Sustainability

I've been so super-duper excited about my garden that I've gone a little overboard on the internet research. But alas, all that knowledge will hopefully turn itself into useful know-how and I'll have myself a lovely little garden patch, cute as can be. In my travels across this world-wide web, I've discovered that on top of the absolute joy it's going to be to have my own small, containered garden to eat from, I can also (ALSO!) make my own fertilizer. Well, duh. People (hippies, pioneers, the ancients) have been doing this for years. It's nothing new. It's gonna put a hurtin' on the money I would have spent on Miracle Gro, but they're a big company; they'll get over it. Anyway, I plan to start moving my little plants from their tiny homes in the starter pots to new digs in larger pots this weekend (they'll be movin' on up to the East Side soon enough - well, as soon as they're large enough to warrant my big containers). That is, if the sun ever decides to rejoin the land of the living. It's been MIA for quite a while now. If the sun does, in fact, grace us with it's lovely shiny face, my little herbs and veggies will be snug as a bug and making my deck look so much less dreary. Project number two on the agenda is to make a composter. I have Have HAVE to do this, ASAP, because I've already started a little tiny bin in my kitchen to hold onto food scraps, etc. So, that's just gonna get gross if I don't do something with it. For those of you that are not aware of how silly easy it is to make a composter for home (albeit, one for a small garden like mine will be) here's the low down: I have a big rubbermaid storage container (it needs to be larger than 18 gallons, which this one is) with a lid. I'm going to drill lots of little holes all over, around and under this container so that my compost can breathe. Yes, it needs to do that. Then I'm going to lay in some dried leaves from my neighbor's backyard (thanks neighbor!), some shredded up newspapers and some of the stray puppy hair tumbleweeds floating around my house thanks to an early shedding this season (I realize this is gross, but I'll explain momentarily) and top it off with my starter concoction of random food bits. I've got the woody ends of asparagus all chopped up tiny, the inards of bell peppers, coffee grounds, the back end of a broccoli stalk minced to smithereens and some potato peels all ready to go. See, there's actually a science to this, and since I didn't do as well in science as say ... everyone else ... I'm not gonna pretend I know what it all means. But I do know you need a good mix of "green" (the "living" stuff - kitchen waste that doesn't include dairy or meat) and "brown" stuff (those leaves, the dog hair and all that newspaper) because the brown gives off nitrogen and the green gives off carbon and when they get together it's a love story like you've never seen before. I mean, it gets HOT, and a little stinky, but then it cools down again and the smell goes away. What I've learned is that once I have all those breathing holes drilled into my container, the brown and the green mixed in, and the lid on tight, all I've gotta do is give that bad boy a good shake a few times a week to keep things moving and airy and pretty soon (4-6 weeks) it'll all break down and create soil. Like, gourmet soil. Like I've just gone ahead and bought kobe beef and lobster for my plants. Sprinkling the garden with all that yummy dirt will be like that time I was treated for dehydration and the docs pumped me full of saline - woke me right up! In addition to the solid soil, I'll be able to make a fun little fertilizer for my lawn too - a shovelful of the good stuff dumped into a 5-gallon bucket, filled with water and steeped overnight. Raining that over my grass will make it green green green! And boy could it use a little color after this winter. Blech. Needless to say, I'm excited. I'll post pictures of my little ones after I've got the system up and running. Can't wait to be munching on my homegrown veggies in a few weeks! If you want to learn more about sustainability, you can find loads of info online. Happy Eating!