Posted on

Drying Out My Wet Compost Bin

It’s been about a week since I started a worm compost bin in my kitchen.

When I checked in on it, the newspaper was very damp and there weren’t many worms in sight. I dug some more and finally found some worms, but they weren’t very lively at all.

Not to point fingers (but I will), my roommate threw in some coffee grinds in there without adding additional newspaper to dry it out.

The result seems to be a worm bin that is too wet. It’s not leaking or runny and there is no smell though, which is a plus.

All didn’t seem lost. The worms seemed like they could be revived. I even saw some baby worms poking around.

I think the bin could definitely be saved by adding additional dry newspaper to dry it out. I dug down to the bottom of the bin and added a layer of newspaper, then scattered more dry bedding throughout.

After I shot the video, I also separated out the piles into two bins to allow more room for air circulation.

I’m going to be away for two weeks, doing some urban gardening workshops in LA, and hope that I return to a dry and healthy bin. If not, I’ll have to start another when I return.

Do you think the bin has a chance at being revived?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg_Gv603y2o

Posted on

Housecleaning On My Fire Escape Garden

There were two of the hanging soda bottle planters that I took down from my fire escape garden.

The first one that I removed was because one side of the rope snapped and it was dangling by one side. So I removed it for safety reasons. I didn’t want another soda bottle falling like one did when I did my fall planting. Safety first.

The other that was removed was the bottle with the basil. It was apparent weeks ago, when I realized that basil isn’t a cold weather herb, but I was holding on to the fleeting thought that it would revive.

After the bottles were removed, I dumped them into my indoor compost bin where it will eventually make it’s way back out to the garden again.

Gotta keep the fire escape as clear and safe as possible.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6iz8ANK7w

Posted on

My Cauliflower Plant is Starting to Head

One of my cauliflower plants is finally starting to head. A few weeks ago, I gave my thoughts on growing cauliflower in containers.

I received varied responses as to why they weren’t heading – the weather, not enough nutrients, too many plants in one container and more.

Not sure what to do, I let the plants be and didn’t do much to mess with them. Sure enough a little over a month later, one of the plants is starting to head. I’m going to continue to keep the container as is.

It wasn’t the first time that I received a boatload of different answers to help with some my problems. The responses from everyone are much appreciated.

This is why I keep saying that you should just start your own garden. What happens in my garden may or may not happen in your garden. We each experience things differently.

What’s stop you from starting your own garden and getting that first hand experience?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmTAnWxrCk0

Posted on

Should’ve Built A Larger Greenhouse For My Backyard Vegetable Garden

Last week, I realized that there was a support problem with the small plastic greenhouses in my backyard vegetable garden. The water was gathering in the plastic causing it to fall and crush the plants.

This week the problems continue with them in Brooklyn. One of the plastic covers blew completely off and another slipped off a bit.

I think there are a few things going wrong with them. The most obvious one is that the rope is loosening up during the week, which is allowing the plastic covering to come off.

For the backyard vegetable garden, I definitely should’ve built something larger like possibly this hoop house that Andrew Odom built out of nearly all recycled materials.

This project was just another result of me being lazy and rushing through things. I definitely should’ve taken the time and built something more sturdy and well…better. Plus I’m only at my Grandmother’s 2-3 times a week, so I can’t check on it daily.

With that being said, the small plastic greenhouse on my fire escape is great. That one I’m able to tend to everyday and have a more secure rope around it.

One thing is for certain, I’m going to stop being lazy when it comes to this stuff. I hope all of you to start holding me accountable.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKijP_aGAD8

Posted on

When Do You Plant Cucumbers?

When do you plant cucumber plants? Not in July. I can tell you that much.

Now that the cold weather has come around and it’s dropped into the 40s some nights, the cucumber plant is sad looking. I’m hoping that the two small pieces of fruit on it will grow some more, but I’ll have to wait and see.

Next year, I’ll definitely get the cucumber planted much earlier in the season.

Here’s what happened this year and why I planted it so late – I killed the first one and took too long to get the next one planted. No excuse except laziness.

The second one was growing nicely. It got to be so big that I had to move it across the backyard closer to allow it to climb up the fence.

A week or so later I was able to harvest my first cucumbers.

The downfall of the plant could’ve been a month ago when the leaves started to yellow. At the time I wasn’t concerned because they were still bearing fruit and blossoming, but that’s recently changed with the weather.

