Organic Gardening in St. Louis

My favorite garden shoes

2009-09-28T21:16:00.003-05:00

Yes, they look funny. But they feel wonderful! These "foot gloves" are called Vibram Five Fingers. After wearing these in the garden for a weekend, I bought a second pair in black to wear outside of the garden (and even to work!).

While most shoes cushion you and keep you from feeling the ground underneath, the VFFs are the next best thing to being barefoot. I love walking in the grass with them: I can feel every bump and every soft spot where the voles have been aerating the back yard. And when they're dirty, I just hose them off and let them dry (they're machine washable, too).

Interestingly enough, there is NO support in these shoes. And what is so strange is that they're the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. I've had to wear orthotics for the last 10 years, but have actually been able to walk around in these with little trouble, and I haven't worn my orthotics for weeks, even in my normal shoes.

Free Vermicomposting Demonstration July 16

2009-07-13T20:07:00.003-05:00

Join me this Thursday 6:30 p.m. at the Whole Foods in Town and Country (Woods Mill and Clayton, same shopping center as Target) for a free vermicomposting demonstration.

Vermicomposting, or composting with worms, is a convenient way to get wonderful compost for your garden even if you don't have a lot of space. When done right, there is no smell and no mess, so you can even keep a worm bin in your kitchen without anyone knowing (my own mother didn't know I had one until my brother ratted me out!).

I'll be there with a couple of my worm bins, and will show you how to start your own bin, how to maintain it, and how to harvest the castings when they're ready.

The St. Louis Organic Garden Club is a consumer/gardener-oriented offshoot of the Missouri Organic Association. Find our "St. Louis Organic Garden Club" page on Facebook for more information.

Frog in swimming pool

2009-07-03T07:35:00.006-05:00

One of my backyard visitors this year is what appears to be a juvenile bullfrog. I read that, although they live near ponds or other bodies of water, they can hop as much as six miles in a week when they travel from pond to pond. They go on the move during warm, rainy weather (like we had just before the frog showed up in my pool), and they look for smaller bodies of water during their travels.

As I mentioned, the frog showed up in my pool, and that can be problematic. I've read about a lot of people who have had to fish dead frogs out of the pool or skimmer, not because the chlorinated water is bad for them, but because they couldn't get out and they drowned. There are even special floats that can be purchased just to be used as "frog stairs" out of the pool.

We have several Solar Sun Rings in our pool, which the frog treats like giant lily pads. When I first found him, I kept fishing him out, but it appears he's in no danger of being trapped since he can easily move on and off the rings, which can float near enough to the edge for him to jump out.

Frogs are carnivorous, and as such, are a good addition to an organic garden since they eat insects. According to Wikipedia, bull frogs will eat just about anything else they can fit down their throat, including rodents and other frogs, so if you deliberately build a pond and stock it with tadpoles, don't mix bullfrogs with other frogs or you'll just end up with a bunch of really fat bullfrogs.

I don't have a pond in my yard, so I filled a couple of shallow, black plastic tub with rain water and set them in a shady part of my yard, where plenty of ground cover will hide Jeremiah from the occasional hawk and/or other creature that might find him tasty. When we want to swim or clean the pool, we fish him out and plop him in the tubs, and occasionally I find him hiding in one of his own accord.

I figure he won't stick around long, since I don't really have a permanent water fixture (other than a pool) for him to stay in, and we don't have a ready supply of lady frogs for him to chill with. But I've been enjoying his visit!

Wormzilla

2009-05-31T22:00:00.005-05:00

Whenever I work out in the yard, I usually take a camera. You never know what you'll find! I have a couple of very large Devil's Backbone (a/k/a Redbird Cactus) plants that came with us from Texas 2.5 years ago, and the poor things have been in the same pots since then (I'm really terrible with houseplants!). When transplanting one into a larger pot today, I found a worm as long as my hand!

It's not unusual for me to find worms in houseplants. Back in Texas, we had a couple of really good potting soils to choose from. Rabbit Hill Farm had a wonderful potting mix, which often carried worm cocoons because of the worm castings, and Lady Bug Brand also had good potting mix. But it's been more than three years since those poor plants have had an infusion of new soil. Hats off to the giant worm for surviving that type of neglect!

Ikea Hack: Stylish Vermicompost Bin for a Small Space

2009-04-11T08:39:00.014-05:00

I was driving through Chicago a couple weekends ago, when my car had trouble. It kept pulling toward a big blue and yellow building full of wonderful Scandinavian delights, and then it just stopped. Well, what was I to do? I had to go inside.

Inspiration hit when I saw the Trofast line of storage furniture. We just remodeled our kitchen last fall (yeah, we still haven't had a back-splash installed but I'm getting there, I swear!): the cabinets were painted gray, and we're using red and orange as our accent colors. The white storage furniture with red bins was another worm bin waiting to happen!

I don't like most of the commercial worm bins out there, for a number of reasons. When looking for a suitable container for a new bin, I look for the following:

Depth. This is perhaps the most important, since I want to make sure I can cover food scraps with a thin layer of coir or shredded newspapers. You also need to add some ventilation, so it has to be deep enough to accommodate some screened vent holes, but not so deep that it gets no air. Somewhere between 8 and 12 inches is about right.
Volume. The bin should be big enough to accommodate the amount of kitchen scraps you expect to generate. If you cook a lot, you're going to need a bigger bin than someone who goes out to eat most of the time.
A lid. You need to cover the worm bin, not only to keep the worms in, but to keep it from drying out.
Looks. I keep my bin in the kitchen where it's most useful, so I don't want something that looks like a worm bin. If you can vermicompost without anyone knowing, you're doing it right.

To prepare the bin, step one is to drill some vent holes and cover with screen. I tried something different this time, by adhering the screen with silicone caulking instead of with staples like I did last time. The staples from my old bin, though starting to rust, are still intact. But because the staples don't provide a seal, worms crawl under the screen, and sometimes they even escape out the vent hole.

If you do use silicone, let it cure for at least a week before filling up your bin. I don't know if it was a reaction with the plastic of the bin or just an old tube of sealant, but that stuff stayed sticky for a long time.

