‘Cause we know they poop and pee in the garden, and we know they occasionally have roundworms and tapeworms.
Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category
Our Cats Are the Most Likely Parasite Vector
29 July 2011Garden Update
5 June 2011We had our first salad from the garden today. I was very good.
I dug out all the old compost from last year’s compost bin (the left one) today. It took me about 90 minutes. I used most of it to mulch various plants in the garden, and dumped the rest in the West garden in an unplanted area. It should have been dug in when the garden was planted, but that didn’t happen. Well, at least it’s in the garden.
The bottom layer of the compost was pretty dense and wet and stinky and anaerobic.
The right-hand compost bin was at 144 degrees F today. After emptying out the left one, I started adding to it and will do so for the next year. The right-hand one will rest until next spring. It’s mostly coffee grounds (with the mixed-in food scraps from the coffee shop), plus maybe five gallons a week of kitchen scraps from our kitchen. I have a feeling it will be more thoroughly composted than the left-hand one was. It has heated up more, and heated up more consistently, than the left one did. The right-hand one never got close to freezing solid, and stayed over 100 degrees most of the winter, unlike the left one. My theory about that is that the peat moss I was using for cover material in the bucket toilet did not provide the readily-available carbon source necessary for bacterial activity to really take off. Isn’t that what they say about peat moss, that it stays in the soil for years after you put it there?
Garden Notes
10 October 2010Yesterday Madison had a record high temp of 85. Today is about the same.
Mowed the gardens today. The weeds really won this year; better luck next year.
Harvested the rest of the sunflowers today. I should have harvested them all when I got that first bunch around mid-September — some of them have either dropped half their seeds, or something has been eating them.
The popcorn is dry enough to pop after two weeks in the greenhouse and warm weather, so the boys and I proceeded to getting it off the cobs:
very tough job, almost wore a hole in my gloves (need to buy or invent a tool for this):
There was just enough breeze for winnowing:
Ended up with almost five quarts of popcorn:
I was very happy with the way the boys helped me. They really stuck with it to the end and were interested and not whiny the whole time. And now they know a little more about where food comes from and the amount of work it takes to produce.
Garden Notes
4 October 2010The Saturday night frost was pretty light, and most of the tomatoes survived. Sunday (last) night’s frost killed them all. Our thermometer said 29 when I looked at it this morning. It also got all the squash and peppers. The kale, collards, swiss chard, and beets are of course fine.
The most satisfying, exciting thing in the world for me to do is build topsoil. I have no idea why. I dug 5 gallons of kitchen scraps and about 16 gallons of coffee grounds into the trenches in the west bed today.
UPS delivered another 100 lbs of hard red winter wheat today. I’m happy that we found a good way to use that (pancakes), and grateful that we’re well-off enough to be able to buy good food for storage.
First Freeze
2 October 2010They tell us that we’ll have a freeze tonight, so this afternoon we harvested all 22 butternut squash, and some other large, orange squashes that are probably worthless but we’ll give them a try. I’m guessing they’re volunteer crosses between pumpkin and summer squash and probably worthless, but we don’t have much to lose by finding out how they cook up.
Last weekend I made two quarts of pickled beets that came out great — very pickley! I didn’t process them, so they’re in the refrigerator. If I have time this weekend, I’d like to make another four quarts and can them properly.
Ending and Beginning 