a-blog-by-a-dog



           Digger

Well, this winter is one for the record books.  We've been bundled up for several days now, which is very unusual for our area.  This extended cold snap can create many problems for the vermicomposter or worm farmer and we are no exception. 

The good thing about red worms and European night crawlers: they can tolerate cold weather.  But not freezing temperatures.  We are taking  measures with our worm farm operation to make sure our worms survive this winter blast.

Here are some steps we are taking to lessen the damage and keep our worms happy and alive.  You might want to consider these steps for your vermi-composter, as well:

• Drastically reduce the amount of worm feed. (Good news for me, they are increasing the amount I'm getting.  That's about the only good thing about Winter for me and my four-legged friends - all-you-can-eat!)
  
• Supply heat to keep the temperature above 40, at least.
  
• Keep bright lights on during the cold snap.  Worms tend to crawl when it gets too cold, which is not a pretty sight.  Smelly, but not pretty.

You can find more info on these vermi-composting precautions for cold weather in the article "How to Worm Farm - Raise Worms in Cold Weather."

As for me, it's a sunny window with a pile of blankets....and a hot, steamy bowl of leftovers.  I'm not crawling anywhere.

              From the Monroe Cartoonist Collection:

Organic Fertilizer in the News

News items on organic gardening you may not find in your favorite news outlet.

Benefits of Organic Fertilizer vs. Chemical Fertilizer

Organic fertilizer or chemical fertilizer:  Discussion on which is better for garden soil: organic fertilizer or chemical fertilizer. 

The article goes into the benefits of organic fertilizers over chemical fertilizers.  One of these benefits is the addition of micro-nutrients.  Another benefit is the improvement to the soil structure.

However, the article also mentions that, because organic fertilizers contain less nitrogen than chemical fertilizers you must use more, making organic fertilizers cost more.  This has not proved to be the case from our experiments.

By adding VermaPlex® to the water reservoir, which is diluted at 20:1 to 80:1 with water, the microbes feed upon the organic content of compost and worm castings, releasing sufficient nitrogen and nutrients for the plants without the addition of any chemical fertilizers at all.  Our corn (which is a very high nitrogen user) grew 8 feet tall in the self-watering containers using only organic methods.

Plants can only use so much nitrogen at a time.  While most of the nitrogen from chemical fertilizers simply leach away before the plants have a chance to use it, this excess nitrogen  can also burn you plants.  You will never have this problem with organic fertilizers.

Is Comfrey Safe?

Safety concerns with comfrey in gardens:  Do toxic levels build up in humans from eating plants fertilized with comfrey?

Apparently, the research that comfrey can be toxic in humans at high levels raised concerns about its use in gardening.  We're cautioned to let comfrey compost for one year before applying it to our gardens.

Global Warming and Organic Fertilizer

Returning to Organic Agriculture:  How changing to, or rather, returning to organic methods and away from business-as-usual to grow our food can help reduce green house emissions. 

With declining fossil fuels, erratic weather, and water scarcity, we may have no choice but to return to organic farming.  The upside - organic methods reduce greenhouse gases.

The section on cities and municipalities selling their "toxic sludge" as "organic" fertilizer is an eye opener. 

Happy New Year from all of us at Monroe Works!

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

 "a-blog-by-a-dog"



          Digger

Now that Christmas is over, maybe we can get something done around here besides eating.  Oh, never mind.  We must always work around that.

Piling up the Compost

One thing's for sure, we're going to need a bunch of compost for filling all our self-watering containers come  spring time.  Our little experiment this fall using that method of growing vegetables proved  to be the answer to our adverse growing conditions here in North Central Florida.  We plan on going full steam ahead with our self-watering container vegetable garden.



                 Self-watering container ready to be filled.


Our potting soil mix, if you recall, was 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost, 1/3 perlite.  The mix from our fall garden planting can be reconstituted with fresh compost and worm castings, which won't require very much material.  But that stack of new containers Bill just completed will need a goodly amount of the mix if we are going to plant our entire garden using this method.

