Diva Garden Year 2

I haven't really blogged about the garden this year - mostly because it started out as an utter failure. All our seed pods rotted, we had to buy some plants at the farmer's market, and then the tornado hit, and it's been so hot that everything is dying... and yet...

The flower garden in the front yard looks great, and our butterfly bush is working. There were easily 20 butterflies on it this past weekend.

The garden is really starting to look good. It looks like we'll have potatoes, red onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, cayenne peppers and maybe a handful of bush beans. I'm really glad we decided to space the plants out this year. We're having a lot higher success rate.

My lettuce mixture is also doing nicely and i think I'll be able to start using the greens soon in salads, yum.

Even the composter that Jake and I designed and built is going really well. Look at all those worms and all that black gold! (I'm hoping Jake will write a guest post with our design plans for this compost along with what we learned.)

But most importantly are the blackberries. Now, you should know that blackberries, while being one of my favorite foods are a rare delicacy in the Domestic Diva household. They are just too darn expensive! But look at this gorgeous bush we planted last year. It is completely taking over. So please little birds and vermin, please do not eat my blackberries.

Compost Fail

Today, after what we shall refer to as a "worm ordering fail" (ladies and gentlemen, please check that an internet company hasn't gone under before trying to order products from them.), I FINALLY got my pound of red wiggler worms in today.

As my compost was beginning to outgrow its existing (closed but aerated) bin, I decided to put it in a bigger (open) bin for the worms to get to work to. Remember how I explained the "good smelling microorganisms" before? Well, we didn't get any of those, because I have the compost of A THOUSAND POOPY DIAPERS! (Actually, I might prefer the diapers...)

We've learned a few more things about composting tonight via the interwebs, and I thought I'd share. Balance the compost - people refer to this as "wet/dry", "green/brown" or "nitrogen/carbon". Too much fruit and grass makes you have a wet, green, smelly, nitrogen-y compost. Apparently, instead of recycling those Sunday papers we should be composting them.

We added a lot of "dry" material to the compost tonight and put a lid mostly covering the compost, and we're just going to pray that the worms eat and the carbon decomposes faster than our neighbors can report us for an "unregistered landfill". (Apparently you can get fined for this.) If it still smells tomorrow night, we may have to take more drastic action.

Worms...

Currently Playing: The Bird and the Worm - Owl City

I just bought a half pound of worms. Red Wrigglers, they're called. Ew. So why, exactly, would I have done that? Because Jacob and I have been composting for awhile now... but there are two types of composting. Worm kind and microorganism kind. We were trying for the microorganism kind, but there are 2 key elements:

• warmth (you only need about 50 degrees)
• and air

We tried to get air by drilling holes in our composting container and shaking it every day so that it flipped around and got air in there... but we have learned that:

• Time + Warmth + Not Enough Air = SMELLY microorganisms...
  

(apparently if we had gotten enough air, the nice smelling microorganisms will compost your food for you. Seriously.)

However, worm composting is faster... worms can compost half their body weight a day... sooo... my 1/2 pound of worms can compost 1/4 pound of food a day. And make baby worms. Yay!

So while this may be more than you ever wanted to learn about my garbage (and smelly composting bin)... well, that's just too bad for you, I guess. :)