There are still small pieces of fruit on the tree that I’m hoping will grow to be larger, but the important lesson is to get the damned cucumber planted earlier in the season.

When do you usually get yours planted? When do you start your seeds?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSG8KrvOoXE

Posted on

Starting A Worm Compost Bin In My Kitchen

I finally manned up and started the worm compost bin in my kitchen. It’s filled with newspaper, red worms and my food scraps.

I’m hoping that in doing this that I’ll be able to use more of my food scraps. I haven’t been able to add too many of my scraps to the aerobic compost bin that I have set up because it’s too small.

My hesitation in setting up the worm bin is putting in too much food and having the stink that I did back in the spring. I plan on taking it slow at first and see how the worms handle the food.

Do you have any horror stories in starting your worm bins?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc5YhXauujI

Posted on

Support Probelm with my Small Plastic Greenhouses

I set up the small plastic greenhouses last week on my fire escape and backyard vegetable gardens.

When I had set them up on my fire escape, I tied some strings up at the top to support the weight of the plastic and debris that fell on it. I didn’t do the same with the ones in the backyard.

So after a few days of rain and me not being there to drain off the water, the weight of the water fell onto the plants causing them to flatten out a bit.

There is no excuse for that happening except my laziness. I drained the water off the plastic, removed the containers and had to prop the plants back up. I’m hoping that it didn’t cause too much damage.

Now I have to set up some reinforcements on the greenhouses so that they can support some weight.

I don’t think the small plastic greenhouse is a failure. It’s just still a work in progress.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6KsfcJptqE

Posted on

What To Do After Harvesting Your Vegetables

Last month, I planted kale and lettuce in the container that I harvested my celery from. At the time, I wasn’t sure if the the kale and lettuces would grow because of the celery root.

Little did I realize that after being harvested, the celery would continue to grow. So now the containers have celery growing along with lettuce and kale.

I don’t think it’s the optimal growing situation because I already know that celery plants like to grow in their own containers.

Much like “Ebony and Ivory” they are living in perfect harmony. Ok, I wouldn’t say perfect, but they are living together.

So I learned another one of these lessons in gardening – after harvesting a plant from a container, don’t jam more plants into it. Let the original plant grow and produce some more.

It seems so obvious as I type it, but I’m so used to picking something off the produce shelf and it not growing back that I assume that’s what’s going to happen here too.

What your gardening story that you look back and say, “What was I thinking?”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDGj8sIZ35A

Posted on

Checking in On Mariann’s Arizona Container Garden

Back in August, I shared a story with you about Mariann. She lives in Arizona and was hesitant about starting her own container garden, but did it anyways.

Now that she has over two months of experience and experimentation under her belt, she checked back in and shared her progress with me. Below is part of her email:

“If you recall when I started I planted by seeds, early girl tomatoes, cucumber, basil and oregano. Of that 1st batch all that survived was the basil and the cucumber plant. I have harvested quite a bit of basil and the cucumber plant is finally starting to flower.

I have since seeded more basil and more early girl tomatoes which you can see are both doing fabulously. I think I might need to transfer the early girl tomatoes but I am so afraid they will die if I do.

The cherry tomatoes I purchased as a plant and it was probably at least 1/2 the size if not smaller than it is now and as you can see I am seeing fruit.There are about 20 cherry tomatoes on the vines as we speak. This is a blast but i am trying to figure out a way to do this indoors as these are at my parents house as I do not have a lot of sun at my condo, (go figure no sun in AZ) and they are thriving over there but it would be nice to have them at home as well.

As we progress and harvest fruit I will take more pics.

Thanks for sharing all your info. I am truly enjoying it.”

Emails like this totally make this blog worth it. Couldn’t be happier that not only did she start her garden, but is having success and fun with it as well.

I know you can’t wait to start your garden in the spring. Am I right?

Posted on

Don’t Forget About Feeding Your Plants

Now that I’m over six months deep into this gardening game ‘m starting to notice a pattern in some of my plants. There is something wrong with their growth.

The cauliflower has yet to head and the cucumber leaves are yellowing. Now my spinach plants are starting to show some ill effects as well. They are getting some brownish dots on their leaves.

The one commonality between all of these plants is that I did not feed any of them. After I finished my initial planting with soil and compost, I never added more compost and nutrients.

Looking back on the containers, I’ve also come to realize that all of their soil lines were much lower than they initially were as well.

This leads me to believe that lack of nutrients is definitely a contributing factor to these symptoms. The cauliflower is the only plant that hasn’t yielded anything, so it’s not all bad, but just another lesson learned for me in this here gardening thing.

