Contestants, Start Your Engines...

I have been composting kitchen and yard materials for a few years now.  Some may remember that I had an outdoor open bin constructed at my parent's house to enable me to take my big kitchen scraps to a large container.

While I love to garden, I am afraid of earthworms and other wormlike creatures.  This list includes:
redworms, grubs, tomato hornworms, caterpillars, milipedes...you get the idea.  In preparing this post, I couldn't even look at the wikipedia photos without getting the willies. 

So, I put on my big girl panties and got out into the bins to begin sorting materials. I didn't have time to cover the pile before the winter snow so there was less decomp over the winter than I would have liked.

Fall 2010 leaves still in the bin.

After the first sort, here is the accumulation of "black gold". It's hard to see with the photo, but this is more than 3' of compost.  After a second shirt to remove the remaining large items, it will be ready to be spread into the garden and lawn...so exciting.

Black Gold

Now, I just need to put together the plating schematic, clean and scour the pots, prep the soil, I'm getting tired listing it all.

So far, we are looking at our usual heirloom tomatoes (Mortgage Lifters and Granny Smith among them), string beans and peppers.  This year, mesclin mix, lettuce, and spinich will be added along with organic fingerling potatoes.  Bring on the planting weather!! ~ksp

I love spring, like Cubs fans, I am eternally hopeful.

My Mojo Has Left the Building!

First some updates...

Due to some diligence on our part, the compost heap has reached as high as a steaming 112 degrees. It actually gives off heat...I am so excited!

With a few exceptions the tomato plants are showing blooms left and right. I try not to pay too much attention to them...don't wanna count my 'maters before they hatch.


I am also in the process of completing the fourth and final quilt of the season. A post on that later.

Lastly, if you don't already read do so, I highly recommend reading The Panopticon. It is a newly added blog highlight o' my day.

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If anyone has seen my sock mojo running around please tell it to stop in its tracks and insist that it return to me. I came out of the gate strong for Summer of Socks starting two pair on the first Sunday. As these photos show, I am just passed the cuff on the Pomatomous and 1.5 inches past the cuff on the Wendy Knits SOS pattern....very sad...


What's worse...I have no motivation to work on them. In the last weekend, I took a round-trip flight, I sat and watched two hours of tennis and vegged all of Sunday and never once did I pick up my knitting needles...it doesn't look good. ~ksp

I Love Trash

And now Oscar and I have more in common than you would have thought. I too love trash (of the food variety). I must say that I have become most obsessed with my compost heap. I first thought of composting when Jessica included information about the vermicompost that lives in her basement. Since that sparkle, I have become quite intrigued. I collect neighbors lawn clippings and brown leaves. I get excited when it's time to clean out the "past-its-prime" veggies from the fridge. I get sawdust from the neighborhood lumber yard and manure from the horse stables.

I have enlisted the help of my trusted mentee, Damien, and together we check temperature and moisture content, examine the species of bugs, and quantity of worms. We mix and water and mix some more. The temperature has yet to break 95 degrees and I am finding that frustrating. Not that I have a problem with the worms doing most of the work, I am just trying to attract beloved micro-organism which exponentially speed up the process.

This was the pile this weekend with fresh grass clippings on top. Browns and water will be added to it later today and it will be turned...hopefully we can get above 100 degrees...oy! the pressure...



Damien won't admit it publicly, but I think he likes composting. He calls me regularly to inquire as to the current temperature and to see what items my father has added to the post (he thinks my dad tinkers with it when no one is looking)...a little paranoid he is...

Any other composters out there with pointers?