Wednesday, 20 March 2024
at home
I was surprised by dry weather and thought I’d have time to finish emptying compost bin two:
As I sifted, I had the same brooding thoughts as yesterday:
Working less means I will acquire fewer compost makings. Also, I have lost my source of bunny poo. (I don’t mean a bunny died, just that we no longer have access to its valuable product!) And I am not sure if I can get more raw wool. I only have three big bags left. WHERE am I going to get enough good compost makings?
The wool and bunny poo bring more worms than I’ve ever seen. The worm population explosion might also be from putting partly decomposed kitchen compost down deep in the bins.
While sifting, I try to retrieve as many worms as I can and return them to the compost bins. I read somewhere that compost worms don’t survive in the garden.
At the bottom of the bin:
I remember a dream I had as a child in which I was a worm happily living with a worm clan in my grandma’s compost pile in a tangle just like that.
I would like to find someone with a bunny, but no garden, on the southern part of the Long Beach Peninsula from whom I could get bunny poo without too much human social interaction…or someone with chickens. I would happily clean out a coop now and then to get some chicken poo. I could get endless horse manure from the Red Barn but have found it introduces too many weeds. Washed dairy manure (it gets washed into a pit when a dairy barn is cleaned) would be ideal, and I would love to buy some but don’t know a handy source.
Bin two, empty:
Allan’s photo of the compost and potting area from the roof:
Another potting area on east side of house:
And Allan’s garden:
I got this much roughly sifted compost from bin two.
I did some weeding in the bogsy wood and in the centre bed and just a bit here and there as I walked along admiring the garden.
Lots of pink catkins on the Red Majestic contorted filbert (Corylus avellana ‘Red Majestic’).
Lots of narcissi, my favourite flower:
Primulas:
Allan helped me by moving a box from a stump in the wayback sit spot (where I replaced the box with rusty bits…he was too fast for me to get a before photo with the box still on the stump on the lower left)…
…and the box is now on one of the rickety blue wooden chairs so no one will sit on them.
Here comes Spotty Dotty! I am relieved that she is fine, because last year I moved her.
In the willow grove, I was thrilled to see two different Cardiocrinum giganteum coming back. Not so thrilled to see the oxalis, which snuck in on something else.
A big alder branch came down near the flowering currant, which has been blooming for weeks.
Skooter walked with me and purred underfoot while I weeded.
The deep path water is falling.
I got four full buckets of weeds, including lots of lesser celandine (yay, me!), which goes into the wheelie bin.
The garden at four P.M., just before the temperature dropped and the rain came.
The garden from the roof:
I still am pondering the refinement of the paths.
I hope for some reading weather, because I’m over my head with the last batch of library books with gardening season here.
Lower left two are A Garden in the Hills and A Croft in the Hills, which I own, so no pressure. I will read George Orwell’s letters but may send James Herriot and Flannery O’Connor back and get them another time.
These two just arrived today, a Bill Bryson both Allan and I somehow missed, and three novels by Orwell in very tiny print.
Faerie and Zinc had their usual day.
Hair is a great source of nitrogen. Maybe a dog groomer would be a good source.
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You read my mind. I have been in touch with a local dog groomer, but she is about a half hour drive away, and that use of gas does not feel justifiable unless we were going up there anyway and I can’t expect her to keep bags of fur around just to satisfy my compost needs. 🙂 It is a possibility for spontaneous pick up, though. I also wondered about human hair, but I think the local salon patrons might be creeped out if they got wind that their clippings were going into my compost…plus even if I could get it, what about hair that has been dyed and permed?
I am saving all twigs in a special bin to be run through the rather annoyingly slow shredder so that will make some more compost stuff eventually.
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Just after I replied to this, I found out the dog groomer in question is, sadly, having to close her grooming business for health reasons of her own. I will miss the cute photos she used to post of her clients.
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Faierie and Zinc are pretty sweet together.
I don’t know how you will get all same amount of raw compost makings, but I feel sure you have lots of connections that will play out somehow for you. I would think that your large garden alone would provide you with bins of compost makings.
Ben and I are trying to work out how we will deal with all the green waste from our new residence with only biweekly pickup now. We’re used to filling our green bin weekly in PDX (and by “wheelie bin” I’m guessing you mean your municipal green waste pickup.) I know you’d say build compost bins! 😁
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These are some of the things I do to add to my compost. In the fall I gather all the leaves I can from a large neighbourhood park and store in bags just to alternate through the year in my bins.
I also add grass clippings. I know you leave yours on the lawn, but Allan mows your neighbours lawns. Can these be gathered for your bins, instead of left?
Seaweed. If you are allowed to collect.
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I need a rollator with big wheels so I can go on the beach to collect seaweed. Not sure what the rules are on it…
My neighboring lawns have too many weeds: celandine, bindweed, sorrel…
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I was bit surprised that you can’t get enough material out of your own garden, but then I realised that we can’t either.
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I had a bad experience with using horse manure in my garden due to the medication horses get to prevent intestinal worms. All the worms in my garden died that year 😔
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Thank you for reminding me of that. It is another reason (in the back recesses of my mind) that I don’t use horse manure. My main source would be the big pile at the Red Barn where I am pretty sure horses are dewormed.
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