Signs of a Gardener

You may be a gardener at heart if:

• There's dirt under your nails.

Dirt? Is that all? I either have dirt under my nails or fingers stained with cherries, strawberries, or thumbs that are green from shelling peas or - you get the picture.

• You think of soil as a foundation, the stable ingredient in creating a garden space.

After ten years of composting - okay, twelve plus - the soil in my first garden bed is rich and dark and drains well. The new garden is still heavy with clay, but improving a little every year. It needs a little decomposing TLC.

• You have a specific pair of shoes for the garden.

I have a pair of crocs. I can get them wet or muddy and I don't care.

• Watering is relaxing, not stressful.

Filling a watering can from a rain barrel or setting up a soaker hose takes time, and it's a good use of time. My mind wanders, my shoulders relax, and any stress headache goes away.

• You welcome rain or sunshine.

Rain provides a good soaking to the plants and fills the rain barrels for later. Sunshine invites stems and branches to reach for the sky and grow to their full potential.

• You talk to the plants.

"Geez, beans, I gave you a nice set of climbing equipment. Why do you insist on attaching to the fencing? It'll just put you within range of the bunnies and other furry critters who might nibble, and then... here. I'll show you." Meanwhile, I'm wrapping the bean vines around the supports I just put in and hoping they get the idea. And maybe hoping the neighbors didn't hear me.

• You talk to critters who might turn up near your precious plants.

Hey, rabbit, how did you get in there? What do you think you're doing, relaxing in my lettuce?

You, raccoon. Get out of my compost, punk!

I only came up with seven. Can you make this a top ten list, readers? Add your signs of a true gardener by commenting.

tomato, tomahto

Here it is as it looked last week; my new tomato plot. A plain triangle, a few grass clipping layered over a little compost.

We covered the area with cardboard and newspaper last fall, outlined it with a few posts and spare boards, and let nature do its job over the winter. Our neighbor (the owner of the Huge Woodpiles) gave us the boards we needed to border the plot and support what will become a raised bed of a good soil mix. Next: we're getting dirt delivered. Chuck called a few places and found one that would deliver with a small enough truck to drive into the yard and dump the soil right where we need it. We'll mix it with compost (homemade, of course!), till the whole thing, and then get ready to plant during Memorial Day weekend!

I'm crossing my fingers that the weather holds (it's hot and muggy today), and planning to work like crazy on progress reports so I can play in the dirt all weekend without guilt.

Yes! It's garden time at Daisy's house!

Rake, rake, rake.

What to do with the leaves after raking? Well, we could have raked them into the street like the rest of the city does. The crews pick them up, drag dump truck upon dump truck full of leaves to the brush dump, and pile them up to become mulch. City residents can then bring their buckets and trash cans and fill them with mulch for free. I've done it in the past, and I'll do it again I'm sure.

But me? Daisy? The author of the family blog Compost Happens? I choose to keep my leaves in my own yard, giving my garden a warm blanket for the winter. The snow will arrive, sooner or later, and insulate the leaf pile. Eventually, the entire thing will either get tilled into the plot or decompose - or both.

The rest went on top of the new tomato plot - the one featured last week. We made it a little bigger, spread leaves and mulch on top, and settled the picnic table on top to help hold the leaves and newspaper/ cardboard barrier down until snowfall.

The trees, by the way, the silver maples that drop hundreds of leaves on my yard, do not even belong to me. They're in the yard behind ours, dropping helicopters in the spring and leaves in the fall. Some day maybe I'll plant a tree of my own -- or not. I get plenty of the benefits and the workload right now.

I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month - NaBloPoMo - on Compost Happens. Stop by any day; I'm posting daily for the month of November!

A second compost bin - don't wait for Christmas, honey

I'm a garden geek. My son calls me a green freak. My daughter? You'll see.


My husband, while he doesn't actively seek out green behaviors, supports my green proclivities. In fact, he brought home my first composter and later bought me a small city-girl sized pitchfork to go with it. Lately I've been hinting that I need a second compost bin. "What's wrong with this one?" he asked. I answered him, "Nothing's wrong with it; it's full."






That was in May. Luckily, compost shrinks (compacts) as it decomposes, making room for more. Now it's August, and the bin is filled to the brim with organic matter. It needs stirring, and then I'd really like to leave it alone for a full year - a full twelve months or more. That means next spring I would not empty the bin and till it into the garden soil; I'd let nature take its course until spring 2011 instead, giving everything a better chance to decompose completely. But meanwhile, where would my kitchen scraps and yard waste go? Enter the new composter.


