A Random Thought on Composting materials

I've been reading a lot lately on how to get compost materials for your compost piles.
Suggestions are asking neighbors and municipalities organizing community piles where you can go get leaves, grass clippings etc.

These are great ideas. However, I want to tell a story as a little warning to make sure you find out the lawn/gardening practices of whomever you may be getting your materials from. I wrote this up some time ago for a newsletter for a CSA I belonged to once... but it's worth retelling:

Years ago (never mind how long :) ) when I was in Middle School my Dad went organic. We lived in the suburbs and pretty much became the laughing stock of the street. There are a lot of interesting story/lessons from back then besides the one I'm telling. (like getting grubs in the lawn and the neighbor with the perfect lawn telling Dad I told you so; only to have a family of skunks come through; eat the grubs and move on. We only had to fill in and reseed the holes they left. But we never had grubs again.)

Dads pride and joy was his compost pile. It was pretty simple; just throw stuff in, cover it under and turn it once in awhile. It made beautiful compost. The worms loved it.

And while we only had a 1/5 of an acre of lawn and gardens there was never enough.

So Dad asked the neighbors if they would bring him their leaves and grass clippings.

The guy with the perfect lawn was amused and said sure: you can have my clippings just come and get them when I put the bags on the street for the garbage men. So Dad went and got them and put them in the compost and turned them in.

Next day he came in at breakfast time, after going out to turn the compost.... I took one look at his face and asked what was wrong? He said... they're dead. All of them. Every single worm in the compost was dead.

Why? Because the neighbor with the perfect lawn used not only weed killer but pesticide on his lawn. It went directly into our compost and killed every single living thing.

So Dad had to dig out, bag up and throw out his compost and moved the pile. He never asked anyone for extra material again.

It was a great lesson for a young gardener (me) to learn (and an old one too) and really pointed out to me why going organic was so important for the long term (that and we were the only known garden on the street that had toads).

So, please, if you use other peoples lawn and garden materials in your compost; find out what they use in their own garden practices; otherwise whatever it is they use will be in your garden too.

July update

It's been a long time since I posted here... since April. My excuses are:
1) I started a blog about living with LMS.
2) I've been focusing on improving my lifestyle (see above link)
3) 2 is working so well that I've got all this energy and have been working in the garden, hiking in the woods (looking for fungi!) and generally being busy and having fun.

So no apologies. No doubt once winter hits and I'm stuck inside you'll hear more; particularly about the Studio; something I've been neglecting from all of the above.

The above picture is from my Night Blooming Cereus which blooms once; occasionally twice a year and only at night. If you've never experienced the sight and scent of this flower then go out and find it. It's worth the wait.  

The Garden is doing really well this year. The no dig technique in the veggie beds is working great. Anywhere the results are a little iffy are places where the wind blew off the mulch during our snowless winter even though I've re-mulched it. But the soil is getting more and more fertile and arable each year. Some of the beds I can plant with my hand as the soil is so fluffy. The soil is just full of worm casings and there are a ton of worms working at it.

We're past lettuce season; it's all bolted now. But the Kale is going well. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are doing really well but the ones outside not so much. There are rumors of tomato blight on the east side of the state near Boston which is bringing fear into the hearts of all who grow or eat tomatoes but were hoping it stays on that end. For those that don't remember or were unaware we had a blight come through the North East USA in 2010 that pretty much killed off the entire tomato crop of the region. I blogged about it back then. Keeping positive thoughts on this. :)

My perennial beds are doing really well and I'm going to try to find the time post pics. Of my fungi hunting walks in the mountain here too. I've been looking for medicinal mushrooms like Chaga, Reishi and such; found both but not enough to harvest. Or with the latter it was on public land so couldn't pick it ethically. But I found it and took pictures; which I'll share soon.

I've hired someone to help me in the garden this year. He's been reclaiming much of the old gardens and yard that started over growing after my diagnosis in 2001. The old rose arbor garden, where I used to sit and teach a lot has been uncovered and we've found 5 of the 8 climbing roses and an apothecary rose, which will be transplanted. I've felt bad for them all these years and it will be good to rescue them.

