A Fresh New Start...and more Compost

I am a teacher.  A preschool teacher.  So I guess I don't have to explain why my new year starts in late August, and NOT January 1st.  I love a new school year.  Mrs. Jones (my assistant) and I have had a great first week with our new pumpkins.

Recently, I really feel like my work life is coming together the way it should.  Home life is settling down.  I'm ready to go back to concentrating on me and how I feel and what I want to do.  I am re-instituting the Year of Being Amie.  I did well with it the first time around, but life stuck it's big fat nose in and I got away from it again.  So here we go.

I'm sweaty once again.  I spent a hard hour and a half in the garden this morning.  I took some pictures but it was already so steamy out that they are completely foggy and you can barely see anything.  I'll take some more later and post them. 

I ended up planting some tomato seedlings--I grew them from seed myself, thank-you-very-much--in pots.  They look so tiny.  The "orchard" looks good, considering it's only two trees.  It's looking very garden-y out in my side yard these days.  

Below is my "orchard"--a key lime tree and a meyer lemon tree.  Love them!

Below is my green bean teepee--no green beans yet, but there are lots of flowers, meaning lots of green beans to come!

I mixed up a wheelbarrow full of planting mix, used some for the tomatoes and stored the rest in a Firehouse Subs pickle bucket for later.  I make my mix according (very loosely) to Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening recipe.  Bless Mel for figuring this out for me.  I usually throw a few shovels full of compost (more on that, my favorite gardening subject, later) into my wheelbarrow, then add several shovels full of vermiculite (which I store in a large bin in the garden area outside), and several shovels full of peat moss (which I also store in a large big on top of the vermiculite bin).  Stir it all around with my new shovel, and I use it in my raised beds and my outside pots.  Like I said, I store any extra that I haven't used yet in a five-gallon bucket.  

Compost...is there a more beautiful word in the English language?  What else illustrates the beauty of recycling better than compost?  Throw a bunch of trash in the form of food waste, dead plants, leaves, grass, animal waste (vegetarian animals only), dead yard waste, and it rots into something that helps you grow food!  It's a miracle, really.  AND, if you want to there are things you can do to speed it along...watering your pile, turning it, layering the correct ratio of green things (fresh, plant based materials) to brown things (dead, brown things), but nature does the trick all by itself, even if you do nothing.  Like I've said before--it's a fundamental law of nature--everything rots.  And of course, we humans can't help ourselves but to make a simple process complicated...with tools and thermometers, but they aren't really necessary.  

I do want to say one thing about my process.  I use a bin that I made from three old pallets (see above) and throw all my kitchen scraps in there.  I save them in the kitchen in an old plastic 5 quart ice cream tub and throw them out there when it's full--usually every 1-2 days.  My kitchen has a lot of scraps!  I put tea bags, coffee grounds, vegetable and fruit peelings, eggshells, dryer lint, and anything else that I would throw away except meat and fat.  I don't want any rodents in there!  When I dump my compost tub out there, I usually throw some dead leaves or grass or something over it so the food doesn't attract previously mentioned rodents (I know there are possums around, and squirrels, I don't want to know what else).  I don't really do anything else to this.  And as  a side note, I've read in lots of places that the pile has to "heat up" to do the work.  Mind is never hot--at least not hotter than it gets in Orlando on a summer day.  It just rots quietly.  And it DOES NOT SMELL.  Can't stress that enough.  It just smells like fresh dirt.  

That is Phase One.  Just kidding, that's just one pile.  

Phase Two (okay, maybe I wasn't kidding):  I have another compost pile right next to that one that contains finished compost.  I get some from the landfill, they have this beautiful (well, not so beautiful, but free!) pile of compost on a grassy area and there are always nice people there getting some.  I like to talk to them, much to my daughter's horror.  I don't have a truck, I have a Dodge Caliber, so I put all the bins, five-gallon buckets and whatever else I can find in the back of my car, grab my shovel and go to town (so to speak).  Yes, dirt gets everywhere in my car, but I don't care.  I also put my finished compost--mine takes about a year to stew and get done because I LITERALLY do nothing to it.    My daughter has a friend (yea, Erin!) with horses, and every now and then she drops off a huge bin of composted horse manure, and I add that to my pile of finished compost.  I've also been known to "steal" bags of dried leaves, yard waste, pine needles, etc. from my neighbors' curbs on garbage day.  Call me crazy.  In the spring, when I'm about to plant fresh, I will also buy a bag of several different kinds of compost, whatever I can find.  Mushroom compost, cow manure compost, etc.  Each of these adds different nutrients to the soil for my plants.  I use this to add a shovel full to each pot or raised bed as I replant, and to make my planting mix. 

