way...

Herbs Day 1, Take 2

One of my New Years Resolutions is to grow and maintain an herb garden. So... here's the new herb garden... I have sage, parsley, basil, cilantro, and oregano...

Hopefully they sprout this time... and hopefully I don't kill them.

I'll keep you updated! Should germinate in 10-20 days.

Epic Fail.

Well... after about 3 weeks of watering.... nothing in the herb garden. Epic Fail might be a little too strong, but it was pretty much a complete and utter failure. A few weeks after I stopped watering the soil... one little sprig of parsley showed itself, but it honestly didn't seem worth the upkeep - for one sprout. And it was right before I went out of town....

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!