There is also a garage being built which will have a rather large art studio over it, attached to the house. Hopefully that will be done by Autumn and soon after I can move into the studio space. They just finished pouring the foundation; slab next then framing, etc.

So there are tons of things going on; renewing and rebuilding. I can't promise I'll post an update here soon but I'll try. As I said: things will slow down come Snow Fly.

Seed Catalog Advice, Garden Planning, Black Squirrels and Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhogs Day

Happy Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhogs Day! Or whatever your Religion or Lifestyle calls this Cross Quarter day. :)

It's the Celtic New Year for me; when the Light begins to return as the days start to noticeably become longer. And this is the day I've been waiting for as my personal New Year this year. I've always loved Imbolc and it seemed the right focus for me to see as the day I leave behind all the bad aspects of the last year for me. I still have some healing to do; and treatment in the next few weeks; but I'll get through it.

The work we're doing this month at Creative Awakenings is on “Presence – the Sacred Moment of NOW” (a new, small but growing group working on Spirituality in Creativity (and vice versa)). This works well with where I am at the moment in my healing. While I'm much better I'm not far enough along to just start running around and while I have my moments of frustration I see having to restrain myself and Be Here Now (to quote Ram Dass); a good way to start my new year.

That's not to say I don't have things to Do. But much time needs to be spent simply Being still.

One of the things I plan on doing this afternoon is to start planning The Garden. February is a good time to do this here in the North East USA. Even in a mild Winter as we are having now.

As always most of my seed will come from High Mowing Farm. A small family owned organic company in Vermont.

Beware many of the catalogs out there; most are no longer owned by the families that started them in the years past and are owned by huge companies. Some by the same company. If you suspect your old seed company isn't living up to it's past qualities then you might look into who their parent company is.

I know people who are having issues with older and/or bigger seed companies in recent years who are now turning to smaller family owned companies. One of the most common issues is wrong varieties in packets. Nothing like giving garden space for a eating tomato only to find you're growing nothing but sauce tomatoes.

While Vermont may be a long way from you I'd suggest you give them a try but if you want to find something nearer to you there are some guidelines I'd suggest:

* Buy certified Organic. (I no longer get seed from companies that aren't 100% organic. I've dropped some folks I've done business with for years because I noticed their organic line is getting smaller as is their open pollinated. If Organic seems like an after thought then it probably is. Better to focus and support/vote for those that are totally dedicated to organic seed production.

* Buy open Pollinated when you can.

* Buy Heritage seed when you can; keep these delicious well producing species going before the big companies kill off the varieties in the name of easy marketing and GMO promotion.

* Buy untreated seed.

* Make sure the company is really owned by a family. No parent company is involved.

* The company really is small. I'd rather do business with several small companies with small inventories then one huge one who gets their seed god knows where.

* When you call with a question a human answers the phone. A better sign is when you have to leave a message for the person who can answer you because he or she are in the fields.

* It's as local as possible. Vermont is one state up from me so HM Farm is a good choice. Check out whose closest to you that fills the above criteria.
High Mowing Farm isn't the only seed company that covers the above and more so look around.

I'll report in a few days or so on how the plan is. I'm hoping to get my order out in, at the most, two weeks.

I leave you today with a photo of Shadow. His story is a few years ago we had a black squirrel show up at our winter feeder. Turns out they are the same squirrel as our gray squirrels but have some gene pigment that shows up sometimes. I've seen the black squirrels in Toronto; where gray is the rare one. But never seen one anywhere else.

This year I have three black squirrels amongst about ½ dozen grays. So the population is growing. Since I can't tell one black squirrel from another: I call them all Shadow :)

Sorry the photo is of such poor quality but it's taken with an iphone.

11.11.11 :)

Here is a picture of my constant companion here in the office: Bee my Cockatiel. I've had her about three years or so now.. making her five. A gift from a dear friend. She's a nut, can be noisy and leaves fluff all over my keyboard but I love her. Bee.. that is, not the dear friend. :) Though I love her too.

