12 Compost Tips

We are dedicated to composting here at Aunt Debbi's Garden. Everything that can be composted is composted. We even compost some things that we are warned against, such as cooking oil. After a discussion with a cousin-in-law about her stinky compost pile, I came up with a list of suggestions to have a great compost pile to make that wonderful garden black gold.

1. Ask friends and family who do not compost to save their food scraps for you. They can be stored in the freezer until you are able to pick them up. This keeps them from rotting and has the added benefit of breaking down vegetable cell walls, which speeds up the decomposing process.
2. Place your compost pile where you can share it with a neighbor. We have ours on the back fence and the neighbors are welcome to toss things into it.
3. If you are the analytical type and would like to do the math here is your link
4. If you are the more laid back creative type and believe in just "letting compost happen" here is your link.
5. Keep the pile damp. A dry compost pile breaks down slooooww.
6. Consider making a compost screen. Mine is made of 1x3 inch ply wood made into a frame with 1/4 inch screen stapled to it. The screened compost is awesome.
7. Add some red wriggler worms and let them make you compost extra rich and wonderful.
8. Shredded paper can be added to compost. It is also great bedding for a worm bin.
9. If you have a lot of food scraps and very little brown material, simply add a little soil to cover the food scraps. This helps eliminate any possible stink.
10. Used screened compost as a soil amendment and to enrich potting soil.
11. Use rough compost as a nutritious mulch.
12. There will be bugs. Do not be afraid of the bugs. They are there to help make you compost.
13. Remember little boys love to tear stuff up. Let them turn your compost for you. They are good at it.
14. Make compost tea. Add a few cups of compost to a bucket of water. Let it sit and use it to water you plants. They will thank you.

Here is a short list of possible compost ingredients

1. grass clippings.
2. Leaves
3. Vegetable and fruit food scraps.
4. Egg shells
5. Coffee grounds.
6. Tea bags.
7. Shredded paper
8. Paper plates
9. Weeds
10. Dead container plants
11. Any plant material cleaned up from the landscape that is not diseased.
12. Wood chips.
13. Manure. We add rabbit poo, which is the very best poo.
14. Old or spoiled vegetable animal feed such as hay, alfalfa, and rabbit pellets.
15. What every you muck out of a horses stall or barn.

What do you compost?

Baby Pictures

I would like to introduce my babies

First, a cute little pumpkin baby. Yes, the mystery vines were correctly identified as pumpkins.

Next baby popcorn. These should be yummy.

Finally, Baby bunnies. These two will need homes soon.

Rain Gardens

Here is a nice post on rain gardens by Growing Roots in L.A. This might help explain some of my post yesterday. Rain gardens are another way of protecting our rivers from polution from storm water run off while restoring ground water. As soon as our MG rain garden is complete, I will post pictures.

To Cure a Rant: Do Something

This week our master gardener group hosted a three day rainwater harvesting specialist training course. I helped. Mostly I put out food and talked about plants I like, but I was there if they needed me.

The course leader was a man who lives very near the Texas hill country. The water source for his home is rainwater. That's right rain water and only rain water. The average rainfall in that area is less than 30 inches. Pretty impressive system, I think.

Our educators and speakers believe in acting as stewards of our land. They spoke of the unique position we find ourselves in today. Most of us do not live off of the land. Therefore, we do not have to exploit it in order to survive. We are in an enviable place. We can care for the land - really care for it by restoring native plants, returning water to our aquifers, and replenish the soil. We can do it one little bit of land at a time.

I came away from this week feeling empowered. I watched this small group of gardeners walk out of this course hauling off their bright shiny new rain barrels with plans to plant rain gardens. These few people now have the knowledge to help prevent storm water run off and return some of that water to our precious ground water.

We rant and rave about how nobody is doing anything and our environment is going to hell in a hand basket. Well, today I watched a few people, myself included, go out into the world with a little knowledge that can make a difference. And so it begins.

Ponytail Trap

I love this blog. This girl is seriously funny. She has caused me to share that, occasionally, I have slammed my ponytail in a sliding glass door. A ponytail is a young woman's hairdo. I am really too old to wear a ponytail on my head, yet I do. About once a week, I walk through the back door, shut said door, and get yanked back by my scalp. Most of my hair is outside while my body, all of it, is inside. Ouch and humiliation.

Lemon Verbena Pound Cake

I like to bake bread. I have my own sour dough yeast growing in the fridge. Very rarely do I bake cakes or cookies. Last night, I needed to make a cake for a rainwater specialist training course our master gardener group is hosting. Do I do get a box cake? NOOO. I have to use something out of the garden. Here is how I did it with the help of a couple of monkeys. As a reward they have their own cake to eat.

Lemon Verbena Pound Cake

3 cups sugar
1 cup butter
6 eggs separated
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 tsp lemon extract
1 cup lemon verbena chopped fine
3 tsp vanilla

Cream the sugar and butter. (Middle Monkey's job)
Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, but not dry. (Teenage Monkey's Job. He could not believe what an egg white will do).
Add the egg yolks, lemon extract, vanilla, lemon verbena, and milk to the creamed sugar and butter.
Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together and add to the wet ingredients and mix.
Gently fold in the egg whites.
Poor the batter into a bunt pan and bake at 350 until a tooth pick comes out clean.
Cool and wrangle the cake out of the bunt pan (good luck).
Drizzle with lemon glaze.

Lemon Glaze
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice.

Now a note on lemon verbena.

Lemon verbena smells awesome. It has the best lemon scent of any herb I have ever grown. I like lemon scented herbs; lemon balm, lemon basil, and lemon thyme. I even grow a Logan's hardy lemon tree. We have never had a lemon off of the lemon tree. Lemon verbena tops them all.

GBBD July 2008

We are in the hot dry part of summer here in North Texas.

The ground is dry and the plants are waiting for rain.

Blooms this time of year are the tough bunch, the tried and true, the natives.

Here is the Texas Star hibiscus. Just the flower this time. No silliness

Grandpa Ott's morning glory comes up from seed every year. It begins to bloom in July and keeps on until late fall.

These are the very first Turk's cap blooms. A little pitiful, but give it a chance. Come September this baby will put on a show with a nekid lady. Sorry, silly came out.

Thanks again to Carol of May Dreams Garden for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.