Next, I added about an inch of coir to the bottom of the bin. If I were creating a bin for the first time, I would have added 3 or 4 inches of coir, but since I was transferring material from another bin I didn't need a lot of bedding. I buy the bricks, which are sold at several feed stores and garden centers around here, and add water to expand them. I don't put any drain holes in the bottom of the bin. The coir is there to keep the bottom from getting too soggy and to provide some material the worms can crawl through, and I've found that as long as you don't overdo the watering, drain holes are unnecessary.

After the coir, I added kitchen scraps that I had saved for this project, along with some partially composted stuff I wanted to move from my old bin.

Then I covered it all with a thin layer of shredded newspaper. The newspaper makes good bedding for the worms, and it also helps to regulate moisture, just like mulch in your garden.

I wetted down the newspaper, then after a thorough inspection by the cat my bin was ready to go. This particular Trofast unit is three bins high, so I used two of the bins for vermicompost, and I use the top bin to hold some extra newspaper and a garden trowel.

Every week or so, thoroughly mix the material in your worm bin with a trowel. This keeps it aerated and incorporates any additional scraps that you've thrown on top during the week. It also lets you asses the health of your bin. If there are any unpleasant, rotten odors, then the bed is too wet: add some more shredded newspaper. If the bin is too dry, add some more water.

Let the bin dry out a bit before harvesting. You don't want it to be dry enough to kill your worms, but if it's too wet and muddy it's almost impossible to do anything with. I haven't found a good way to harvest vermicompost other than picking the worms out by hand (I do wear gloves, not because I'm opposed to touching worm castings, but because I hate to get dirt under my fingernails), and putting it through a screen.

If you have a larger bin like my Rubbermaid one, you can push all the stuff to one side and just add scraps to one half of the bin. Many of the worms will eventually congregate on the new side, but you'll still find plenty in the finished material as well. For my new two-bin system, I plan to just stop adding scraps to one bin several weeks before harvest.

Stacking Vermicompost Bins -- A Critique

2009-04-11T07:50:00.004-05:00

My preferences for worm bins run contrary to much of what is on the market right now. If you search for a home vermicomposting system, you'll more likely than not come upon one of the continuous-flow type systems: the kind with stacking trays with vented bottoms. They're supposed to make harvesting the vermicompost easy: start with material in the lower bin, then when that is full add to the next level, etc. The worms supposedly finish the lower bin, then crawl up to the next layer for the fresh material, leaving black gold in the lower bin.

In my house, however, an expensive stacking vermicompost system is nothing more than messy, fruit fly-infested vermicide on the grandest scale. Why?

The bins are too shallow: they dry out easily. Worms can handle too much water, but not enough is deadly.
However, if you keep the bins moist enough, then any fruit fly within miles is immediately alerted to the brand new, multi-level condo created (they think, if fruit flies think) just for them. Again, the shallowness of the layers is the issue: you can't properly cover anything you put in.
The worms don't cooperate, either. In my kitchen, the worms were just as likely to move to a lower layer than to a higher one. I was forever fishing live and drowned worms from the water-collection layer at the bottom of the unit. And a "finished" layer was still as full of worms as an unfinished one.
Talk about a mess! Each layer has a grid on the bottom. When you lift up a layer, either to check on the worms or to harvest, you have a box with worms hanging out the bottom, and dirt all over. Where do you put it? You can't set it down, or you'll smash all the worms in transit from one layer to the other. So any time a layer was lifted, it became a two-person operation: one to hold the top box mid-air, and the other to work with the material below.
And finally, the bins, in addition to being too shallow, were just to small to handle fruit and vegetable scraps for a couple who eats a lot of fruits and vegetables.

Does this mean you shouldn't vermicompost? Absolutely not! It's actually much easier, cheaper, and less messy than the expensive worm towers would lead you to believe. I just created a new vermicompost bin (will post pic right after this), but the old cheap bin I made from a Rubbermaid container is still the best bin I've ever used.

Pathogens in Commercial Compost

2009-03-28T09:26:00.006-05:00

Interesting article in the the Franklin County, Maine Bulldog about compost made at huge commercial facilities. It's not one of those "organic guys are crazy and look how dangerous it is to do stuff without chemicals" articles, but is well-written.

It seems that for commercial composting facilities, size does matter, and smaller is better. At some point, the piles are too large to properly turn, and pathogens like E. Coli, and fecal coliform bacteria are not killed.

http://www.dailybulldog.com/db/?p=1791

What's an organic gardener to do? Make your own! In a backyard pile, you can control what is used: the pathogens mentioned in the article are more likely to occur when animal products like manure are used. You can also monitor the pile to ensure it heats up properly even if you do use manures.

Missouri Organic Association 2009 Conference

2009-02-21T13:07:00.015-06:00

The conference is today, and turnout is great! The conference has two tracks: "Experienced and Veteran Farmers," and "Prospective and Beginning Farmers." There were so many participants in the "Prospective" track that they had to switch rooms to accommodate everyone, and the organizers were worried they would run out of food at lunchtime (but there's plenty!).

The MOA Conference is an information-sharing opportunity that is all about the business of organic farming. Regardless of the experience level of the grower, he or she is bound to find priceless contacts, both for mentoring and for buying/selling. The information is useful and informative even for those of us who don't grow commercially.

The programs I've attended so far have all been first class: I'm always impressed by how many high-quality speakers MOA can pull in for their conference. Here's who I heard today:

Lane McConnell, Marketing Specialist for MO Dept. of Agriculture speaking on "Programs for Prospective and Beginning Farmers". Many people are probably not aware of all the help available for people who want to get started in farming: marketing and promotional materials, business counseling, grants, and more. Also mentioned were the Agrotourism program and the Grow Native! program.

Stan Cook joined Lane to talk about the Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority (MASBDA), and the different loans and grants that are available.

Dean Wilson from the MU Extension talked about the "Grow your farm" program, a course in Jefferson County that teaches prospective farmers how to write a Farm Plan (a/k/a a "business plan" for your farm).

Dr. Kamalendu Paul from Lincoln University told us about the history of the agricultural extension in Missouri, and touched on the history of land grant colleges in general. He then shared future plans for the Innovative Small Farmers’ Outreach Program, which kicks off this spring.