Phase Three:  This pile is on the other side of the house, where most of  my grass is.  The reason it's there is because it's dry grass.  As I mow my lawn and the bag fills up, I dump them on the other side of my house to dry.  I just leave them there (they are out of sight of the neighbors) in a couple of piles.  As I use the most dry one for mulch (again, not pretty, but its free--I take that back, no mulch is really "pretty"), I add the fresh bags to a second pile.  When the dry pile is gone, I start using the second pile, and putting the fresh bags on the first pile.  

Phase Four:  Leaf Mold Pile.  This one is my favorite.  (I know I'm a composting nut job.)  I have a huge oak tree and other, smaller trees in my front yard, making it difficult to plant there, but giving me a true gift.  Leaves.  I rake these into another pile (behind a tree right in my front yard).  This is amazing stuff.  The dirt under it is black and spongy, and truly a gardener's dream.  When I plant a new raised bed (or bed in the ground), I get some of the stuff at the bottom of this pile and spread it in the bottom, under the planting mix or dirt.  If leaves are mixed in, I'm good with that.  Like I said, everything rots.  Eventually those leaves will nourish the plants.  

I told you this was a beautiful plan.  

This year I plan to scour the neighborhood for more of the neighbors' leaves, etc. and start a lasagna bed next to my driveway, with the goal of a cottage garden there.  Herbs, flowers, strawberries, and maybe some vegetables here and there.  It's ambitious, but it's a process.  Here's the plan:

• gather leaves, yard waste, etc.
• dig out sod, using it elsewhere in yard (low spots, etc.)
• lay down layers of brown cardboard, newspapers, etc.
• cover with free mulch.  
• start at road end (so neighbors are happy) and plant entire area with herbs, flowers, whatever I find that will look nice, and edging with strawberries.  

I think I may work on this in sections as I get materials.  Do areas 4' x 6' at a time, then moving on the next section.  This will keep my yard from sitting "naked" while I wait for materials.   I definitely garden on a budget so I can't go out and buy a yard full of plants at one time.  I'm getting pretty good at propagating plants so that's something that will help.  I do need to think about a low fence or something as a backdrop.  

Wow, this has been a long post.  Not like me at all....

More on Compost (Didn't think there was so much to say on the subject, huh?)

I'm taking tomorrow off (from my responsibilities).  I'm going to do nothing but rest my foot and maybe take a bath in the huge bathtub that I don't use nearly enough, and maybe stir up my compost.  Maybe. 

Today my school went on a field trip to Leu Gardens--what a beautiful day for such a thing--it was cool and sunny, and just perfect.  I always enjoy field trips with my families, I think it's interesting to see them in different setting.

Yesterday, I took Kaleigh to the dump (I call it that to mortify her, of course, it's really the landfill) to get four huge bins full of compost FOR FREE!!  Yea!  Now I have a lovely pile of finished compost next to my very slow-working compost bin.  Have I mentioned how much I love compost?  I think so.  Anyway, I made Kaleigh go with me, which was a fate worse than death to her, and she sat and glared at me while I shoveled four huge bins of compost into my car, smiling the whole time.  She told me that she doesn't think she should have to go to the dump with me at all, since it's disgusting.  I pointed out that the compost is NOWHERE near any garbage, and it's a nice grassy area with a pile of dirt on it.  She remains unconvinced.  Maybe I'll make her go again tomorrow. 

Does rotted garbage make everyone this happy? 

I'm going to read tonight and just relax.  My foot hurts from walking, and think I will work on a few small Christmas presents for my grandkids tonight.  Maybe knitting or sewing. 

Dirt Therapy. . .

I sit here at my computer this morning feeling sweaty and super-duper awesome, which is nice for a change.  My week has been rough.  Not awful, just not satisfying.  My class feels chaotic and out of control, I'm not feeling like I'm getting things done at home much, I've had a terrible gout attack this week, and I just feel a little out of it.  Not Amie at all.

