farm with a view

Now that we’ve been lording over this community garden plot for about a year, I thought it would be good to get an idea of how much money we’ve spent during our first year of vegetable gardening. Start-up costs, if you will. (more…)

So while Mother Nature can’t make up her mind about what season we’re in, we’re going to try growing micro lettuces and a few spinach in our apartment, under a west-facing windowsill that spans 8 feet across. In addition to being fast-maturing, these greens are shallow-rooted, so don’t require a ton of space or dirt. We’re planting them in 2 ½-gallon water containers, with the spout side down for drainage.

First we sheared off the water containers’ backs and flipped them so that they’re now open on top. Then we put in some lava rocks to help with draining during watering. Note the containers’ handles, which used to be on top and are now sideways in the up/down position. We’ll use the hollow handle to water the plants from the bottom up.

In goes the growing medium (about 4 inches deep, not counting the layer of rocks). We’ve got potting mix in one container and potting soil in the other, to see which is better.

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Look who we found hanging out in the sage:

I know he’s harmless and all but he still gave me the creepy crawlies. Andrew, however, was having a grand old time letting the little guy hang out in his hand.

The crazy heat snap we had last week created some monster zucchini twice the girth of my forearms. I literally groaned when I saw these freaks of nature. I’m done with zucchini.

(Zucchini by themselves do not make for very interesting photos. Throw in a monkey with a cell phone, however, and now I’ve got your attention.)

Our impatience got to the best of us and we dug up our dormant spinach seeds. Not one of them germinated. As Andrew would say, “Bee-larg.” (more…)

Got out of the house at an ungodly early hour (for a weekend) and headed over to one of the Japanese nurseries on Sawtelle Avenue in West L.A. to scope out their seed selection. I had a mental list of what to look for – kale, Swiss chard, baby bok choy and gai lan (Chinese broccoli) – but quickly became distracted. Eight different types of beans, oh my! A whole section dedicated to lettuce! Maybe I need some winter herbs? (more…)

We’ve had red wrigglers in our Gusanito tiered worm compost bin for almost a year, and it’s been a mostly successful project aside from the occasional pot worm invasion and one “recharge” during a winter cold snap (had to buy a second batch after the first pound, um, disappeared).

Here are five things we’ve learned along the way.

1. Half and half

We try to keep the ratio roughly half brown stuff (shredded brown paper bags, no ink) and half green stuff (veggie scraps). Some people use dried leaves for their browns, which in our experience takes forever to decompose. Another good thing about brown paper is that it soaks up a lot of the moisture that’s given off when the greens are breaking down. If the compost starts to look too wet, add more browns. If it looks a bit dry, add more greens.

2. Leafy greens

Our worms subsist primarily on chopped-up leafy greens – spinach, lettuce, carrot tops, herbs, etc. We don’t put in any fruit just because decaying fruit smells pretty god-awful in the trash, so why on earth would we leave ‘em out on the balcony? And anyway, it will probably attract flies and gnats. Also read that fruit (especially citrus) can make the bin too acidic. We’ve fed them squash a few times, but that tends to lead to lots of tiny white pot worms, which aren’t necessarily bad for the bin but I get a bit squeamish when there are hundreds of these little white things squirming around.

They say you can feed worms coffee grounds and used tea bags, but we dumped in some coffee grounds once and that also led to a major pot worm invasion.

3. Eggshells

We add a tablespoon or so of ground-up eggshell with every feeding. The calcium helps keep the bin from getting overly acidic and the grit helps the worms digest. We just save our post-breakfast shells, rinse and dry them out, then grind them down using a mortar and pestle. (A blender could probably do the same.)

4. Slow, steady feeding

When we first started the bin, we had a tendency to dump in all or most of our veggie scraps; after all, a big part of composting is to reduce what goes in the trash, right? Well, that quickly ended up in a moldy, wet mess, with worms climbing up onto the bin’s walls and seeking refuge under the roof. Now we feed them smaller amounts every few days. For example, yesterday we added about a cup of spinach and a big fistful of shredded brown paper in an even layer on top of the existing compost; in two or three days, that will be decomposing nicely and we’ll layer on some more food and paper, and so on. Some experts suggest burying the food to prevent flies from hovering around and to keep out odors, but we haven’t had any problems with flies or funk – yet, anyway.

5. Leachate is not worm tea

Contrary to what many might say (including the Gusanito manual), the liquid that collects at the bottom of the bin is leachate, not worm tea, and shouldn’t be used on plants. Leachate is produced when excess water is released from decomposing wastes; it doesn’t have anything to do with the worms. Worm tea, on the other hand, is what you get when you steep the finished compost in water and pump oxygen into it to stimulate the beneficial aerobic microorganisms.

There are lots of resources on the Interwebs about worm composting. Here are some of the key sites:

• RedWormComposting.com – my favorite, but probably not ideal reading during lunchtime
• WormDigest.org – the critter gallery is especially helpful for identifying other creatures commonly found in a bin
• Journey to Forever’s worm section
• WormWoman.com – from the author of the widely referenced book, “Worms Eat My Garbage”

Wondering where to get worms in the L.A. area? We buy ours from Alice at Happy Camp Worms, a home-based “wormery” in the San Gabriel Valley. Email is happycampworms (at) yahoo.com. She’s awesome and highly recommended.