Linda Hezel, from Growing Growers in Kansas City, talked about this innovative program that teams up prospective growers with host farmers in the region.

Molly Rockamann gave an overview of EarthDance FARMS, an organization she founded with Colleen Wilson to to grow and inspire local FARMS – Food, Art, Relationships, & Music, Sustainably.

Sue Baird, MOA's incoming president, gave an overview of organic certification for crops. She delineated the different types of organic products, different certification categories, steps to certification, what's included in an organic system plan, and common errors made during the certification process.

The first session this afternoon had different speakers give a very brief talk about marketing organic goods:

Nancy Birch from All Star Trading talking about grains and feed ingredients
Randy Wood, Missouri Farmers Union on farm-to-school and farm-to-childcare programs
Walt Gregory, Midwest Organic Farmers Coop talking about coops (interesting story about the "Seasonal Salad" product)
Lane McConnell talking about farmers' markets
Krista Durlas from Whole Foods in Town & Country (Krista is also the co-leader of our Organic Garden Club), and Brendon Kline & Jason from the Whole Foods in Kansas City about opportunities for farmers to produce for Whole Foods
Michael Milster from St. Louis University: latest ACF survey says fastest growing trend among chefs is local and organic; if you're growing for restaurants, there is definitely a healthy market; also they need local organic produce for the Fresh Gatherings Cafe at SLU
Ed Pilla at Spudmaster: they have a lot of dehydration space if anyone has a need to rent space; they use GMO-free potatoes with high specific gravity and decent fry color

Our last session of the day was Improving Compacted and Waterlogged Soils, by Dr. Bob Kremer, a Microbiologist from the USDA Agricultural Research Services. He started with some definitions (bulk density, compaction, waterlogged, infiltration, and surface runoff). Bottom line to manage soil in anticipation of heavy rainfall:

Anticipate based on weather; don’t incorporate organic residue immediately before predicted major rainfall events
Maintain cover crops when field is out of production crop
Use grass waterways or buffer strips
Minimum tillage techniques to prevent surface sealing, encourage aggregation, microbial activity
Build up and maintain soil organic matter

Grow it in place (cover crops)

Add compost or manure

Integrate livestock

Seedlings from Missouri Department of Conservation

2009-01-19T16:30:00.003-06:00

Check out the list of seedlings that are sold by the George O. White State Forest Nursery. Orders for the tree and shrub seedlings are taken online or by fax through mid-April (you will be billed for your selections), and shipped in May.

Seedlings are very reasonably priced, sold in "bundles" that range from $4 to $28. Of particular interest to the backyard gardener are the "special bundles", described on the Mo Dept. of Conservation site as follows:

For areas where a variety of seedlings are needed, in smaller quantities, four special bundles are available.

* The Conservation Bundle is recommended for people who want to add a mix of trees and shrubs to their property.
* The Wildlife Cover Bundle will improve habitat and food sources for a number of Missouri wildlife species.
* The Extra-Large Nut Tree Bundle is made up of pecan and walnut that are larger than our normal stock size.
* The Quail Cover Bundle provides plants for quail food and cover.

The contents of these special bundles are preselected by the nursery, and no substitutes can be made. See the online order form or PDF order form for bundle contents.

Download the descriptions and order form from http://www.mdc.mo.gov/forest/nursery/seedling/

Organic Garden Club Meeting TONIGHT Jan. 8

2009-01-08T06:48:00.002-06:00

Tonight is the first meeting of our local consumer branch of the Missouri Organic Association. We will be screening a film about the Mueller Farm in Ferguson.

Whether you are a novice with a couple of potted plants, or an expert with a huge garden, join us at the Whole Foods in Town & Country at 6:30 pm: all are welcome! We are hard at work organizing speakers for future meetings on subjects like organic gardening basics, lawn care, seed starting, composting, and lots more.

Reserve your spot at the Whole Foods website or stop by the store. We are asking $5 admission to help get the club off the ground.

St. Louis Organic Garden Club Details

2008-12-26T16:51:00.002-06:00

Thursday, January 8

Missouri Organic Association's Organic Garden Club 6:30 - 8:00 pm, $5
Whole Foods, SW Corner of Clayton and Woods Mill, Town and Country, MO

With Molly Rockamann of EarthDance Farms Everyone is welcome to join the inaugural monthly meeting of St. Louis's first organic garden club! This time, Molly Rockamann will help us get inspired for spring in the dead of winter, answer questions about growing organically, and screen Connoisseur of Fine Foods, the short film about the Mueller Organic Farm in Florissant. Join us for a great conversation and a chance to win a raffle prize.

Molly Rockamann has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Eckerd College and a Postgraduate Diploma in Development Studies from the University of the South Pacific. After graduating from the Center for AgroEcology & Sustainable Food Systems at UC-Santa Cruz in 2005 with a certificate in ecological horticulture, Rockamann worked with small farmers in Fiji and Ghana, as well as with food activist and author Anna Lappe on the Eat Grub! Tour of 2006. Molly is a St. Louis native, and the co-founder of EarthDance, a new organization dedicated to celebrating the culture in agri[culture]. Founded in 2008 to grow and inspire local FARMS - Food, Art, Relationships, & Music, Sustainably!, the EarthDance Organic Farming Apprenticeship program will begin on the historic Mueller Farm in early 2009.

Interested folks can register by stopping by Whole Foods in Town and Country, or calling the Customer Service Desk at 636-527-1160 or online at http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/townandcountry/storecalendar.php

Organic Garden Club Forming Jan. 8

2008-12-14T10:55:00.003-06:00

I'm excited to be able to report that an Organic Garden Club is forming here in St. Louis County. This club will be an offshoot of the Missouri Organic Association, an organization here in Missouri with a mission to bring together growers, consumers, gardeners, and other advocates of organic methods.

Our first meeting will be on January 8 at the Whole Foods in Town & Country. I believe it starts at 7 pm but we're firming up the details (reservations will be required since our meeting space is small) and I'll post them as soon as I have them.

Our first speaker will be Molly Rockamann, co-founder of EarthDance, an organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging local farms. Molly will show a short film documenting the historic Mueller Farm, a tiny organic farm just in our backyard, with city limits of Ferguson, MO.