So last night when I got home (Super-K is spending the weekend with a friend so I can be as self-centered as I want for a couple of days) I went out into the "garden" (it's really just a tiny part of my yard, so I was considering not calling it a garden anymore, but I changed my mind--more on that later) and started weeding, which led to watering and when I went over to turn on the water, I noticed some old concrete garden borders --not sure if that's what they are called-- behind some bushes that I've never paid any attention to.  I started pulling them out, and I remembered that I stored some more of the same kind behind the compost bin when I built that and I pulled them out too.  A disgusting job, since bugs were all over the bottom of them and they were partially buried in the dirt.  I hosed them off and they look just fine, even though one was broken, I gorilla-glued it back together.  I was feeling very resourceful at that point, so I laid them out at the end of my front walkway where there is an awkward square turn, and dug out a little area, partially buried them, and added compost and planting medium into the little bed.  Mind you, it's only about 24" x 12" in a half-moon shape, but it looks so cute.  

I've been reading a lot of homesteading and permaculture blogs (RESEARCH, PEOPLE!) and one that I read--sorry, I don't remember which one--said that if you wait for the perfect situation, you will never do anything--"start where you are".  

So I started thinking, I am lucky enough to live in a house that my parents own, so I can pretty much plant what I want, dig where I want, and I'm pretty secure in staying here awhile, if not forever, so why not just go ahead and do what I can now.  Meaning, I've been waiting until I can afford to build "several" (no specific number here) raised beds to start my little experiment, while working with the two beds and several pots I have going now, but why not plant some stuff in the ground now.  By the way, the raised beds aren't expensive, it's the planting mix that I make that is, but it will last a lifetime, all I have to do is add compost when I pull something out and replant, according to Mel Bartholomew (sp?) of Square Foot Gardening fame.  

Again with the theme of the year, "Never Underestimate the Power of Humans to Complicate Simple Things".  Plants have been growing in the ground for millions of years (no specific number on that either).  So I've been planning on building a raised bed just for herbs, but this little spot--the half moon--is so cute, all I could think of was a bunch of herbs growing there and seeing them and smelling them every time I come home and walk up to the door.  What is wrong with me?  Why do I get so hung up on how I want things to be "ideally" that I can't see what's right in front of my face?  So I have been rooting some adorable herbs in water on my kitchen window, and I'm planting them there.  There were also some little tiny basil plants that came from my old plant when it went to seed earlier than I anticipated, so I transplanted those in there.  

"Start where you are."  Valuable advice. 

So I came in last night, feeling a lot better about life in general, and this morning I decided to go out and work a little more.  Two hours later my compost bin is full of stuff that has been just hanging out waiting for me to put it in there, the coffee grounds that I get from Starbucks is spread into the garden and the compost bin, the invasive vine that my neighbors love so much and grows into my side yard like a tidal wave is cut back to their fence, I raked a crap-ton of leaves from under the oak tree and mulched the tomatoes, beans and cucumbers, and dug into my compost bin to see how my compost is doing.  This always makes me feel better.  Weird, I know.  I have also been "planning" (which I think we all know means looking at pretty pictures on the internet) to lay down layers of newspaper next to my raised beds and mulching over them for pretty paths (I guess technically that would be A PATH since my beds sit next to each other and are next to the front steps).  I picked a space where I want my potting bench to be--next to the compost bin--and dug out all the stuff that was there, and it's kind of where I've been throwing large sticks that I don't want to put into the compost bin, so it was kind of a mess.  I pulled out the sticks and stuff, cut the plants and vines back, layered on a bunch (at least 10 sheets deep) of newspaper, and covered all of it with free mulch, which is the leaves from the oak tree out front.  Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I wet everything down and walked around on it a little to compress it and I think it will stay put.  The area is not big--maybe 6' x 6', but it looks pretty good, and I have a place to put my potting table when I get it built. 