The plan:  pile up as much horse manure as we possible can (Her Royal Shiekyness is doing her best to contribute) and feed it to the red worms, as well as traditional compost piles of manure and organic matter from household waste;  inoculate all of these various piles and worm beds with VermaPlex® for added microbes; cover the compost piles with dark plastic for added solar heat; sit back and let it rot.



                Come on, we need more poop!

Worm Compost or Worm Castings

Now might be a good time to discuss these terms and what the difference is between worm castings and worm compost. We have received questions from time to time about this.  Worm compost, or vermi-compost, is composted organic material via earthworms, usually red worms.  There's no "heating-up" of the material (at least, not intentionally.  It would kill the worms.)  The decomposition of the material is actually accomplished by the earthworms as well as by microbes.  The microbes "pre-digest" the organic material, which makes the worms able to digest it.  That's why it is so important to have a healthy supply of microbes present in the vermi-composting bin or worm bed. 

The result of vermi-composting is a mix of partially decomposed organic material and worm castings - the "poop" from the earthworms.  It's a great way to compost organic matter and kitchen waste, because it is nutrient-rich and adds great "texture" to your garden soil.  Composting with worms is also faster than traditional composting, which can often be a hit or miss thing if the mix is wrong or you if don't turn it, or what-ever.

Worm castings are worm poop and nothing but worm poop.  It's used as a fertilizer in much smaller amounts than worm compost.  An excellent slow-release fertilizer, worm castings have everything you need for growing vegetables.  The "slow-release" is the result of each casting being coated with calcium by the worm as it passes through its body. 

Often, when you purchase "worm castings" you are actually getting worm compost, since the process of getting "pure" castings is not that easy.  "Worm compost" is an excellent addition to your growing medium or garden, but  should not be confused with "worm castings".   When buying worm castings,  don't pay a premium for just worm compost.

Along with the 1/3 compost, which can be either traditional compost or vermi-compost, we add about 6 cups of the Pure Worm Castings® to the mix before planting to supply the plant with slow release fertilizer.  Then, throughout the growing season, we add VermaPlex® every 7-14 days to the water reservoir or as a foliar feed.  In a future post, I'll share what we've learned about foliar feeding with the microbe-rich VermaPlex®.  It not only feeds the plant, but also prevents pests and diseases from attacking our plants.  It's truly a miracle....

.....and so is the fact that, after all that Christmas ham and turkey, I'm still hungry.  Chow!

 

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

      "a-blog-by-a-dog"



           Digger

Unfortunately, we didn't escape the frost after all.  Yes, Jack Frost paid our self-watering container garden a call, taking out the corn and okra.  The tomatoes and peppers made it to the greenhouse just in time.

The Greenhouse Garden

Let's take a look at those peppers and cherry tomatoes.


                  Greenhouse to the Rescue!

One of the good things about container gardening:  the pots are mobile.  We were able to load these pots of cherry tomatoes and green peppers onto our little trailer and take them to the greenhouse without much effort.  For my part, there was absolutely no effort whatsoever, seeing as how I don't actually participate in anything that requires lifting.  I have to save my energy for writing.  Besides, that's why we keep Bill.

Gardening in the Greenhouse

It looks like, out of necessity, an experiment on greenhouse gardening is in the works.  How well will the plants ripen?  How long will the pepper plants and cherry tomato plants keep producing?



                    Lots of blooms.


We'll continue adding VermaPlex™ every 14 or so days and try to keep everything warm once we get into the really cold weather of January-February.  Last year we had 3 straight nights of 15 degrees.  That probably doesn't sound like a big deal for you guys in Minnesota, but I can tell you, if you're outside in a dog house without any clothes on, that's as cold as a well diggers you-know-what.  Try it sometime.  On second thought, maybe not.  The neighbors might talk.

We keep the greenhouse warm overnight with a heater or incandescent lights.  Another method is to place black barrels of water inside the greenhouse to solar heat throughout the day, then provide warmth at night.  The greenhouse still heats up during the day, so we open the windows and turn on a fan if needed.

I'm wondering....could we possible squeeze my dog house into that greenhouse? 

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

   "a-blog-by-a-dog"



          Digger

Looks like we're out of the woods with the previously forcasted freeze.  Which is a good thing for the fall garden left-overs.  Although we're going to have wind and heavy rains, the freezing temps are not going to materialize.  Still looks like a good day to just lie around and chew bones.

Winter Threatens Our Vegetable Garden

With any luck, in a couple of weeks the corn should ripen up before the colder weather gets here for certain.  As you can see, the corn is almost there.



                             Jolly Green Giants

Thought about putting them in the greenhouse, but they are way too tall.  It's incredible they got this big in a pot.
(See our "Self-Watering-Container-Pots" construction and soil mix.  No extra nitrogen was need, just the worm castings and VermaPlex®.)  I'd say, these results show you can grow corn successfully using this method.

We'll do what we can to keep the corn going in hopes of being able to harvest it.  What did we learn?  For the fall garden, we need to get corn planted  by early September.  Even though it's very, very hot and the sun is very, very strong, it will be easier to protect them from the sun while they are still small than to deal with the November frosts and freezes when they are giants.



                        Say Hello to my little friend.

Gardening in North Central Florida has been more of a challenge than we ever could have anticipated (I'm speaking for Bill and Kayce, of course.  Quite frankly, I don't do "anticipation".  Living in the moment - that's ole' Digger).  But, as we (they) build up our sandy soil over time, these self-watering containers are proving to be a viable way of vegetable gardening in the meantime.  Perhaps, we (they) may just dispense with the in-ground garden altogether and stay with self-watering container gardening as our (their) only growing method.  As for me personally, I'm not that emotionally involved, being a carnivore and all.

Tomorrow we'll check out the green house, where all our pepper and tomato plants are hanging out.  And where I've found some tasty little rabbits, I might add.

            

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

    "a blog-by-a-dog"


           Digger

Hope you'all had a great Thanksgiving.  I know I did.  I'm absolutely stuffed.

Our Thoughts Turn To Winter Vegetable Gardening

With the first real frost of the season forecasted for last night, we were scrambling around yesterday trying to save our pepper plants, tomato plants, cherry tomato plants, okra plants (yes, they're still producing), corn (please hold on, little ears, you can make it!), and pole beans.

For Thanksgiving, we had a great big "mess" of beans, okra, tomatoes and peppers from our self-watering container garden.  What we couldn't eat, we put in the 'fridge. 


         Thanksgiving Feast From Our Self-Watering Container Garden

Winter Gardening Means Protecting Your Fall Vegetables

That left the still ripening fruit to worry about.  Knowing the frost was expected last night, we picked off the green tomatoes from the towering indeterminate Brandywine tomatoes.  There was no way to cover these giants.  The tomatoes are in window sills slowly ripening up.  We hauled the cherry tomato and green pepper plants to the green house and carted the corn containers to the south side of the house beside the still-blooming okra.



                           Gotta move'em, Bill


This morning, just before sunrise, when they let me out (earlier than usual, all that turkey and stuffing, you know)  we hosed down the corn, okra and beans, 'cause there was a bit of frost on them.  Not bad, but enough to burn them.  The beans may not make it, there was no way to protect or move them since they were staked and up too high to cover..... 

Be right back.

.....Just checked the corn, okra and beans.  By hosing off the frost before the sun hits them, there doesn't seem to be any damage.  If you leave the frost on the vegetables, when the sun hits, the cells in the plants explode and poof! there goes your plant.

Vegtables in Pots For Our Winter Garden

For our winter vegetable garden, we have some collards and kale going in their self-watering pots and, of course, they're loving this cooler weather.  With our mild winters, we should be able to keep them growing all winter until the first hot weather in the spring.




   Great Winter Vegetable Gardening Plants
                 Collards and Kale

The Trials of Winter Vegetable Gardening

We'll probably be able to keep the cherry and pepper plants going in the greenhouse until the first really hard freeze.  But, maybe, just maybe, we can keep the green house warm enough so the peppers will keep on going.

One way to heat a green house without using electricity is to fill a black barrel with water and put it in the green house.  (Better yet, put the barrel in the green house first, then fill it. No since in giving yourself a hernia, Bill.)  The solar radiation will heat the water through the day, which will help maintain the temperatures of the green house overnight.  We'll be trying this idea over the winter  to see how it works out.  We do have to worry here in Central Florida about the green house getting too hot when the temp's rebound, but that's no biggy.

Hold it.  Do I smell turkey left-overs?  Gotta go!

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

Making Compost For Spring

The time for action is now if we're going to have enough compost for our spring garden.  Our potting soil mix recipe calls for 1/3 compost, so to fill all our self-watering container garden pots next spring, it's going to take a large volume of compost.  Thus far, Her Royal Shiekyness, (the horse-of-course, revisit my composting friends), is making the major contribution, giving us copious amounts of horse manure for "worm food" or for the major component of our compost heap.  

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

  a blog by a dog

Self-Watering Container Pot Improvement

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but I'm here to say that ole' Bill is still learning.  Why, just the other day he learned that we should have put a sheet of landscape cloth in between the potting soil and the water reservoir in our Self-Watering Container Garden Pots.  The landscape cloth will keep the plants roots from growing through the holes and into the water reservoir, thereby plugging up the water wicking process. Duh!

Our extensive root system plants, like tomatoes and watermelons, will more than likely, sooner or later, suffer from this fate.  As a matter of fact, the watermelons, after growing like crazy and producing some very promising looking fruit, suddenly started dropping leaves up close to the soil and the fruit itself was getting no bigger.  When we pulled out the plant yesterday, sure enough, there were roots growing down into the reservoir.  Nuts! 

                                                                    Watermelon in Self-Watering Container Pot

The vine looks terrific, but look up next to the blue container, you can see the naked vines.  So much promise. Sigh!

Always optimistic, never deterred, Bill just sucked it up and headed for Lowe's to purchase landscaping cloth for our next planting.  May the Green God of Bountiful Harvest be with him.  Amen!

Meanwhile, I'm off to play with my new toy  -  a half-grown, unripe watermelon.  Yeah!

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

Okra Harvest From Our Fall Self-Watering Container Garden

We only have two containers with seven plants, so we'll have to cut each okra before it gets too big and store them in the fridge until we get enough for a meal.  The first day, Monday, we  harvested  (1), count'em, one.  But today we cut off three.  So, eventually we'll have enough.  

It's best to have more plants to get enough ripe ones at one picking, so you can prepare them immediately after harvest.  When they start to come in heavily, we can just freeze the excess for the lean months. 

Okra Receipe

Here's our receipe for "oven" fried (have to watch that cholestrol) okra that's a good alternative to the southern pan fried grandma used to make:

• Cut okra into 1/4 inch slices.
• Dip into egg white.
• Roll in salted and peppered cornmeal.
• Double spray non-stick cookie sheet with Pam.
• Place prepared okra single layered on the cookie sheet.
• Spray the okra with pam.
• Put oven rack on bottom rung of the oven.
• Place cookie sheet with okra in oven, preheated to 400 degrees.
• Bake until bottoms of okra's are brown
• Turn okra's over and brown the other side.
• Eat!

Next Harvest Very Soon ..... Watermelon

Our fingers (or in my case, claws) are crossed that we can get these beauties ripe before a frost.  We're getting a cool down this weekend (thank god), but the lows are only going to be in the 50's, with high's in the 70's.  Perfect!

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®

       a blog by a dog

The fall planting season is well underway here in North Central Florida and boy are were ready for it.  We've been busy (rather, Bill has been busy) building our self-watering containers.  Here are some progress pictures of the results to date:

                                                    Pole Beans



                                                        Tomatoes



                                                        Okra and Beans



                                           Watermelon

We've had to move the pots around trying to escape the late summer heat.  Intermittent sun through tree leaves seems to do the trick.  October has remained hot, although we had a slight cool down of a very short duration a couple of weeks ago.  The tomatoes and peppers suffered from the late afternoon sun the most. The tomatoes were a little leggy from leaving them in too much shade at the beginning, but they filled in nicely once we found the perfect location.

