Posts for category ‘Living Green’

Despite the absolutely crazy weather here on Pair o – Dykes ranch this week I managed to get out in the garden a bit. I Loooove my garden. It’s really slow goin’ this year. The nights are still chilly here in the desert, so my little tomatoes and peppers and squash are growing slowly, but they’re growing! No doubt it’ll get hot – BAM – and then my green babies will shoot up and out and flower all at once! (See the one on the far left? There’s one lil Roma growing there!)

Let’s talk compost, today. You know I loves me some magical transformation of trash into treasure- art, all that’s green is gold in Thorne’s World, ya know. It’s Only the Good Friday, and I can’t help but share a little Green Goodness! Compost. Black gold, (we don’t need no stinkin’ oil!) baybee!

There are about a million different ways to make compost, it seems. if you Google it you may soon be overwhelmed by the variety of opinion and the types of composting set-ups; barrels and bins and cages; above or below ground. To turn or not to turn? To add newspaper? To layer or not to layer? They even have worm bins for your kitchen! (I reeeeally want one! We can’t have worms in the garden here, our soil gets too hot, but I sure could use some of those lil squirmers to help me compost the kitchen waste!)

You might, like me, find yourself lost in a sea of terms; anaerobic, biologic factors, microbial activity…

But it’s really not that difficult.

Left to her own devices Mama Nature will make her own compost anywhere a pile of leaves or bracken rests long enough. I think we tend to make things too difficult sometimes. It’s true that the way you do your compost and the materials you add will affect the temperature and amount of time it takes to degrade and become good for your garden, but when it comes to compost a little common sense goes a long way.

Out here on the ranch, We have a variety of compost areas and methods, but since we have plenty of space and lots of time, I don’t worry too much about my compost. I have BIG piles of weeds and bracken that are patiently awaiting the lawnmower to chop them down to size, but they are composting all on their own while they wait.

I have the heap in the corner of the pumpkin yard of wild mustard, green tumbleweeds, tamarisk rakings and the mess of newspapers and bird seed, food and droppings that I clean from the bottoms of my 6 rescued parrot cages.

Then there is the load of wood chips that is slowly turning to compost, and the horse manure that my partner brings home from the dude ranch where she works as a builder. These large piles will be mixed and mashed and shredded and mown and watered and turned eventually to compost.

Then there’s my two raised beds that I discovered don’t work well in our summer heat: I’ve turned them into my fine compost bins. I don’t dump the big stuff in these, but since my devil grass fiasco a couple of years ago, I’m not putting any horse poop in my beds that I don’t know for sure has composted hot enough to kill any seeds. So these beds are gor devil grass clippings, bird cage waste from now on, sifted wood chips from the front yard pile, and the horse manure the GirlyBoi brings home. All smallish stuuf that should compost fairly quickly- I’ll use it next spring.

I can almost hear you all yelling,

“But we don’t have that much space, (or time, or patience)!”

It’s okay. It’s all good!

The biggest problem most folks seem to have tends to happen when their compost piles get too big to deal with. My advice is to start small and take what you learn with you as you and your composting skill “grows up”! Probably the easiest and most quickly efficient method is what I call my bag method.

I start with a plastic or vinyl feed or potting soil bag, but a heavy duty lawn bag or two works just as well. Start with a few inches of soil in the bag. I generally use the worn out potting soil from when I’m re-potting in the spring and throughout the year.

First I toss in all the brown clippings and trimmings from the potted plants I’m sprucing up. Then the weeds I pull walking back and forth to the mailbox or taking the dogs for a run.

Coffee grounds and kitchen waste (I tend to avoid meat products in all of my compost, although that is another matter for much controversy. I’d just as soon skip the flies, and maggots are just gross) When there’s a sloppy bunch of kitchen scraps- coffee grounds, tea bags, potato or other vegetable peels and fruit trimmings I usually toss in some more soil to keep the smell and flies down. This does sort of follow the “layered” technique, but not because I really work at it, it just seems to happen that way. It usually takes me only a few days to a week at most to fill the bag. I water it a bit and then tie the top up tight and set the bag in the garden in the sun.

As soon as one bag is done, I start another. If you run the kitchen waste through a food processor each bag becomes pretty much fully composted in 2 weeks or so. If you toss larger pieces of kitchen waste in your compost bag give it a month. If there are any large chunks of plant matter that haven’t fully broken down when I open the bags, I sift them into a working bag and let them go another round!

This quick and easy compost method makes great potting soil, compost for flower beds, raised vegetable beds; just about any small gardening area you can think of.

Once you have mastered the compost bag technique, it is pretty simple to move to larger quantities as space permits. Just keep the same balance going that works for the bags.

Here are a few really good information links to get you started!

Veg Web has a super easy to read site with step by step instructions, types of compost bins and loads of info as does Avant Gardening along with videos.