Future talks will include tips on beginning organic gardening, seed-starting, and more!

Take care of the birds

2008-11-23T20:02:00.005-06:00

Birds are an important part of an organic garden. If you have made a commitment to not use chemical sprays to kill bugs, then you can no doubt appreciate the birds that eat insects in your garden. Not only do they provide a valuable service, but the birds are enjoyable to watch and listen to (especially if you have indoor cats!).

It may seem that feeding birdseed would make birds less likely to eat insects, but in reality what you're doing is providing an inviting place for the birds to live. A steady supply of seed will encourage them to nest in your yard because food is plentiful, and most of the birds that are attracted to your feeder eat at least some insects as part of their diet.

If you have large windows in your house, bird strikes may be a big issue. Often the reflection in the window looks like more sky, and when birds fly into the window full force they can get badly hurt, even killed.

Bird splat on one of the back doors

Some birds, like sparrows, are more prone to fly into your windows in spring when they're nesting and feeling particularly territorial. They see their reflection in the window and try to protect their little place in the world.

However, I've had a particularly bad time with doves hitting our windows this fall. I think it has more to do with the position of the sun and the lack of leaves on the trees than anything else: due to the reflections they just plain don't see the glass and think they're flying into blue sky. We have a couple feeders in the tree outside our kitchen window (Cat TV), and as a result we have a LOT of doves.

It got so bad last weekend -- 5 strikes before noon last Saturday -- that we ended up putting large masking tape X's on the kitchen windows in hopes that the tape would break up the reflection and keep them from flying into the windows. Masking tape does work moderately well. After applying the tape, we had one or two doves hit the window over the last week but not nearly at the rate they did before. So this weekend we went looking for a more appealing solution: something tmore effective while at the same time better looking (I'm just glad the kitchen faces the back yard!).

We ended up at WalMart, looking for those tacky beaded curtains. You know, the kind that, back in the old days, used to signal that something very naughty hid just beyond the doorway. I've seen them back in stores in the last couple of years, as pre-teens continue their worship of all things 70's.

We didn't find any beaded curtains (thank goodness, we were spared putting up anything in the color "princess purple" outside our house!), but the lady at the craft department pointed us to some by-the-yard gold garland that had become popular with people taking belly dance lessons (go figure!), but were now on clearance for $1/yard. So we decided to make our own.

I strung a few lengths of the garland on a wire, making a knot above each length to keep them spaced at about 10" apart. I purposely left the length a bit long, so the ends would drag on the ground. Although these will still move a bit in the wind, I want them to be heavy enough to more-or-less stay put.

Here's a photo of the finished project. I hope that the shiny disks will draw the birds' attention long enough for them to figure out there is a house there. If it works, I may try making some more bird-strike-avoiders out of beads.

What type of berry is this?

2008-11-23T19:51:00.003-06:00

For some reason, I thought it was a serviceberry, but I read they fruit pretty early, and the birds will normally get them before the people can.

Ours still have some fruit on the trees, and they make a real mess when they fall on the sidewalk. I don't remember when they began fruiting, sometime mid to late summer I think.

We have two of these trees, multi-trunked and ~15 feet tall.

Praying Mantis on the Back Door

2008-11-23T19:28:00.003-06:00

I was going through my camera pics and found this one from early October.

Quebec herbicide ban violates NAFTA, pesticide maker alleges

2008-10-23T18:11:00.001-05:00

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/10/22/quebec-pesticide.html?ref=rss
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Fuzzy caterpillar

2008-10-04T15:50:00.003-05:00

Had to do a plant walk before heading out shopping and found this guy. Will need to look him up later.

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I just looked it up. He's a Wooley Bear Caterpillar, that will turn into an Isabella Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella).

African Blue Basil

2008-09-21T15:42:00.006-05:00

As was the case last year, our African Blue Basil plant is attracting a crazy number of bees again this summer. Unlike last year, though, we haven't seen a whole lot of honey bees. We've mostly had bumblebees this year, and most of the summer it's been the really big ones. At any given time there are at least half a dozen on the one plant. For a week or so, we also saw some smaller bumblebees, about 1/2 the size of the current residents. I'm not sure if they're a different species or if they're a younger version of the big ones.

UPDATE: I've been looking all over the web trying to figure out what kind of bumblebees we have, and just figured out they're not bumblebees at all: they're carpenter bees. Bumblebees have fuzzy butts, while carpenter bees have a smooth and hairless back-end, like my photo. I knew we had carpenter bees by our deck this spring, but I didn't put two and two together. The web pages I've found indicate that the carpenter bee is a good pollinator, and they do bore into wood as their name suggests. However, they don't usually do serious damage unless generations of them stick around the same location.

Japanese Maples

2008-09-21T15:36:00.002-05:00

We planted a couple more Japanese maples that have been in pots for most of the summer. The red one, 'Bloodgood,' was a housewarming present when we moved in two years ago, and it's been in the ground for awhile.

The one on the left is 'Sango Kaku,' and the small one on the right is an 'Orido-Nishiki' that Doug bought on Ebay.

Eggplant

2008-09-21T15:03:00.006-05:00

I planted a couple of eggplants about a month ago. Today I harvested my first mini-eggplant. I suppose I should have let it get a little bigger but I wanted to get it before something else did! There are several more blooms on the plants so hopefully I'll get some more.

I also got a couple small zucchinis -- they definitely aren't growing as fast now that the weather has turned cooler. I only got a handful of beans -- some of them are plain old bush beans and some are scarlet runner beans. I keep finding little onions that I missed when digging up earlier, and I even found some potatoes that I missed when harvesting several weeks ago. This should make a nice little stir fry.

Here are blooms from the scarlet runner bean (along with little beanlets!) and my bush beans.

Mulching with hay

2008-09-21T14:36:00.005-05:00

I managed to get in several hours in the garden today, and got a lot accomplished. I took lots of pictures so will post a couple different items.

This summer we're trying something different: mulching with straw instead of hardwood mulch or the composted leaves we get from the city pickup mulch pile. It's not the best looking when it's just been put down, but after a few rains it'll looks fine.