My new composter is smaller and cuter than my big beautiful bin. It has some nice features, too. This composter has a base and an insert to keep the solids off the bottom and let the liquids, the "compost tea," drain off, and a spigot in front for collection. Compost tea makes a great fertilizer, I've been told.


When I want to empty the compost, I simply open the back. It stays open nicely, which will make it simple to shovel the rich soil enhancer into my wheelbarrow.


The holes in the sides have purpose: they allow air to circulate and speed up the process, and the holes are big enough that I can poke a broom handle or stick inside to aerate the compost itself. And last, I mentioned it's somewhat smaller than my old one. It's still a hefty size - big enough to fit a college senior inside. Yes, that's La Petite, modeling the new composter for all of my lovely readers.

This great new composter is from Algreen Products. It's available at GardenSuperMart.com. As soon as I decide where to place it, I'll post more pictures! Then I'll fill it with kitchen scraps and weeds and other organic goodies, and let the compost happen - naturally.

Doing more in the existing garden space

Doing more with less in a school setting can lead to burnout. In the garden, I'm focusing on doing more with what I already have available instead of doing more with less. My goal: feel productive, not overwhelmed.

Compost, of course. I'm adding paper this year, that which can not be recycled due to food residues. Husband puts in the grass clippings, I add some of the soiled bunny litter box contents, and of course any suitable kitchen scraps. The grass clippings keep the temperature hot and help decompose the rest.

The rain barrel is already a success. I use it to rinse the litter boxes, rinse the emptied compost bucket, water the rhubarb, and more. We've only used the outside tap when we need the high water pressure for washing the lawnmower.

Tomatoes have new supports, supports that I already owned. The bean trellis is the same one I've used for years. I'm using a few old tomato cages for pepper plants and snap peas, and I think I'll sell the rest at our June rummage sale. I really have too many. Hmmm...if La Petite would wash and paint them, maybe they'd be worth a little more. Maybe?

All this productivity with minimal investment helps my morale. I feel frugal for reusing and repurposing. I feel accomplished for getting the garden in and tending it. I feel thorough for doing my research and nurturing the tomatoes to do so well. But lock your doors; if my zucchini is too prolific, I'll have to get creative in giving it away.

Square Foot Gardening: the good, the bad, and the dirty

My gardening goal this season is simple: use the existing space more efficiently for a better yield. No expansion of the space, no new additions, just do more with my current patch of dirt. The timing was right: I ordered the new and updated Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. The subtitle is Growing more in Less Space! It sounds like a perfect fit for my goal.

Well, yes, no, and maybe.

The good: Bartholomew's philosophies are sound.
The introduction should be required reading. In it, Mel explains how he came to develop this small-space, low maintenance method for backyard gardening. Much of the how-to advice that follows is based on this introduction.
His compost advice is great. He makes composting sound simple, which it is, and offers suggestions to improve the quality and the balance in very easy ways.
If you're looking for low-maintenance, reasonably small time investment, and limited frustration factor, read this book. He's very realistic about gardeners who have very little time for daily garden maintenance (i.e. weeding).
His methods have been demonstrated successfully over many years and in many different settings. The Square Foot Gardening (SFG) method is applicable in many planting zones and yard sizes: even apartment decks.

The bad: The book reads like an infomercial, and an old-fashioned sexist one, too.
"Without a grid, your garden is not a Square Foot Garden." Okay, Mr. Bartholomew, what is it? Do you mean that unless I plan to construct the full box/grid plan, I shouldn't bother? I hope that's not the case. There are many good ideas in SFG that I can apply without doing the whole enchilada.
On building a compost bin from pallets: "Women tell me they love this because it involves no tools, wire cutting, equipment, or familiarity with construction." Mel, Mel, Mel. It's the 21st Century! Would it surprise you to hear that I, Daisy, chief groundskeeper of Compost Happens, teach science? That I handle wire cutters when I prepare lesson plans in electricity? The All New Edition of SFG really ought to be bias-free.

The dirty (dirt is good, remember): I can integrate many of his concepts into my existing garden.
However, I refuse to feel pressured by the multitude of exclamation points! I will not be intimidated by statements like, "You're not using authentic SFG if you don't!" Mel knows gardening, and Mel knows people. If I can ignore his Ward Cleaver tone and his high pressure salesman-like writing style, there are good concepts in this book.

