Posted on 05/19/2009 5:11:40 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Thanks! I’m sure you’re PLENTY busy these days. I’m just getting cranked up. ;)
Compost mostly comes from Washington DC nowadays... at least, that’s what we have to call it on a family forum. /rimshot
There is nothing better than compost. I’m going to try to get a hold of some mushroom compost and worm castings this summer. Also plan to get some nice mushy seaweed, give it a good washing with fresh water and work it into the garden. Should make a nice compost.
Has anyone out there ever tried heating a hot house with fresh manure? I have a friend who used to heat her cold frames with horse manure. I want to be able to try and winter over some stuff in my hot house in Nova Scotia but am way too cheap to use fuel. I’m thinking of pails of fresh horse manure. The building is pretty small so it might just work.
I remember seeing a program years ago on PBS about a woman who had a greenhouse attached to her chicken house. She vented the chicken air, which was very warm, into the greenhouse and had free heat all winter. I believe the her property was somewhere in the northeast but can’t be positive.
Heeee Heeeee! Yes even on those days!
Nobody’s got me beat for crabby days.........I think my posting privileges were saved last Thursday because my puter shut down on me...........
You might enjoy Elliot Coleman’s books. He gardens year-round using movable hoop houses...in Maine! :)
http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/
His wife is Barbara Damrosch and she knows her stuff as well (at the same site.)
I’ve been logging 60 hour weeks in the endless RAIN, fer Pete’s Sake. Do you know how HARD it is to sell annuals in the rain? No sales, no ‘Pink Cadillac’ at the end of this Living Hell. ;)
Did I mention that it’s been raining a lot? LOL!
Rain in the forecast and a certified Commie in the White House! Who wouldn’t be crabby? LOL!
Yeah, but my busy has so little to do with gardening it ain’t even funny.
I’m actually kind of happy (well that’s probably too strong a word) that the riding mower is still not working and all the grass/weeds need to be done with a regular mower because when hubby’s not home I can go push that for a while and not have to deal with the dag-gonned telephone constantly ringing.
I really wish I could find a job and then I wouldn’t have time to deal with school, softball, girl scouts, church, and 100 other things everyone seems to need me for.........maybe then I would be able to do some gardening :)
I LOVE to mow the grass. Ours is about thigh-high...it’s not drying out enough to mow between rainstorms. Grrrrrrr!
How are your peppers doing? What’s the ‘Pepper Jelly Forecast’ for this season? ;)
I hear ya!!!! I truly do. I feel like I’m living in a swamp and it really bites because I know danged well that we won’t get any rain for the next several months.
I like most bugs, except potato beetles which are immune to everything except brick A and brick B, at least here. And anything that bites, of which we have an over abundance. LOL
Fireants are in a category all of their own. Nasty things.
We get those huge grasshoppers here—the ones that are about three inches long. The grasshoppers even eat porch screens. Thanks to the environazis, we can only get plastic screen. June bugs are pretty cool.
My garden is doing much better than I expected this year. We have been eating fresh yellow squash for several days and even had the heirloom grape tomatoes ripen already.
I never thought I’d see the day my wife would eat fried squash, but I fried two in olive oil and she ate the better part of two whole squash. Wonders never cease.
The constant rain we’ve been having is why mowing is occurring everyday that it isn’t raining. The riding mower gets it all done in 2 afternoons. With the regular one it is every day. I got most of the west side yard done yesterday, and hubby started the east side today. Problem is, he had done both last Thursday.
Everything BUT my peppers are growing like weeds. Well, and some tomatoes.......
Miscommunication between mommy and 10yo cost me some 30 beefsteak tomato plants. I was not a happy camper, but it was totally my fault.
I’m having seriously lousy luck with peppers on the whole. I’m doing fine with cayennes and yellow hungarians, but that is about it. I’ve got a few jalapenos and a couple assorted other ones, but other than that, PHHHHHHHHHFFFFFFFFTTTTTTT on my peppers.
Ask me about basil and that’s a whole other story -— I could keep you in pesto for years with how much I’ve got :)
Talk about understatement.........
I assure you I will never forget sitting on a pile of them -----while wearing hotpants. That evening gave a truly new meaning to that style of short shorts.
Fresh squash sauted in olive oil? HEAVEN on a plate!!!!!!!
I try to compost most organic material scraps. I compost pine needles and aspen leaves that I rake up in the yard. I compost kitchen scraps and even used paper towels. I made a 16X16 ft area boardered with stacked rocks on a sloping yard and had 3 ft at the deep end and sloping up to about 1 inch at the top. I would just bury kitchen scraps into a trench and mix in dirt to help the breakdown. It all looks browh in a few months. I just moved compost around to make a terraced, raised bed and to work some compost into the ground in rows just in back of this compost area. I will have a 16X16 ft area that is very good compost and a 20X25 area that has rows enhanced down to 12 to 18 inches depending on the difficulty of large rocks encountered here at 8,500 ft elevation in the Colorado Rockies. I plan on gradually enhancing the 20X25 area and building it up into raised beds. I have these areas fenced now to keep the pesky fox out that digs up everything looking for something edible. I will have to see how the fence works against the occasional bear. I have a big stack of rocks over 50lbs each that I have dug out of the garden areas to build the outside border of the next raised bed areas. Since I am gardening in my compost area now I will need to rotate areas where I am burying kitchen scraps. I will use the pine needles and aspen leaves to fill walkways between raised beds and then work them in at the end of the season. If I don’t bury the kitchen scraps deeply I will be inviting bear trouble. A compost bin would be nice, but would not survive the summer.
bookmark
Are any of you familiar with “Lasagna Gardening”? I just received the 2nd advertisement from Rodale this year for the book. It looks interesting, but don’t think I will be spending the money for the book. Guess I will check to see if the library has it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.