Why straw? It seems to be more economical than the hardwood mulch we get in bags at the big box store: one bale will cover as much area as probably 4-5 bags of mulch. We pay a bit too much right now because we don't have a pickup truck. That means we only can get 4 bales in the back of Doug's car, and we end up buying it at a feed store for about $5/bale. If you have a truck and can get enough to make the drive worthwhile, you can find farmers selling straw on Craig's List for as little as $2/bale.

It's not quite as economical as the leaf mulch we get in University City in the spring, but I think it's cleaner. The free mulch comes from leaves the city picks up curbside and piles up to compost all winter. However, I've found enough garbage in that mulch -- pull tabs from cans, plastic bags and other assorted plastic items, cigarette package wrappers, etc. -- that it really makes me wonder exactly what all I am adding to my yard. And who really knows what people spray on their trees.

Here's a view of the same garden area from the driveway. You can't really see the mulch until you're right up by the fence so I don't have to worry about what the neighbors think. :)

Turkey!

2008-09-20T09:41:00.003-05:00

When driving home from work I avoid the highway because it's pretty clogged up that time of day. Winding through one of the suburban neighborhoods on my way home the other day, I had to wait for a turkey to cross the road. Seriously!

I held up traffic a bit as I stopped my car in the middle of the road to snap some pics.

Fairy Ring

2008-08-08T08:51:00.006-05:00

There's a fairy ring growing between my neighbor's driveway and mine. It gets more mushrooms as time passes but I thought I'd get a photo while I'm thinking of it.

Here's a better view, taken after a different rainstorm. Note how lush the grass is in the middle. As the fungus grows, it dies out in the center and decays, feeding the soil.

Dog Vomit Fungus

2008-08-03T12:02:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was a busy day for my camera. While (unsuccessfully) chasing the snake the first time we saw it, I came across some weird-looking fungus that I've seen in my yard before. Since I had the camera for the snake chase, I went ahead and snapped some pics.

This fungus isn't a mushroom, but a slime mold. The name, though disgusting, is very descriptive (I didn't make it up!). More information can be found here, here,and here.

Black Rat Snake

2008-08-03T10:26:00.010-05:00

One of my rules of blogging is to never post something that I'd be afraid for my parents, friends, or employers to see. I'm about to break that rule.

My mother doesn't yet know about this blog. It's bad enough that my little brother ratted me out about the worms in my kitchen. I showed them to my father last time they visited and he thinks it's cool, but I knew it would just ekel my mother. I'm afraid if she sees this photo she'll never come to visit again.

We've seen him before, but this time we got a better look since he was right outside our back door, and I think it's a Black Rat Snake rather than a Black Racer Snake. The main differences are: the Rat Snake is chunkier, shiner, slower, and less aggressive than the Racer. I believe the definitive proof would be if we could see the coloring on his underside, but I don't think either Doug or I are going to ask him to show us.

Zucchini recipes

2008-08-03T09:06:00.010-05:00

I spent about 3 hours cooking last night: two types of zucchini bread, and stuffed zucchini rounds. Everything was experimental, and not everything turned out the way I had hoped (the low-fat raspberry-zucchini bread was particularly disappointing so I won't post a recipe for it). The garlic cheese zucchini bread, however, was excellent! I messed around with a recipe I found here, and it was so easy I didn't even need a mixer.

Garlic Cheese Zucchini Bread

2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup grated zucchini
1 tablespoon grated onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

Beat together the eggs, buttermilk, sugar, and butter. Mix in the salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix in the flour until it's moist (don't over-mix).

Stir the garlic and onion into the zucchini, then fold the zucchini mixture into the batter. Stir in the cheese.

Pour into two 4 x 8 loaf pans, and bake at 350 for ~45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. The top will still be pale, or just slightly golden.

Stuffed zucchini rounds

My next experiment was another stuffed zucchini. I usually make a loose stuffing, browning some meat & onions, then adding to a grain of some sort (brown rice, bulgar, couscous, quinoa or whatever's on hand). This time I decided to go for more of a solid, meatloaf-type filling, and to cut the zucchini into rounds instead of lengthwise to make serving easier.

Consider this more of an idea than a recipe; I can't remember what all I used to spice it. As an afterthought, I added a garlic spice mix that I received in my last Fair Share, and I didn't catch that the mix's top ingredient was salt. Because I had already done some seasoning, the result was way too salty.

1/2 to a whole large zucchini (depending on size)
1 pound ground buffalo (or ground beef)
1 medium onion
1 green pepper
olive oil
chicken broth
1-2 cups cups cooked quinoa, rice, or bulgar
1 egg
1 packet unflavored gelatin
seasoning to taste (use what you would for a meatloaf)
shredded cheddar

From a large zucchini, cut several ~2 inch rounds. Scoop out the center (save what you scoop out), place in a pan with a little chicken broth in the bottom, and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the flesh is soft (not soggy).

Prepare the gelatin per package directions just prior to mixing the stuffing. If you prepare it too far in advance it'll be set up already, but you want it to be liquid.

Sautee the onion and pepper in a little olive oil. Dice the zucchini that was scooped from the rounds, along with any leftover zucchini that wasn't cut into rounds. Sautee with the onion/pepper mix. When stuffing a zucchini, I go ahead and sautee any squash that I have left. If it looks like too much, add to any leftover grain with a little cheese and some seasonings and cook it along with the stuffed zucchini.

Mix the raw ground meat, grains, seasoning, and sauteed vegetables in a large bowl. Add the egg, and add about 3 tablespoons of the prepared gelatin, which will keep the stuffing from drying out while cooking. Stuff the hollowed-out parts of the squash rounds, and form into a semi-circle on top.

Bake at 375 until a meat thermometer inserted into the stuffing reads 155. Start checking temperature after about 40 minutes. If the tops start to look dry, then cover loosely with foil.

Summer Zucchini

2008-08-02T08:20:00.006-05:00

I've had zero success with tomatoes this year. I only planted 4 plants, and they must have been a variety not well-suited to my area; I had a much easier time of it last year. However, with just two zucchini plants -- one in a pot and one in the ground -- I've already had plenty of zucchini. It seems the only way to find the ones big enough for stuffing is to befriend a gardener, or to grow them yourself. The last one I stuffed (I forgot to take pictures!) was so big that I had to cut off the ends to fit it on the cookie sheet!