An important lesson learned – don’t forget about feeding your plants. Does this seem right to you?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2r_O4cqDCQ

Posted on

Vegetable Garden Pest Problems – Squirrels?

Up until this point I’ve been pretty lucky with the pest problems in either of my gardens. The fire escape garden has a built in defense from pests being on the fourth floor. My backyard vegetable garden doesn’t have that luxury.

Back in June there were some small signs of pest problems, but nothing horrible. The containers seemed to be a pest deterrent.

I’ve since expanded to more than containers though to cinder block gardening and during my final fall planting used traditional pots.

The pests seem to be much more willing to mess with the plants in these. One of the cinder block had nearly all of the plants pulled up out of the soil. Two of the pots had huge holes dug into them and the plants were scattered.

My guess is that it’s squirrels doing this because, well I always see squirrels scampering around in the backyard and almost saw one approach the pots.

Now the question becomes how do I deter them? Thoughts?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291puzfePBE

Posted on

Basil Is Not A Cold Weather Herb

Is there a saying that a plant takes after it’s owner? Well if not, I think someone should start that saying because my basil plant definitely takes after me.

The basil plant, much like myself, has severely wilted and not sure if it’s going to be spring back to life. I’m thinking that I should’ve put the miniature greenhouse on it sooner.

I’m not totally giving up on because my pepper plants already proved me wrong when I talked smack on them.

Let me focus on the positive of the basil plant – I was at least able to harvest it once and get a meal.

Now I’ll have to wait and see if it will spring back to life. What do you think?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awn3Efd7Bz8

Posted on

Grams Weighs In On My Greenhouse

Never at a loss for words, I decided to ask my Grandmother about her thoughts on my small plastic greenhouse design. She’s been asking me for a while about what I should do and has been telling me to buy this and buy that.

I kept telling her that I didn’t want to buy anything and wanted to use as many existing items as I possibly could. Earlier in the week, I had set them up on my fire escape garden and was spending the day at her place getting them ready in the backyard garden.

So while she rested from going to her early morning exercise classes, I got to work. The first thing I had to do was to wrap up all of the phone books to get them under the containers and off of the cold ground.

Then I started to put the greenhouses together. Since the weather has suddenly warmed up again, 60s during the day and 50s at night, I just wanted to get them set up, but not put them on.

By the time I was done, she was well rested from her nap and had to get “camera ready” (a direct quote). So I broke down the design and explained to her how it should work. Her response was a, “It sounds possible. I don’t know, we’ll have to see. It’ll be interesting if nothing else.”

I was expecting a bit more out of her, but it was definitely reassuring that she didn’t totally shoot it down.

Pretty sure that I’ll finish them off this weekend. Will it work? We’ll have to wait and see.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H6qBCiQ38I

Posted on

Small Plastic Greenhouse On My Fire Escape

The other day on my fire escape garden, I got my mini greenhouses for my hanging soda bottle planters up. Now I finally got the greenhouses built for the self watering containers as well.

The total cost to build the greenhouse was $0 since I used all materials that I had lying around my apartment. I was also able to cover two of the containers with one bag. The tomato plant was left uncovered because I don’t have a bag nearly large enough to cover that beast.

Of course now that they are set up, the weather during the day is starting to get warmer again. I’ve been removing the plastic during the mornings and putting back on during the evening.

The goal is that they will help to keep the plants warmer and live longer.

You think it’ll work?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGI7CwLdrO8

Posted on

Miniature Greenhouse For Hanging Soda Bottle Planters

Now that the weather has dropped into the 40s, it was time for me to start covering up the plants on my fire escape garden. I started to put my plan into action last week, when I used phone books to get the containers off the metal.

My next step was to set up a miniature green house for the hanging soda bottle planters.

There are two things that I wanted to accomplish – keeping the soil warm and protecting the plant. I made these using materials that I had lying around or were readily available – more soda bottles, old t-shirts and plastic bags.

In setting up the miniature greenhouses, I suffered one casualty and the tarragon bottle fell four stories to its demise. Hopefully that won’t come back to bite me in the ass and they ask me to take everything down.

For some of them, I have the top part of the soda bottle covering the plant. I left the cap off to give them some fresh air and to be able to easily water. For others, I have the bottom part of the bottle covering the plant. These will require me to remove the tops to water.

I’m pretty sure that this should help to prolong the life of the plants through this cold weather.

