Worm Composting

This is a picture of my new worm composting system in place near the boiler, which will hopefully keep the worms cozy this winter in the basement. I considered worm composting in the past but never did anything. Now that I have my Square Foot garden that needs regular additions of high quality compost, the idea is more attractive. A lot of our kitchen scraps can go into the composter without making a trek out to the compost bin behind the shed. In the winter with a new 3 foot snow fall, that sounds attractive. And my wife was actually interested in the idea of having a worm composter in the house, so that made it easier.

In addition, there are now a lot of well-designed compost bins available which make composting easy and eliminate a lot of the mess, Sure, you can build an economical bin out of a Rubbermaid storage container. And there are lots of helpful tips on the internet, such as the one suggesting using the wife’s turkey baster to siphon the excess worm “juice” out of the bottom of the bin so the worms don’t drown. There are also some nice wooden bins built from cedar, but they are really designed for outdoor use. That is not practical in New England.

The new bins I looked at are compact, efficient and cleverly designed to eliminate or minimize most of the messier details of raising worms, and they are designed to be kept in the house without leakage, odors or escapees. Two I considered were the Can O Worms and the Worm Factory. I went with the Worm Factory 360, the newest model with a taller base and an improved ventilation system. The Worm Factory 360 also is manufactured in the US from 100% recycled food-grade plastic. I ordered mine from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm and it came with one pound of worms (supposedly about 1000 worms, but I really doubt it – although the package did weigh a pound). Below are some photos showing the setup of the composter.

Making Butter

Inspired by an article by Thomas on A Growing Tradition, I tried my hand at making butter. It is amazingly easy and fast. Thomas provides detailed, step-by-step instructions, so check out his article if you want to try this. Below I have a few photos documenting my first attempt at this.

Harvest Monday–26 September 2011

Not much from the garden last week. I cut the two small eggplants the flea beetles left me. A third one turned brown before I got to it. A few peppers and tomatoes, plus lots of green tomatoes off of the now dead tomato plants. I cut the eggplants and then pulled the plants so I could clean up the bed that was infected with halo blight. It took me two hours to unwind the dead pole beans from the trellis and stuff them in a trash bag. Then I had to police the garden, picking up any dead vegetation on the ground or in other beds. Found out Sunday at the garden pot luck that three other plots in the garden also had the blight.



I got a lot of green tomatoes last week. Here are two pounds of them being weighed to make green tomato chutney. I used this recipe by Shaheen posted on her blog a few weeks ago (lots of vegetarian recipes there). It was easy to make and is very tasty.  I substituted Splenda for the sugar to keep it low-carb and that worked fine. The recipe made about a pint and it keeps in the fridge. First use for it was on hamburgers. It would be good on any grilled meat or with a good sharp cheddar.

Now head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions and see what others are harvesting.

Rich and Charlie’s Famous Salad

It’s Pot Luck time in the community garden.  The past couple of years I have brought a large bowl of Rich and Charlie’s Salad and will probably do so again this year. This is a great salad, it feeds a crowd, and the left-overs are good even several days later. The recipe comes from an Italian restaurant chain in St. Louis. My brothers acquired the recipe years ago and passed it on to me. It is very simple to make and can be prepared ahead of time.

Salad

• · 1 head Romaine lettuce, washed and chopped
• · 1 head Iceberg lettuce, washed and chopped
• · 1 can hearts of palm, drained and sliced (optional)
• · 1 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
• · 1 red onion, diced
• · 1 4 oz. jar chopped pimientos, drained
• · 1 pkg. shredded Parmesan

Layer the romaine, iceberg, red onion, artichokes, hearts of palm, pimiento, and cheese in a large salad bowl. The salad may be covered and refrigerated at this point. When ready to serve, toss with the salad dressing.

Dressing

• · ½ c salad oil (Canola or blend of Canola and olive)
• · 1/3 c red wine vinegar
• · Salt and pepper

Thoroughly blend the dressing ingredients, pour over the salad and toss.

Got Rodents? Get A Harrier

The past couple of years we have been fortunate to have a pair of Eastern harrier hawks nesting in our backyard. Why us, I do not know. It can’t be because our neighbor raises homing pigeons and flies them every day. Harriers prefer juicy, furry critters to bony birds. We have had an explosion of squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks. Now with the harrier couple and their three fledglings in the neighborhood, the few chipmunks left seem to neurotically run from bush to bush.

As far as birds go, the harriers have shown an interest in wild turkeys. We apparently also have a nest of turkeys somewhere in the back. One morning a giant ruckus erupted in the trees as a large turkey hen clumsily chased a hawk through the tree tops, sending a shower of pine needles and dead branches raining down out of the trees. The hawk retreated, leaving the angry turkey perched precariously in the tree tops. Who knew they could fly like that? Moral: don’t mess with a turkey hen who has chicks.
Some more photos below. Sorry for the quality of the pictures. They were taken with a compact camera on full optical zoom so they are a little fuzzy.

UMass Extension Vegetable Program

The Agricultural Extension Program at UMass Amherst has a Vegetable Program for growers of vegetables. While the Program is aimed at commercial growers of vegetables and herbs in Massachusetts, their web site has lots of useful information of value to home gardeners throughout New England. For example, they have a page on the halo bean blight that hit my pole beans after TS Irene.

In addition, they have an email newsletter called Vegetable Notes that is well worth subscribing to. It provides an update on disease and insect prevalence in New England and suggests what measures can be taken to protect your garden. The advice is oriented toward commercial growers and is not necessarily suited for organic growers, but is still useful to us home gardeners.

The September 8 newsletter provided a lot of useful information on how to deal with the effects of storms Irene and Lee, which included flooding followed by outbreaks of disease and insect infestations. Certainly in our community garden, we have seen many of the problems described in the newsletter. Fortunately for us, flood water in the garden was only a few inches deep and was clear and not full of mud, but we still got the mildew and rot that followed.

Harvest Monday–19 September 2011

I haven’t done much in the garden this week. The tomatoes are about gone, just a few green ones still on the tops of the vines. On Thursday I had a random harvest of tomatoes, a bell pepper, a cucumber, and my last and very woody Icicle radish. I did replant the radishes so hopefully they will enjoy the cooler weather we are now having (night temps in 40s). The salad bed was also re-planted and is coming along, but probably another week or two before I start cutting.



I cut the first of the kale for a batch of Portuguese kale soup, most of which was frozen. This variety is Beedy’s Camden, supposed to be similar to but more tender than Winterbor. I did not buy seeds last winter because I usually pick up a 4-pack of plants at a local nursery. This year I could not find Winterbor anywhere and I don’t like the Red Russian which seems to be the fashion now. And then I could not find seeds either without doing mail order. So I bought some plants from a local gardener in town, which turned out to be this variety from Fedco. It is interesting. Grows lower and more spread out than Winterbor. Leaves are not as dark blue-green and curly.



The pole beans are now completely dead from the halo blight (see my post) and there were no more unaffected beans on the vines. The bush beans gave me another good picking but probably my last. What was depressing to see was that some of the bush beans now show signs of being affected by the blight. In the picture below, you can see some of the lesions on the bean on the top of the pile. My task this week is to remove and dispose of all the dead bean vegetation and vines on the pole bean trellis. I may also have to pull the bush beans.


To see what others are harvesting, go on over to Daphne's Dandelions