Here's the plant that makes the giant squash:

Vermicompost (worm compost)

2008-07-07T21:07:00.004-05:00

I wrote this awhile back on my other blog, but am pasting most of it here because it's garden-related. I've been vermicomposting indoors for about two years now, and occasionally someone asks me how to start. So here's how my favorite bin was made:

I started out with two Rubbermaid bins. I have removed the labels long ago so I can't tell you how many gallons they are, but they are approximately 16" x 20" x 9" deep.

I drilled three large holes in each side near the top of one of the bins, and stapled window screen material over the holes. If I had to do it over again I'd bond the screening on using some silicone caulking material. If you do that, make sure you let the caulking cure for awhile (I'd give it a week) until it no longer smells like vinegar.

Punch several holes in the bottom of the same bin that has the other holes so any excess water can drain.

You will end up stacking the bin with the holes on top of the second bin. However, you will probably need to put something in the bottom of the intact bin so they don't nest too tightly together: you don't want to block the screened holes from the first bin. I found a small dish shelf, but you could just as easily line the bottom with a few rocks. Don't make it too heavy or your bin won't be very portable.

Stack the two bins together and lay some screening material in the bottom of the top bin to keep the worms from falling out of the drain holes.

Now it's time to fill up your bin. I used coir (expanded in water to the consistency of a moist sponge) as my main bedding material. I usually keep some of this material around to make potting soil (I hate potting soil with peat moss), so it was handy. I made that initial layer several inches deep, then buried some of my kitchen scraps in it. Don't use meat or dairy, but fruit & vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, etc. are ok. I also added a little bit (~1/2 a trowel full) of compost from my pile outside to help the kitchen scraps break down more easily. Add some water until the coir is damp: worms need moisture to survive. Then dump your worms on top. I used 500 red wigglers I bought from a bait shop. If they have two different types of red wigglers, get the small ones: they are cheaper, and they are supposed to be better for composting.

I shredded some newspaper on top of the coir, and sprayed it with water. That seems to keep the coir from drying out too fast, and it's more material for the worms to work on. You may want to keep the lid off for a couple hours in a brighly lit room to make sure the worms dig down into the coir instead of trying to crawl out of the bin. They seem to get confused when they're first put in there, and if the bin is in the dark right away they are just as likely to crawl up the side of the container -- or out the screened holes -- as they are to dig down. Once they made it into the coir I haven't had any problems with escapees.

How much do you feed your worms? I have yet to measure anything so I can't give you a precise answer. You want to make sure whatever you add can be buried within your bedding material because you don't want to stink up the place or overwhelm the worms. I've been checking the bin every few days and if what I put there before has been mostly broken down then I'll add a little more.

Getting the bin cat-scanned is optional -- for the worms. Maybe not for the cat.

Natural Pest Control -- Slithery Edition

2008-07-07T20:07:00.007-05:00

The moles (voles?) have been taking a toll on our lawn this year. Strange patterns are written all over in dead grass, where their tunnels have disturbed the roots enough to kill it. Since we're organic, we won't poison them. We don't like killing things anyway, which makes them hard to control.

Yesterday I found out that help is already on its way.

"Help," in this case, is in the form of a 3 to 4 foot long black snake. I didn't get a good enough look for positive identification. It's either a black rat snake or a black racer. In my book, a snake that size is "giant," especially when I almost stepped on him, and of course my first reaction was to scream. His response was to vibrate his tail really fast, mimicking a rattler (I've since read that is pretty common among non-venomous snakes). My second reaction was to bang frantically on the back door until my husband came out. I needed him out there not to protect me, but to keep an eye on where the snake went while I ran for my camera. The slithery one is living in a hole in the flower bed next to my kitchen window, and unfortunately was most of the way home before I had a chance to snap the pic.

When we bought this house a year and a half ago, the yard was beautifully kept but, like most suburban yards, it seemed so.... sterile. We didn't even have that many squirrels last summer. Not that we need a lot of squirrels! But with our previous yard we just grew used to having all sorts of animals around (eventually I even came face to face with the coyote that was sleeping in my compost pile!) and it made the view out the back window much more interesting.

In the time we've been here, though, we've been seeing steadily more wildlife, thanks no doubt to the bird feeders and the lack of poisons. In addition to the snake, another newcomer is a chipmunk we spotted this weekend on our back porch. In addition to the chipmunk and snake, here are the other creatures we've encountered out back:
- Lots of birds, most are common ones (sparrows, robbins, finches, starlings, etc.)
- Woodpeckers: downy and flicker
- An unidentified hawk or two
- An occasional owl passer-by (never to be seen, only heard)
- Raccoon
- Squirrels
- Rabbits (although none in the back yard this year... maybe because of the snake)
- Moles (or voles... I don't know how to tell the difference)
- Mice

Some of the critters are pests, but once you make your yard inviting to urban wildlife, you don't exactly get to choose which wildlife must remain on the other side of the fence. So we take the "bad" with the good. And it's always interesting to see what nature sends around when the "bad" starts to get out of hand.

Fool-proof Produce

2008-06-15T20:53:00.004-05:00

If you are a beginning gardener and you want to grow vegetables, I recommend trying lettuce and zucchini. Both are easy to grow here in the St. Louis area, and neither one requires a huge investment in time or energy.

It's too late in the season to plant any more lettuce: I just harvested the last of the crop I planted last winter. Although technically I think you're supposed to wait until later in the winter, I planted leaf lettuce seeds in February and they did just fine, even though we had plenty of cold and snow. Once the seedlings came up, I fed them every couple of weeks with alfalfa meal and tried to keep the clover out of the bed. Other than that, not much maintenance is required. If you plant from seed, don't worry about neat little rows: when it's time to thin the lettuce you can eat the little plants you pull up.

Last year my first zucchinis ended up rotting on the vine (has to do with uneven watering and weird weather conditions), but the second round was pretty prolific. However, the continuous moisture this year means that the first round of flowers on my plants are actually producing fruit. I have two plants I got from a nursery and put in the ground two weeks ago, and each one already has a small zucchini. Several other flowers are blooming right now, so the females should turn into fruit this week as well.