What do you think?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XUvVm2OJk4

Posted on

Using Phone Books In Your Container Garden

I finally found a way not only to use phone books, but to use them in your container garden.

Since fall has quickly arrived, the weather’s dropped. I’ve been planning to build a hothouse, but don’t think that the weather has dropped to that point yet.

As a first step to building one on my fire escape garden, I knew that I wanted to raise the containers off of the cold metal.

The initial plan was to fold up cardboard boxes and place them under the containers. That plan changed when I went running the other day. As I was running, I noticed that I was running through an obstacle course of phone books. Within a three blocks, I had to have literally passed 3-4 dozen stacks of them still wrapped up and on the sidewalk.

Shawna Coronado wrote a post on how phone books are a complete scam a few months back. Since reading her post, I’ve been thinking of ways to reuse them. Then it hit me. I could easily use them in my gardens to raise the containers off of the cold ground.

It won’t make a huge difference, but it’s a start. I wrapped the phone book in a plastic bag that my roommate had from grocery shopping and taped it up to keep it dry. Then I slid them under the containers.

I think it’s the most use a phone book has gotten in years

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD9_a9hVPqw.

Posted on

What To Do When Cucumber Plants Yellow

I’m still figuring out what to do with my cucumber plants because the leaves are yellowing.

It’s just over a month since I moved my cucumber plant across the yard. The plant was moved for a few reasons. First being that it was outgrowing the trellis that I built for it and needed more support, so I moved it close to the fence to train it up. The second being that the leaves were yellowing, which I thought was due to sun exposure.

The plant is growing along the fence, still bearing fruit and blooming. That’s nice, but the leaves are still yellowing. My next guess is that it’s due to the lack of nutrients, so I threw some left over compost that I had in the container.

The important part is that the plant is still producing because I’m about functionality first and aesthetics second. My guess is that the yellow leaves can’t be good for the long term health of the plant though, so I’d like to remedy that.

What’s your thoughts on what to do when cucumber plants yellow?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqjNPE149tc

Posted on

Why Did I Grow Radicchio?

Now that I have my final fall planting done in my backyard vegetable garden, I’m starting to look back and evaluate my first season of gardening. As I look at my garden, I ask myself…why did I grow radicchio?

I can’t complain about the way that it’s growing and would definitely recommend it, which is more than I can say for cauliflower.

The problem is that I just haven’t used it at all. So what’s the point of growing something if I’m not going to use it. It’s not that impressive for me to tell people that I am growing radicchio. I need to either figure out how to use it or not grow it again.

Any suggestions for using radicchio?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9NTwcT_bzU

Posted on

Thoughts on Growing Cauliflower in Containers

With the fall season upon us, I can look back at my initial May planting and say that I’m most disappointed in the cauliflower plant.

Of all the plants, it’s the one that has done the least. It’s pretty much done nothing.

A few weeks ago, I also said that I wouldn’t recommend growing red peppers in small spaces, but was proven wrong when they started to bloom again.

At least that I got some peppers out of those plants though. With the cauliflower, I’ve gotten nothing.

Here’s my thoughts on what could be going on:

  • It was a bad plant.
  • I planted too many (3) plants in one container.
  • Cauliflower just doesn’t work in containers.
  • It takes a really long time to head up, and I am being impatient.

At this point, I’d have to say that I really wouldn’t recommend growing cauliflower in containers, especially if you have limited space. That container could be used for something much more productive and rewarding.

What’s been your experience with growing cauliflower?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXBii4HiAHk

Posted on

Final Fall Planting on my Fire Escape Garden

On one side there are four soda bottles and one coffee container planter.The other side has six hanging planters made out of soda bottles.Also have lettuce planted in a Dr. Bronner's container.The self watering containers and hanging soda bottle planters.

Now I got my final fall planting done on my fire escape garden. I had a bunch of lettuce leftover from my fall planting in my backyard vegetable garden. Didn’t have much room for any more self watering containers, so I made more hanging planters.

This time I used soda bottles, a Dr. Bronner’s gallon container and a coffee container.

I have a lot more space on the fire escape than I originally thought. This is definitely good to know for next spring. It’s all part of the learning process, and I see the garden much differently now than I did back in May.

All said and done I have three self watering containers, 10 soda bottle planters, 1 Dr. Bronner’s planter and a coffer container planter.

The next step is to figure out how to extend the lives of these as the weather gets colder.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQpEqdd754