Sunday, April 15, 2012

Gardens and compost

Saturday I went to a workshop hosted by Gardens from Garbage, a local Great Falls group that does some cool stuff.

The workshop (or at least the part I attended) focused on gardening and composting. I left and got straight to work on my garden and my first attempt at composting.

The first contents of my compost bin

The composting technique I learned about is called cold composting and it sounds so much easier than regular composting. Basically you put your food scraps in a 5-gallon bucket, add some enzymes, let the enzymes do their work and then bury the scraps in the garden. (Here are more detailed instructions from Gardens from Garbage).

Bokashi is wheat germ and enzymes that helps compost break down

I made a cozy home under my kitchen sink for my 5-gallon bucket. So far I've only composted a couple banana peels, some coffee grounds and an onion skin, but at least it's a start. And hopefully come garden time I'll have some nutrient-rich compost to add to my vegetable garden.

The beginning of my vegetable garden

Speaking of my vegetable garden, I got started on that this weekend too. I planted some tomatoes, peppers, and winter and summer squash in starter containers in the house. I've never started plants from seeds (I've never really done much gardening at all before) and I'm curious to see how it will go. I've been checking my seeds pretty much every few hours to see if any little sprouts have appeared above the dirt. Hopefully that watched-pot concept doesn't apply to plants.

Just in case that wasn't quite enough, I also today arranged with some friends to go in on a community-supported agriculture share, so this summer I should have plenty of fresh vegetables to enjoy. (Even if my garden is a complete flop, which is a very real possibility).

Future tomatoes, peppers and squash

1 comment:

  1. I just learned of Bokashi from a Swedish blog I follow and was looking for a source in the US. Glad to have come across your post!

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