I have been feeding my zucchini with alfalfa meal for the nitrogen, and Jamaican bat guano (available at Worm's Way) for the phosphorus. Phosphorus is necessary for good flower and fruit production. I don't feed on a particular schedule: just whenever I think about it, every other weekend or so. They are extremely prolific, and two plants should end up providing plenty of zucchini for two people for the whole summer.

Bad Brassicas

2008-05-18T16:55:00.005-05:00

Earlier this spring I planted broccoli, along with a bunch of other brassicas (stuff related to cabbage). Although little heads started to form, they got leggy and tall and went to seed before ever really developing.

Along with my skinny, flowering broccoli I planted cauliflower -- which hasn't formed any heads yet -- and cabbage, which is still a collection of loose leaves. My Brussels sprouts have also yet to show anything more than a few loose leaves, although I'm pretty sure that my husband has been beaming bad thoughts to the Brussels sprouts every time he's outside, so maybe it's working. ;)

I haven't grown most of these plants before so I thought it was something I did wrong, but I was at a gardening class yesterday and found others who are in the same boat. We speculate that the weather this spring may be the culprit. I don't know if the amount of water was a problem, or maybe it was the lack of sunshine. Other than the lack of vegetables, the plants seem to be pretty happy so I guess I'll just wait and see if they do anything before the weather turns too hot.

Happy Earth Day

2008-04-21T00:47:00.004-05:00

St. Louis has a big Earth Day Festival each year, but we missed it today. The weather was just too nice not to spend it in our own yard. Doug raked acorns and de-thatched* the front yard, while I started on a wine bottle border for one of our garden beds. I managed to get all of my food plants fed and mulched today as well, so I feel I've accomplished something.

In early spring, just before the first time you mow, you may notice a lot of little purple violets in your yard. It blows my mind that so many people think of them as weeds: I think they're beautiful. The leaves and flowers are also edible (provided you do not use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides on your lawn). They taste mild, like a lettuce, and they make for a beautiful salad!

As with most plants, violets seem to look fresher if you pick them in the morning. If you're not going to eat them right away, place them in a bowl and cover with cold water. They'll keep that way for hours, maybe longer but I've never tried. I use a "Salad Spinner" to dry them before use. That's all the prep you need: even the flower stems are edible.

* When you've been organic for awhile, you shouln't have to de-thatch your lawn. However, we're in transition since we have only been here 18 months, and the lawn has suffered from years of high fertilization and short mowing: a perfect recipe for thatch.

Fabulous Weekend!

2008-04-07T06:56:00.002-05:00

The calendar says spring started weeks ago, but this was really the first weekend of spring in the St. Louis area. We had two perfect days (60's & 70's), and trees everywhere are in bloom!

The nurseries are starting to get a better selection of plants, so I picked up a columbine, a calla, and a few gerber daisies to fill in some areas of the yard. I planted brussels sprouts, garlic, cauliflower, and onions in a bed that my husband double-dug for me a few weeks ago. I don't know how I'm going to line the raised bed (wood? bricks? bottles?) or what its final shape will be, so instead of letting it sit there while I make up my mind, I just planted it. Most of the veggies in there will be through by mid-summer so I can deal with how the bed should look then. At least it no longer looks like a grave!

Other beds got cabbage, broccoli and lettuce. Some spinach that I planted in the fall and gave up on seemed to spring up overnight, and we ended up eating two bunches of it with dinner yesterday. A bunch of the vegetable transplants ended up in flower beds. I love mixing flowers and veggies!

I also made some progress on planning for the garden club. No details yet, but it looks like things may get off the ground in July.

Images for bloggers

2008-03-23T11:25:00.004-05:00

I came across this site while reading a web analytics (that's my day job) blog, and thought I'd try it out. The site is called PicApp (www.picapp.com), and it provides legal copyrighted photos for use on blog sites, in exchange for some advertising embedded in the photos. They do have some gardening photos so I thought I'd give it a try.

My disclaimer is that I have no control over what they advertise, so obviously I don't endorse anything you might see in the ad.

Worms!

2008-03-05T07:08:00.004-06:00

Last weekend's near-80-degree weather is just a distant memory with our 10+ inches of snow outside. This winter -- our third in St. Louis -- has by far been the coldest and snowiest.

I vermicompost in my kitchen, and last summer I also started an in-ground worm bin outside. Before winter, I piled 3-4 feet of shredded oak leaves on top of the bin with the hope that it would provide some insulation: prior winters weren't all that cold, at least not for any extended period of time. I was pleasantly surprised last weekend to discover that not only have the worms survived this cold winter so far, but they appear to have thrived!

After yesterday's snowfall, I'm probably more concerned about flooding them out when it melts than I am about the cold, since the snow provides a lot of insulation and it's not the bitter cold we had earlier.

Copyrights on Seeds

2008-02-02T08:55:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting (and scary) post on Techdirt about another way that big agribusiness is trying to push small farmers out of business.

Transitioning your lawn to organic

2007-09-13T06:52:00.003-05:00

The prior owner of our house had one of those trophy lawns... you know the type. "Perfect," green, short, high-maintenance, and high chemical input. We've even had neighbors tell us how much they were impressed with the prior owner's lawn. If you live in a house with one of those "perfect" lawns, it'll probably take a little longer to get it looking good organically: your lawn is like a drug addict, and it'll take awhile from it to recover from its high-nitrogen, frequent-watering ways.

Compost quick-start to an organic lawn

How much you fuss with your yard -- and how quickly you can get it into good, organic shape -- depends in part on how large your yard is. We used this method on our 1/2 acre yard in Texas and, although it was a lot of work (and required a *lot* of compost), the lawn looked fantastic even when it was in transition from chemical to organic. We have close to an acre now, so I expect it'll take a lot longer (or require a lot more work) before our lawn recovers.

Materials:

A garden fork (like a pitchfork, but with thicker tines).
Good-quality compost; I don't know if cotton burr compost is available around here, but that's what we've used in the past. Mushroom compost is also good. Look at nurseries instead of home improvement stores, and steer clear of the composted cow manure that you get in the big box stores: it's too heavy and muddy, and the quality varies too much.
Rake.
Water hose or sprinkler.

