a post about compost

by Stacy of Little Blue Hen

One of the simplest things I do that applies to all areas of my home is composting. Compost is simply letting your biodegradable trash decay naturally instead of sticking it in a landfill where it can’t actually break down. Composting can drastically reduce your trash output (and possibly trash bill), and also results in nutrient-rich fertilizer for your houseplants and garden. It does not, as many websites would have you believe, require expensive equipment or fancy systems. It can, but all you need is some type of receptacle and some biodegradable waste.

How large a receptacle is up to you. I live in an apartment with no yard, so I compost in a 30-gallon storage tub. Here is my composting assistant helping me set it up:

Note: Cats are not compostable. We’ll get to that later.

We drilled some holes in the sides for ventilation, slapped the lid on it, and put it on the porch. Voila. If you have a yard, you may just have a compost heap, or a large box. Check with your city or county laws as many have requirements for composting — and some offer free or discounted compost bins!

After you have a bin, you need to fill it with stuff. What kind of stuff? The basic ingredients are air, water, and food. Air? Check. Water? Easy to add (compost should feel like a wrung-out sponge). Food? There are a few types, often called “browns” (high in carbon) and “greens” (high in nitrogen). The obvious: fruit and vegetable scraps, weeds and garden trimmings, lawn clippings. Less obvious: paper towel tubes, dryer lint, horse manure, shredded newspaper and office paper, sawdust, tea leaves and coffee grounds, eggshells, egg cartons. Big no-nos: human or pet waste, any dairy or meat scraps and bones. The list gets a bit more stringent if you want to use the compost as fertilizer for edible gardens.

Another thing you can add is worms. Compost worms (normal earthworms won’t work) eat the microorganisms that help break down the waste materials and produce castings much faster than the normal decaying process.

Now what? You wait. Give the bin a good stir to aerate all layers of the pile. Let nature take its course. You can be very attentive and check often, or leave it alone to do its thing. Just check to make sure it doesn’t dry out and that your balance isn’t too far off as that can lead to pests and very unpleasant smells. A good compost heap shouldn’t stink.

In a few months, you’ll have dark, rich black compost. A few spoonfuls are great food for your houseplants. You can also use it in the garden as virtually free organic fertilizer.

Here are some starter sites with more complete information:

• Composting 101
• How to Compost
• Composting Info from the EPA
• Compost Guide from VegWeb

On my kitchen counter I keep a stainless steel compost pail (similar to this one from Target, but I got mine at Marshalls for $15) with a charcoal filter to collect kitchen scraps for the week. We used to use an old yogurt container but we upgraded – the filter also keeps the smell down. Many people collect the week’s scraps in a container in the freezer which eliminates pests and odors, and helps break the cells down for faster decomposition. About once a week I empty the pail into our bin and cover it with the contents of the paper shredder to prevent flies on the patio. We also have red composting worms which chomp through all that waste as fast as they can wriggle.

It’s so easy. Best of all, we don’t have to take out the garbage as often. It’s also a great activity for kids — playing in dirt, seeing worms, gardening, and reducing trash!

Are you still here? Sorry, that got a little long. That’s the very basics; I am no expert. Any other major tips? I know several of the other authors here compost. Do you?

Overwhelmed by summer

Our very own Kathie posted over on her own blog about how much she’s addicted to “preserving the summer’s bounty.”

Am I the only one who’d enjoy it more if it didn’t need to be done in summer? Be honest now: what would you rather do on a blazing hot summer day: can tomatoes or or anything that doesn’t involve huge vats of boiling water? Faced with the choice over the weekend, I’ll admit I put the tomatoes in the fridge and found someplace cool to read a good book. (I would have preferred the beach, but we had a little hurricane issue going on and our favorite beach was closed for swimming.) Freezing is easier and faster, but if anything has be blanched you end up hovering over the blanching pot because the timing is so quick and precise. That, obviously, is rather sultry.

I love my dehydrator in this insanely hot weather. Dehydrating is something you can set up and ignore for awhile. It does add its share of heat to the kitchen, but it’s not too bad and it’s localized, unlike the steam from a canning kettle or blanching pot.  I’ve seen plans for simple solar dehydrators and may make one next year–anyone have experience with them in humid climates?

Alas, not everything stays tasty when it’s dehydrated. I know we’ll enjoy the dried fruit and the dried tomatoes over the winter, but I remain a little dubious about the leathery green beans. It was an experiment since the dehydrator was already running for tomatoes and I had all these beans…  Will I actually use them? Will they taste good? Check this space next spring to find out!

Luckily the heat wave is breaking in a few days, which should be right around when all the Oregon Spring tomatoes ripen at once. Canning and salsa production should be pleasant when the temperature’s 75, not 95! Though today was hot, this evening cooled off enough that I could blanch a few more pounds of beans in comfort. I still have about three pounds in the fridge, not to mention the two pounds or so that will magically appear overnight on the vines. (Marengo  romano beans are worthy of Jack and the Beanstalk and they’re tasty and I’ll be glad to have them on hand this winter as they’re veggies the Cat-Herder likes. Still, I feel like I’ve been dealing with beans nonstop since the beginning of June. Which is a slight exaggeration–it was the END of June when the great bean explosion of 2009 began.)