Overall opinion? Buy it on sale, buy a used copy, or get one on Paperbackswap.com. I bought it new, and I'll probably pass it on to a friend or through PBS. It's worth the read; just don't let yourself get sucked into the pseudo-hypnotic "You must! You must!" Trust your experience and knowledge, and adopt the SFG ideas that work for your own garden.

Pest Prevention and Plot Preparation: Mission Accomplished

It's a typical spring weekend. We slept in - me until 7, Husband a little later, Amigo up at 8 to listen to his favorite shows on Public Radio. I had the coffee on and newspaper in, but I was still in my pajamas when Husband came downstairs fully dressed and full of philosophy and energy. He focused that energy where it would do the most good, and moved the car to make way for the roto-tiller.
As he put it, he took the long way around the garage. Knowing we live on a small-to-medium city lot, the "long way" can't be that long, can it? Wrong: it can. He pulled out and kept going all the way to the Moto-Mart for a box of Krispy Kreme donuts.
I followed the special treat with my usual Saturday: sorted laundry, got dressed, got ready to start the first load (jeans and sweats, by my Green Routine). At that moment, Husband came inside. He'd rototilled the entire garden plot, turning the compost into the soil. Laundry could wait while he showered.
The danger of frost is very real in Wisconsin in May, so the best I can do right now is prepare the garden for the seeds. It was a perfect job for a cool and pleasant Saturday morning.
I re-used old fence boards and deck boards to create walkways and block a few square-foot style raised beds. These walkways keep me from over-compacting the soil, prevent weeds from growing in the unplanted areas, and allow me to harvest without changing into my dirt-friendly garden shoes. I "installed" the bean trellis and put up the old rose supports that will help brace the tomato plants this year. They're taller than the old wire cages, coated so they're less likely to damage stalks, and I can gently tie up the tomato plants with rags as they grow. I hope this will work well. It has to work better than the wire cages did last season!

Next, I took a few more deck boards, the 4X4 size, and braced them against the chicken wire that keeps the critters out. I love my bunnies, and I don't mind seeing the wild ones make my yard their habitat, but I don't want them eating my produce. I buried the big boards slightly and piled up enough dirt to bury the fencing a few inches underground. It's not perfect, but it'll keep most of the neighborhood fauna from finding their way into my lettuce and spinach and parsley.
At that point I took a break. Washed up, more laundry, sipped a Diet Coke to rehydrate a bit, and thought about lunch. Instead of making lunch, though, I went back outside to document my progress. Getting my hands (and shovel) back in the dirt feels so good, so productive.

Compost: the 3-2-1 List

Teachers sometimes use a summarizer technique called a 3-2-1 review. It's an organized bulleted list that helps students process what they've learned and show that they've gained from the activity or unit. For example:

While watching the video, fill in the following.

• 3 things you already knew
• 2 new facts
• 1 fact or concept that surprised you

New Year Goals

• 3 positive habits I will keep up
• 2 events I'm looking forward to
• 1 goal or change for the new year

I can use the same 3-2-1 techique to summarize my composting progress.

3 items that decomposed completely: no sign of them at all!
coffee filters with coffee grounds
banana peels
waxed paper

2 items that did not decompose: I should leave these out from now on.
Dental floss. Don't laugh; it's waxy, contains food residue, it makes sense that it would decompose! But it didn't.
Pine litter from the bunny box. The small dry pieces partially degraded, while the wet one are gone for good. If I left the bin for another year, just to finish decomposing, I think the used litter would completely fade into the soil. Maybe when I get that second compost bin...

1 goal: another item to add to the compost pile, one more thing to keep out of the garbage can and landfill
Non-recyclable paper and cardboard. Examples: the cardboard circles from pizzas, food boxes containing crumbs or soiled with food residue, and the like. I've started ripping these into long strips and soaking them (in rain barrel water, of course) before adding the paper to the compost.
There you have it: my 3-2-1 review, a summary of the pile I just spread on the garden soil. The resulting assessment will be a long time coming: to fully evaluate the success of this year's bin, I'll need to wait until next spring, when the latest pile of compost (you guessed it) happens.

Hi, I'm Daisy, and I'm a newcomer to Green Spot-On. This post was first aired on Compost Happens, my main blog. I believe Earth Day is Every Day, and I'm always glad to find kindred spirits.