Stick the lawn fork in the grass and rock it gently back and forth to open up some holes. Repeat every few feet in the yard. This is going to accomplish several things:

If your lawn has thatch, this is going to open up spaces in the thatch layer to allow water and nutrients to reach the soil.
It aerates the soil: oxygen is important for good plant growth.
It allows the compost to be applied further down to the soil where it's needed.

Next, sprinkle compost over your lawn. How much should you use? Even a little will help, but ideally you'd like enough to provide a 1/2-inch or so over the entire yard. Rake it in to work the compost down into the holes you just created with the garden fork, and to fluff up the grass so it doesn't get smothered under the compost.

Water it in. This step is optional, to get your grass looking better faster. Compost does not burn your lawn and you shouldn't have applied enough to smother the grass, so if you choose to wait for the next rain that's ok.

Maintenance

Whether or not you choose to start with compost, you can still maintain your yard without synthetics. The secret is to mow regularly, and keep your mower on the highest height setting. Longer leaves on the grass allow for deeper roots, which are more resistant to our summer dry spells. Mowing regularly also helps to keep weeds under control. If you need to water, water deeply (at least 1-2 inches) but not often -- maybe once/week during a dry part of summer. This also encourages deeper root growth.

Don't think "fertilization" . . . think "food". There are companies that make prepackaged organic lawn amendments, but you can't find any you can start in the feed store. We use cotton seed meal on our yard since that's something we've been able to find here in the St. Louis area. Alfalfa meal, coffee grounds, Mexican bat guano, or other amendments can also be used to provide nitrogen to your lawn. In the spirit of "food" not "drugs", I prefer to alternate amendments instead of using the same thing over and over. Most organic amendments won't burn if you use a lot or are not watered in, but be careful with bat guano because it's stronger and can burn if you use too much. As with any fine powder, wear a mask to avoid breathing it in.

You do not have to be careful about application rates when applying organic amendments since most don't burn, but a good rule of thumb is 25 pounds per 1000 square feet. This means that a 40-pound bag will cover 1600 square feet. Different amendments have different recommended application rates, but they all have a pretty wide range. You can find a fertilizer calculator here if you want to be more precise.

"Weeds" are an interesting subject for an organic homeowner. Nature always seems to thrive best with diversity, while monocultures invite pests and diseases. If you're going after a monoculture lawn (the traditional "perfect" one), you're probably not going to have the healthiest one. Mowing high and hand-pulling the worst of the weeds is often all that is required.

Corn gluten meal can be used to keep the weed population in check. Corn gluten meal works by preventing seed germination, so obviously it won't work on weeds that spread through other methods. In order to get the benefit from this product, you need to apply it at the right time, which is just as it's getting warm enough for weed seeds to germinate. If weeds are already growing in your yard then it's probably too late. It also takes a couple years of applying each spring before you'll see full benefit, since it doesn't eliminate 100% of weeds. Corn gluten meal is also a pretty decent fertilizer so even if you didn't get the timing right for the weeds you'll still get the benefit of the nutrients. If you can find an inexpensive source of corn gluten meal (perhaps at feed stores) then it's a low-risk thing to try, but if you can only find expensive prepackaged sources then the payoff might not be worth it.

Does this really work?

We rented a house for a year after we moved here, while we figured out where we wanted to buy. It was in a neighborhood full of well-maintained (but not organic) lawns: most people paid a service to mow & fertilize, and those that didn't housed guys who faithfully rode the lawnmower every Saturday morning. Our house sat vacant for a while before we rented, so although the yard was mowed regularly it obviously wasn't fussed with very much. The summer before we moved, imagine my husband's pride when the next door neighbor -- one of the faithful Saturday morning mowers -- asked my husband what was his secret, since our lawn always looked so good, especially considering that we rented!

We'll have more challenges with the new house, I suspect. Instead of the pretty green grass (I don't even know what type) we find in the shady areas, we have zoysia -- and drug-addicted zoysia at that -- all over the sunny parts of the yard. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Skippers

2007-09-12T07:17:00.001-05:00

I guess I'm not a very good lepidopterist. I didn't realize that, in addition to butterflies and moths, there is a third family of lepidoptera called skippers. I found this out while trying to identify this "butterfly" on my African Blue Basil plant.

One way to tell the difference is with the antennae. Butterflies' are clubbed, skippers' are hooked, and moths' are often ferny. If you click on the photo to enlarge you can see the hooks on this guy's antennae.

The skipper's wings also remind me of a paper airplane, or maybe nature's version of the FA-18.

Bees (and other pollinators) on African Basil Plant

2007-09-12T07:10:00.002-05:00

I planted one 4" pot of African Basil this spring, and it has been the most prolific bee-attractor I've ever seen, with a dozen honeybees and half a dozen bumblebees dancing around at any given time. Here are a few photos I took at the end of August.

Bee fly:

Robber fly:

Organic Gardeners in St. Louis?

2007-09-05T18:39:00.000-05:00

One of our first weekends in St. Louis, I went to MOBOT to see if they knew of any organic garden clubs in the area. They looked at me as though I were from another planet (pretty sure Texas isn't another planet, although sometimes it seemed like it!). There were clubs for people who love African violets, hostas, orchids, ferns, and any number of other plants, but nothing for people who just don't want to dump poison on their lawn.

In the year+ that I've been here, it's been a constant challenge to find natural soil amendments. I know of several places where you can get packaged organic amendments, but they are pretty expensive and are shipped in from the far corners of the country. But at least they're available. Surprisingly, the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, where I moved from, had several organic nurseries (yes! entire nurseries!), stocked with bags and bags of locally-produced (well, maybe as far away as the Hill Country) soil amendments by great little brands like Rabbit Hill Farm and Lady Bug Brands. That's one thing I really miss.

My Texas yard was shady and, of course, it was Texas. That was at least a full hardiness zone warmer than here, and the summers could be so dry that you wouldn't see rain for months. So I'm learning to garden all over again. I hope to post as I learn so hopefully others will get interested in tending their yard organically (and of course, so I don't forget what I learned!).