I know, I sound like I’m complaining and in a way I am. I feel like I the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, running as hard as I can to stay in one place as I try to keep up with the glut from my garden along with other household chores, two jobs, maintaining said garden, starting fall crops (late!) and, oh, making some time for summer fun instead of work, work and more work.

At the same time, I don’t want to not do the work, to stop preserving food I’ve grown or bought from local farmers. I’m not always a huge fan of the process, at least not when it’s 90 degrees and ridiculously humid. It’s not like baking, which I consistently enjoy for its own sake.The first food-preservation projects of the season are a thrill. I bet when I do the first canning this weekend it will be all over again; I haven’t canned in many years and once it cools off enough I won’t pass out into the canner, it should be fun to try it again, in a kitchen that doesn’t have a huge hole in the floor and a stove younger than I am. (That’s  a story for another post.) The tenth or so batch of beans, on the other hand, provokes an “oh no, not more beans!” response from me.

But I love the product*. Love opening the freezer and seeing it’s full of yummy food I grew myself. Love serving homemade applesauce with pancakes. Love knowing that at least some of the tomatoes we’ll use in the dark months of the year came from…there! See that outline in the snow, about 20 feet from the kitchen window, the long, narrow lump that might just be a raised bed? That’s where they came from.

That’s worth a little sweat.

As long as one gets to the beach as well!

* I feel the same way about sewing. I like having created a garment, but I spend a lot of my sewing time saying rude things to my sewing machine.

Garden therapy

I am not posting about talking to your plants.  =)  Working outside the home and homemaking are two full time endeavors, even if the outside job is part time; still takes energy and time.  None of us can function at full speed 100% of the time so how do you emotionally unwind?  Exercise is a fantastic outlet with benefits not limited to mental ‘therapy’; lower cholesterol, improve bone strength, etc.

While  gym time is an excellent resource if one has the time, money and energy to drive to and from, this is not the outlet to which I refer.  For me, I exercise in the garden and the yard, finishing with some stretches on the hard wood floor.  Now, my mentor would have a fit if he saw this in print so let me just say that the garden activities do not replace the benefits that one would gain from weight training.

A word to the wise – never stretch a cold muscle.  Remember back in the 80’s when one would stretch prior to exercise?  Makes me shudder.  While studying for my personal training certification, this is one tidbit was ingrained; always do some activity first, stretch, then continue with more vigorous activity (if you so desire).  These days I change from work attire into garden clothes, work in the garden, and end with a stretch once inside.

I digress.  This whole article is supposed to be on the benefits reaped from time spent in the garden.  These last few weeks, for me,  have been tensioned filled; first waiting to hear if I was going to be one of the people laid off then dealing with survivor’s guilt.  It was stressful working along side coworkers that would be gone in 10 days; this played hard on my ability to write, crochet, to be creative in general.  Even with a ‘happy pill’ script, I was in a slump. . . until yesterday eve when it stopped raining enough for me to get into the garden and weed.   This was amazing therapy.  Just me, the weeds, bugs and the smell of tomatoes and basil as I brushed against them.  *sighs contently*  Do not ask my why gardening is good for the soul; it just is.

Take the time to nurture yourself and unwind.  Only then can you be the person you want to be for others.

Great Galloping Greens!

by Teresa Noelle Roberts of safirasilv

We’ve had an unusually cool spring in New England. My melons and squash are miserable and I’m kinda miserable that we had to haul out a wool blanket one night. But there’s been one benefit: the greens in my garden are going mad!

Most years, early lettuce, spinach and other greens would be bolting all over the place by mid-June, but instead, they’re staying sweet and crunchy and delicious. The Asian greens are plump and brilliant. The chard and kale think it’s fall. Some arugula and mizuna have bolted, but I planted the arugula in early March and started the mizuna indoors about the same time, so it had a good run.

Now the question is what to do with all that green goodness? Small, tender leaves go into salads–even greens you might think are only for cooking, such as kale and tatsoi. We enjoy spinach or chard sauteed in olive oil with garlic and sometimes hot pepper flakes. I’ll be freezing some kale for winter use. (It can often survive a Massachusetts winter outdoors, but whether you can get to it under snow or want to brave freezing rain to harvest it is another question. Best to have some stockpiled.) And of course “Asian greens” make a nice addition to a stir-fry.

Arugula? We have a lot of it.  Like a 2 foot by 4 foot patch of it. Hey, it grows in snow. I got a little over zealous.

What to do? Saute it briefly with olive oil, garlic and chile flakes, but instead of using that as a veggie side,  serve it over whole-wheat pasta (thank you, Deborah Madision. The Savory Way is one of her older cookbooks, but still a goodie.) Or take a cue from the fabulous Susan at Farmgirl Fare and make arugula pesto. It’s nutty and spicy and tasty–even my husband admits it would make a nice layer in lasagne or on a pizza, although it’s too “green” for him to enjoy on pasta without other flavors to tone it down.

And if you have a horde of mixed greens and aren’t sure what to do, try scrambled eggs and greens. Chop up the greens, cook ‘em lightly, add eggs and if you like some cheese. (Cheddar, parmesan, feta–whatever you have.) This 12″ skillet looks like it should feed an army, but it was last night’s dinner for me. (I would have shared, but the husband and guest were quite happy with chicken and snow peas.) Yum, yum!

So what are your favorite things to do when your garden hands you gorgeous gobs of great galloping greens?