I thought you might like to meet her.

I don't know if today should be important because of the date but it's fun. And I'd like to take the time out to thank the Veterans and members of our Armed Forces for all their sacrifices. One might not believe or support in the politics behind things but one can't deny the bravery of those that defend us. My late Father was one of them.

I've been a bit unproductive lately. I'm trying to sort through my feelings about my oncology reports. Seems I have to have at least one more surgery in the next month or so and more then likely radiation. For some reason these things more often then not happen to me during this time of year. Astrological? My late Mother, the Astrologer, would have known.

I've spent the last week indulged in watching mindless TV and reading mind candy books (my vice in life is reading paranormal suspense novels and historical mysteries. I know enough about history where they have to be good ones though. :) )

On the one hand I told myself I wouldn't hide this side of my life here (the Leiomyo Sarcoma side; not my reading habits :) ).

On the other hand I don't like focusing on it either. While I don't believe in being a “Pollyanna”: that is acting like everything is ok despite hanging off a cliff edge... I don't like to dwell on the peril either. Keeping a positive outlook is, in my opinion, one of the many reasons I'm still here. Balancing a positive outlook with a sense of reality actually.

That and Medicinal Mushrooms.

Anyway.... even though I'm still waiting to see the surgeon about one tumor (fortunately a simple extraction) and hear back from the radiation oncologist to tell me if I should have another surgery before the radiation;

I feel it's time to get off the couch, so to speak, and get back into my life.

In other words, to once again, get over myself. It really is damaging to sit around and feel sorry for one's self and dwell on the “what if's”. Better to dust one's self off and get on with what one loves to do.

And for me that's the garden and studio primarily and cooking and hanging with my family and friends. With occasionally reading books and a computer game or two :)

However, I haven't totally ignored the studio or garden.

Now for the updates:

Studio update:

Mostly I worked on framing some of the paper mache prints. I have a friend who is a former frame maker who gave me some good ideas about how to go about this. I got myself some rectangular shadowboxes to experiment with. They are plastic unfortunately but I sanded one and painted it with the iron paint. I didn't rust it though: I thought that would be too much.

I then mounted one of the Ravens on unbleached craft paper, attached that to ¼ inch foam board and put it into the frame.

It doesn't look half bad.

I'm thinking I may have to learn how to build frames. Though where I will find the room (and time?) for such a big project at this time I don't know. And I don't think I need another big project at this point.

Another issue: and your feed back would be appreciated... is the quality of the images of my work. I've been scanning them on my computer and for much of the work it works great. But I noticed many of my paintings, particularly the batch from the Raven a Day Challenge don't do the paintings justice. The colors are wrong for one thing. I'm not sure if you can pick up the textures with a camera even but I'm going to start experimenting. I'll post the results here when I get to them.

The above is the first. My main problem I think is not having the camera reflected in the glass.

I'm thinking next week I should start a small Challenge. I'll spend the weekend deciding what that will be and report back Monday.

Garden update:

The greenhouse still needs watering every other day or so. Things are coming along well. The greens probably won't be mature enough until later this Winter. As always I was a bit late seeding. I'm thinking of seeing if I can grow some lettuce mix in the growing shelves under lights in the kitchen before that.

I'm still dealing with the straw/grass seeds in the mulch.

I'm hoping the weather will cooperate and I can get the garden beds tucked in for the Winter this weekend.

Oh... and I changed the format a bit in the blog. Let me know if it doesn't work on your computer. I have a large monitor so I can't really tell. Blogger is coming up with some interesting new formats for their blogs that I will be experimenting with soon but I'm waiting to be able to put in gadgets. (all those little windows on the side bars). A feature they say is soon to be.

See you next week.

Updates for my trip, The Garden and Studio

I'm back!. Here are the updates for my trip, the Garden and Studio:

I had a wonderful time in Maine. I didn't do much creatively. A few photos, a bit of journaling. I'm looking at the whole week as an “Artist's Date” (see Julia Cameron's Artist's Way book).

The photo above is sun set on our pond.