Which brings me to why I am sitting at my computer blogging while I'm still sweaty and dirty.  This all felt so good to me, getting out there and DOING SOMETHING, even though it didn't really change what is going on in my life right now, I feel better.  So in the spirit of starting where I am, I decided that my little garden is a garden, and I'm calling it that.  Now I have an herb garden too.  And a compost pile,  and a place for a potting bench.  I'm official.  I've planted stuff from seeds. which is my personal definition of official.  I'm sweaty, and happy and dirty.  (Although I will take a shower as soon as I finish writing this)

In doing my "research" last night, I found out that I can get free compost at the landfill, which isn't very far from where I live.  I'm going to empty out a couple of big bins that I have, and head over there with a shovel.  I wish I had a truck.  I also found out that some people around the corner raise rabbits for meat and give away free rabbit manure, so I'm going to try to connect with them too.  Good for the garden. 

I'm embracing my inner hippie.  Peace, love, and compost. 

Everything Rots Eventually, and other life lessons.

So much to say, so little time. . . . 

My plants are looking so happy out in the garden, the beans have reached the fence and are starting to grow UP it now.  The lettuce looks cute, and the tomatoes are okay, I guess.  There are a bunch of baby tomatoes on there, I guess I can't really expect them to perform like summer tomatoes. 

Last night I was reading a homesteading blog, and I decided to take another go at sourdough starter.  Kaleigh and I are making bread pretty regularly now, so I want to give it another try.  After reading this particular book and recipe, I realized I was trying to do too complicated a process.  It's kind of like compost.  Once I got over the idea that it had to be complicated, I had a revelation--EVERYTHING ROTS EVENTUALLY.  Without my help.  This is a fundamental truth of the universe.  So pile crap up in a corner of the yard and it will happen.  And guess what?  It happened.  Without my help.  Never underestimate a human's capacity for making something natural complicated.  But I digress.  My point is, all I REALLY have to do is mix flour and warm water and feed it every day, and wait.  It will happen.  Without my help. 

Last night our cable went out for what I assume was most of the evening, and I had to resort to figuring something else out to do.  I think it was the last straw in the cable's back, so to speak.  I had such a pleasant evening after I figured out what to do.  AND I GOT A LOT DONE.  Figures.  I think the time has come for me to part ways with cable.  I will miss Sons of Anarchy, though.  I ended up taking out the remainder of the English paper piecing hexagons out of the back of my Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt.  It's ready to hand quilt.  I think I will machine baste it this weekend, and start hand quilting it.  It will definitely be gorgeous when it's finished.  Picture below. 

No comments about my name over my bed, please.  Unless you absolutely have to tell me how much you love it.  My bedroom is very self-centric these days.  I spent a lot of years with a bedroom that I hated in muted non-gender-specific colors, so I like a little me in there now.  Sue me.  I'm embracing the Amie. 

I also spent a lot of time reading last night, which I enjoyed so much that I am going to do it again tonight.  I got a new book called "A Homemade Life", which is a woman's story about how food and her life are intertwined and everything good in her life happens with food around.  Her life story with food.  And it has recipes.  Looking forward to it. 



The stupid dog threw herself through a window on Monday, which really pisses me off since she doesn't have a checkbook to reimburse me for the $130.00 I'm out now to fix it.  Bitch.  i also had to take Tuesday off since nobody could come fix it until then, so I decided I could spend the day crying--again--or I could do something productive.  So I opened up my etsy shop.  Nothing has come of it yet, but somebody marked me as their favorite.  That's awesome.  Considering that I kind of feel worthwhile when people re-pin my pins on Pinterest, this is like the holy grail.  (Geek Reference).

Back to School . . .

My conclusion is that going back to work after two weeks off, especially in a job like mine where I teach preschool, is NOT simple. 

#1.  After an 80 degree Christmas in Orlando, it plummeted to around 40 degrees on Monday, and has been cold all week.  To us Orlandoans, that might as well be 40 below. 

#2.  Two, count them TWO, pulled muscles.  Actually one is a tendon in my foot, but it hurts, and I have to say, it really comments on how much physical work I did on my vacation.  I kept busy, but not as busy as, say, a class full of three year olds.

#3.  I'm not 20 anymore so I'm tired.  My sister says I live like a senior citizen, eating dinner at 4:00, and in bed by 8:30, which I say is an exaggeration, and did I mention that I AM TIRED?!

On the plus side, I am so looking forward to visiting the worm composting bin in the Student Union today.  Is that crazy?