Got a special method that works for you? I’d love to hear your experiences with composting so don’t be shy, leave me a comment! And if you just can’t get enough of gardening today, stop by my list of Green Garden Tips.

But no matter what you do today, find a way to get your good on for Only the Good Friday, and if you want to enjoy a whole lot more good, head over to This Eclectic Life and let Shelly set you good, then hit up the OtGF blogroll and comments, and have a GOOD day!

Peace, out!

Or, Part 2 of “Green Up Your Garden Decor”.

Okay! Did you have a great 24 hours?? I did here in my desert paradise. Are you ready to grout? It’s messy, so lay out a bunch of newspaper outside somewhere. Make sure you have gloves if you’re using colored grout; it stains. You can use any ol’ latex or neoprene gloves, but I like my purple ones.

You’re going to want to have a large container of water, as opposed to running your hose. (When you’re all done make sure to dump the water on a thirsty tree, okay?) A couple of sponges. See the big one with the black rubber on one side? That is a sponge specifically for grouting, but it’s not really necessary for a small project like this.

I like the latex grout for small projects and for garden art. It holds up well outside. Sanded grout is okay, if it’s all you’ve got. After you do a few projects, you’ll find your own way with it. It’s a bit rough to gauge how much you’ll need, so start with a small amount. You can always mix a little more as needed (I did for this project. The initial mix wasn’t quite enough).

Make a little well in the center of your grout. Make it about a quarter to a third of the volume of the dry mix.

Add water a little at a time. It’s much easier to mix in additional water if it needs more than it is to add the dry. Mix well, as the water is absorbed into the lumps it will get wetter than you think. Also it always seems to get lumpier and require a lot more mixing when you have to add more dry. Also when that happens you always seem to end up with more than you can use. We hate waste!

I think this photo shows the consistency pretty well. It’s about the consistency of cake frosting or maybe a little thicker than custard, (but not as smooth, of course!)

You can scoop up some grout on a sponge and begin pressing it in and on your pot, but it’s a little awkward on something this small, so I usually just use my hands. Press the grout firmly and make sure to fully fill all the spaces. Press down and toward the center of the individual tiles so that the grout goes underneath them a bit, too.

After you have the tile fully covered, use the foam “brush” or a small sponge to smooth and push the grout in some more.

 
Use the sponge brush to remove some of the excess grout, too.
 

Before you begin to wipe, wring the large sponge out very well! Wipe, rinse, wring; repeat. You don’t want to use too much water, it will just wash the grout out from between the spaces.

If you are using sanded grout, too much water will also make your grout grainy looking and will wash out the color and make it cloudy looking. Too much water (or too sloppy of a consistency) can make your grout crack as it dries. Bad news! Get it reasonably clean, but don’t worry about leaving a haze of color on the surface of the tiles. It will wipe off easily when the grout is dry. Focus more on making your grout lines smooth and consistent, especially along the edges.

How cool is that?! The grout will take about 24 hours to dry. Don’t sit the piece in the sun, it will dry too fast. If you have tiled something that is in the sun already; some piece of permanent or too heavy to move yard art, drape a cloth over it and mist it with a spray bottle periodically to allow the grout to dry slowly and evenly and to prevent cracking. When the grout is fully dry, buff it with a soft cloth to remove the haze and any excess grout on the surface of the tiles, then seal your tile and grout with any tile and grout sealant.

See? Who needs “new” stuff? Upcycle your old stuff into new art that is perfectly your style! Check back in with me here in Thorne’s World for more recycled art How-Tos. Coming up soon: Yard art Mosaic Bowling Balls (scroll down to #6). You can also see some of my tile mosaic and broken tile mosaic about halfway down this page of things that make me happy!

Back to Part 1: Green Up Your Garden Decor Questions in comments are welcome. I’ll try my best to answer and advise. I’d love to see your creative projects, too, so leave me a link!

Peace, out!

A couple weeks ago I wrote a list of fantastic junk to use in mosaics. Before we get into attaching some of the more randomly shaped items of various materials (which can get a lil tricksy if you don’t want your parts falling off randomly and for no apparent reason), I thought I’d give you a step by step how-to on a small project to get you started.

I know you have some old pots around that are just too worn and ugly to use, but still too serviceable to break up for planter-bottom-drainage. Maybe you are wanting to change the color scheme of your patio or porch and are feeling guilty about your secret desire to just say “To hell with being green! I want new STUFF!” Maybe you’re broke, like me! Maybe it has simply never occurred to you that you can have “new” stuff by giving a makeover to old stuff! In any case, this is a great way to give a facelift to a worn out old terra cotta planter (and with just a couple small changes works on plastic planters, too)!Click on the thumbnails for a larger view, or watch the flickr slideshow at the bottom of the post.

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