Our plans are to build a ramada for the containers on the south side of the house, install shade cloth to roll out in the hottest times and frost cloth for the early and late freezes.  This arrangement should help extend our growing season while eliminating  the need to constantly move the containers. 

How this all self-watering container gardening stuff got started

For those of you who may have just found this blog,  let me outline our reasons for going to all the trouble of building  these self-watering containers for our vegetable garden.

Since moving here to North Central Florida four years ago, we have been battling the weather and very sandy soil indicative of this area.  While two growing seasons are a plus, our gardens have been damaged almost every season by early or late freezes and excessive heat at the beginning, middle or the end of each season. 

For instance, this October we are still in the mid 90's, while last October we had a hard freeze on the 15th.  It's entirely possible for us to go from the present heat wave to a frost in the span of a week.  In spring, if you try to get your crop in early enough to miss the almost certain summer heat, you can get wiped out from an unexpected cold front.  Wait too late and your crop will wilt from the brutally strong sun. 

The fall crop can also be a challenge if the summer hangs on too long.  Wait for cooler weather and guess what?  Jack Frost makes a visit.

Topping it all off -  our property has very sandy soil.  Watering is a daily chore, usually twice a day, even with mulch.    Houston, we have a problem - or two.

After doing some research into "self-watering" container gardening, we are hopeful we have found the answer to our dilemma.  The containers are mobile - you can put them wherever you want, moving them easily if conditions aren't perfect.  The water reservoir insures the plants will have a constant supply of the correct amount of moisture.  It holds enough water for several days and you can add liquid fertilizer (we use VermaPlex™ in with the water.  So, we went about building a few homemade ones to get it a try.

Self-Watering Container Pots Parts

Here's a look at the parts before assembly:



....and, once it's put together;



Click for an excellent site with plans for these homemade self-watering containers.
If you don't mind spending the bucks, Earth Box has some ready made ones that are even used by commercial farmers.

Soil-less Potting Soil Mix

Our soil-less mix for filling the containers is as follows:

• 30% Worm compost from our vermicomposting bin (using horse manure as the worm food. Yum!)
• 30% Peat Moss
• 20% Perlite
• 20% Pure Black Castings™

We mixed this all up in the a wheel barrel and dampened it before placing it in the container.  The small cup in the center of the reservoir gets filled with the mix and acts as a wick to bring up the water into rest of the container.  Once the container was filled, we planted our seeds per the instructions from the websites mentioned above, then cut a piece of plastic to cover the top of the soil to prevent evaporation and excess rain from flooding the container.

The lid from the original tote, with the middle cut out, was put over the top of this plastic to hold it in place.  The bamboo to one side serves as a watering pipe for refilling the reservoir.  There are drain holes on the sides of the container down to where the reservoir begins.  These holes will let any excess water drain out.  We added a floater with a flag on top inside the pipe that will tell us when the container needs watering without having to go to each pot and check the reservoir.  We can just scan the pots to see which flags have dropped. You can see the red flag in the watermelon picture.

One thing we discovered: we need to use white plastic (garbage bags) for out "mulch" because of our strong sun.  More northern climates can use black.  It gets too hot here, but I can see how it would help heat up the soil in colder conditions.

When we add water to the reservoir, we mix in a small amount of VermaPlex™ as our only fertilizer, other than the original castings in the soil-less mix.  This soil inoculant is teeming with microbes, which will feed on the organic content of our vermicompost and Pure Black Castings™, providing our plants with constant slow-release organic fertilizer.  As you can see, our corn is a deep green and  the tomatoes are full of blooms and fruit.  As a matter of fact, we've had absolutely no bloom drop in this planting.  Every bloom on the peppers and tomatoes have formed a fruit.  The watermelon blossoms are all producing fruit, as are the squash. Hallelujah!

This self-watering container gardening principle so far is working out just fine and dandy.  I''ll keep you posted on the progress with pictures and any changes or adjustments we may make.  Meantime, where is that fall weather, anyway?

	Pure   Black Castings®	Vermicomposting        Bins	Compost Worms	VermaPlex®