Stressed Out

Well . . . my garden is showing stress. The tomatoes and peppers are hanging in there, but looking rather scraggly. My cucumber is still producing, but not as vigorously. My squashes still aren’t squashing and my eggplants have quit blooming. I read on Mother Earth News that once temperatures get above 86, a lot of summer veggies shut down. They recommend creating shade for hot gardens. I guess that is my next step . . .

On the plus side, my okras are still doing well and so are the peanuts. The Swiss chard is still producing in spite of the heat (and this week is predicted to be a bit cooler than normal, so we are getting a break!). I have a baby watermelon in the works and think it may be time to harvest my potatoes.

As for my worm bin, lately I have been adding household waste that is cut in small pieces anyway – vegetable and fruit peelings or trimmings (ie strawberry hulls, peach bruises, eggplant peels). That eliminates putting garbage in the freezer and then thawing it. Always good to eliminate steps. The bigger pieces (ie banana peels) go into the compost bin. I’ve also been adding my cardboard egg cartons to the worm bin. When I’ve finished with an egg carton, I wet it thoroughly, tear it into bits, then throw it on top of the worm food. It seems to be adding more bulk while keeping down unwanted visitors (ie fruit flies, etc).

Now for the weekly roundup:

1. Plant something – more okra and ginger, a confederate rose cutting and red kidney beans (from the pantry)

2. Harvest something – tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant, herbs

3. Preserve something – ummm

4. Reduce waste – I bought a sheer curtain at the local big box store and made it into bags to use when I buy produce so that I don’t have to use those plastic bags. And while this news is a couple of weeks out of date, I did make an art quilt from scraps in my scrap bag – and took second place in our guild’s challenge!

My husband recycled the neighbor’s trimmings from their palm trees and made a ‘roof’ over our bar. And lastly, at my mother’s suggestion, we turned the thermostat up another degree. It’s now set at 81 and I’m thinking we could take it to 82 without noticing much difference. If we set it too high, the humidity in the house builds up and we start having problems with our appliances.

5. Preparation and Storage – I pulled out my crochet hooks and yarn and have been practicing a bit. It’s been a long time since I crocheted. However, with the house as warm as it is, the yarn tends to stick to my fingers – which affects the tension. So, I’m putting it on hold until cooler weather. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to look at properties on the internet and to hint that this might not be the best place to hang our hats long term. Not working very well. Hmmm.

6. Build Community Food Systems – I blog (on occasion). I bought multiple copies of What’s the Worst that Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate to give as gifts (that may not seem like building community food systems, but as climate change is related to food production, I’m including it!)

7. Eat the Food – mostly soups and salads. The peppers went into a chicken and rice dish from a Rachel Ray cookbook.

Time Marches On

I have been so busy of late that I haven’t had much time for homesteading activities. That will need to change in the near future or my whole experiment in more sustainable living will be a wipe-out! Ah, life, it does catch up with the procrastinator!

I did want to post a short update on the worm bin. My worms are quite happy and still odor-free. I have been freezing their food in a little baggie, then thawing and adding it to the bin. They seem to like it much better than the raw, whole stuff I was giving them originally. I still have more food scraps than my worms can eat, but I recently read about another method of enriching planting beds that could make use of my partially decomposed compost from the tumbling bin. It’s called lasagna gardening. More on it later.

The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out . . .

I’ve discovered another composting tactic: worms! With a worm bin, I can enlist hundreds of worms to do my composting for me! I found several ideas for make-it-yourself worm bins on the internet, but I decided to go with the more attractive, expensive model with the spigot for worm tea (hey, I had a coupon for money off!) Rather glad I did. I had read that worm bins can be set up inside or out, but come to find out that outside means out of direct sun, out of wind, out of rain, and ideally between 40 and 80 degrees. If I had a garage, that might have worked, but we have a carport, so the worm bin is in my kitchen and now part of my decor.

Word of advice: don’t order your worms and worm bin on the same day from different catalogs just so you can use two different coupons. Wait until your worm bin arrives or you may have worms and nowhere to put them. Voice of experience. Also, be prepared with newspaper. If, like me, you get your news on the internet to save trees and money, you may have to rely on your, uh, less environmentally conscious neighbors. Or do what I did and help yourself to a big stack of the freebies at the grocery store. The instructions also called for adding some finished compost to the bedding. Thanks to my tumbler, I had the compost. Other people might not have such easy access.

It all worked out, though. I now have worms living happily in a corner of my kitchen. If there is any smell, I haven’t noticed. They are hard at work eating my garbage, but not all of it. I still have garbage left over that is going into the tumbling composter (dang! I was planning on letting that compost finish its thing and now I have it working again!) The one problem I have with my worms is that they’re too picky. They like their food cut into small pieces (have you ever tried convincing your significant other that he should cut his banana peel into little pieces for the sake of worms?) Second option is to cook the garbage in the microwave to soften it up. But I’m trying to avoid using any extra energy, so that doesn’t seem to be such a good option, either. Third option is to freeze the garbage and then let it thaw. I may try that. So far, the worms have been getting their banana peels fresh and whole, but they haven’t been making great headway, either. Guess I do need to give them a helping hand.

[More information on vermicomposting. With a hat tip to Sharon Astyx for the link]

So far, so good. . . I rather like lifting the lid to the worm bin and seeing all those little red bodies hard at work. Rather like having an army of slaves!