I went to the Common Ground Fair in Unity Maine. I had a great time. If you're ever in Maine I can't say enough about going there. There was a wonderful lecture on no digging gardening, which is something I started a few years back now. The speaker was right on about both the positive and negative issues of gardening this way.

So far though: the only negatives were slugs the first couple years; which as she pointed out, were followed by frogs, toads and snakes to eat the slugs. Emphasizing that working with and trusting the ecosystem works out in the end. Those first couple years of using this method, I had a million slugs; all testing my resolve for working co-creatively. But it's balancing out again out there.

I also, for the first time, went to the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. It was one of the best I've been through; and I've been through a lot of gardens in my life. The children's garden alone is worth the trip. Check it out even if you have no kids but if you do I'd say it's a must to go.

Garden update:
Before I left I harvested a ton of tomatoes. Froze some and will be freezing more as they ripen on the shelves. (another use for the growing shelves I made last Winter). Also froze at least 6 meals of green beans and hope to get a few more. I got three Acorn Squash (Burgess of course :) ). Not a huge harvest, like last years Butternut but it will do.

(picked up some fresh crab meat and Maine shrimp whilst I was there; froze them, packed them in ice and they are waiting to be made into cakes, chowder, stir fry and tempura)

It's time to start cleaning up the beds and getting them ready for Winter's sleep. As well as get the soil in the greenhouse ready for winter. While I was at the above mentioned fair I got seeds from the High Mowing Farm and Fedco booths. Lettuce, greens and carrots. I need to plant them this week.

The carrots I harvested a couple weeks ago are still being eaten and I have never had such sweet yummy carrots. I've had them almost every night I've cooked since harvest and I'm not sick of them yet. I even took some to Maine, with some beans and had them with my crab cakes (recipe below).

Studio update:
I've decided to go easy on myself this week in terms of an Art Challenge. As long as I do something creative then I'm on track. Yesterday I worked on both a canvas as well as three of the paper mache prints. The latter I'm trying out “rusting”. Painting with iron paint and using a rusting compound once it's dry. I saw Darlene Olivia McElroy use it in her Fiber Paste You Tube video and thought it might work great on the prints. I'll report back here when I'm done. They have to dry 24 hours between coats of paint then another 24 hours before you can put the rust on; so 48 hours total.

I finished the Artist's Way book/workshop while I was there. I have to say it was very enlightening and liberating. Not just for my artistic life but it also trickled into all the other aspects of life. I can't recommend this book enough to help kick start a creative life; not just for artistic types either. Creativity is a part of all of our lives and letting it free can only enhance our lives and lifestyles.

Next week I'll do a full Challenge; maybe canvases again. I really had a great time with those. Actually, I've had a great time with all of them. :)

And here is Tephyr's Crab Cake recipe:
(all ingredients are assumed organic; do your best)

one pound of crab meat
¾ to 1 cup crunched up crackers (saltine types are best as they absorb some moisture). Use a heavy bottomed glass or mug to crunch them in a bowl. Don't worry about some chunks.
1 egg; beaten well.
Salt and pepper,
Paprika if you like (hot to taste) Try ½ teaspoon at first. (you can sprinkle it on top at serving if you want too)
Panko bread crumbs (you'll need more or less a cup; probably more. Pour it on a plate and put to the side)

mix the first 4/5 ingredients well.
Form into patties about 2” across and 1/2 to ¾ inches thick.
You should get about 8 cakes from a pound.

Place the patties gently into the panko, gently press. Gently flip over and press again. Get as much of the bread crumbs to stick as you can but some will fall off again. Whilst you are doing this try and keep the patties together; they'll try to fall apart a bit.

Either broil until brown on one side and flip gently (5 – 10 minutes: keep an eye on them).
Or pan fry them in a small amount of oil; flipping gently.

Broiling them works well but they tend to be a bit dry.

Mix a couple tablespoons of lime or lemon juice into a cup of mayonnaise and serve on the side of the Crab Cakes. Lemon or Lime wedges work too.

You can double or divide in half.

This evolved from just making them and reading different recipes over the years.