(no subject)

[aprilstarchild]

I had a long list of things I wanted to get done yesterday. Except for cleaning the rat cage, none of it got done.

But I don't feel too bad, because we worked on the garden instead. We had a whole lot of people--Jeff, who lives in our old house, jenhowell, ourglasslake, jameslentz, and Jarrod. So we dug up the whole thing in no time. We also hoed a lot. There were lots of hoe jokes. It was great.

Oh, the stuff we planted: Spinach and lettuces, a row of radishes and carrots (we'll plant more later), lots of kale and chard, a wildflower patch in the side yard, I planted a row of nasturtiums in the front yard that may or may not get enough sun, we'll have to see. Basil, dill...I think we have one pepper and one tomato and are waiting a few weeks to plant some more. We're going to have so many tomatoes. And beans!

Oddly, no squash, except possibly pumpkins. I just thought of that. Do we want some zucchini or something?

We also started a compost bin, which is wire cut from extra in the fence, in a vague circle-shape and held in place with some concrete bricks we had lying around the yard. I thought the bin was huge, but then we filled it up with plants dug out from the yard and garden, mostly dandelions. I'm not sure it'll get hot enough in that pile to decompose the dandelions past the point of growing. We'll just have to find out. We found a bunch of straw beside the garage, maybe we'll add that to the pile. I've already added one week's worth of rat bedding--carefresh is compostable, and my rats are herbivores. Ever since I learned about composting, I've thought that throwing away kitchen scraps is a wasteful thing to do, so I'm just pleased as punch.

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I'm reading Octavia E. Butler's Seed to Harvest series, collected in one book. I've never read it before, and didn't bother to read the dust jacket before diving in, so I'm three-quarters through and now there's extraterrestrial life. I was so involved with the plot that I had trouble putting it down to go to bed last night, and then I had a ton of dreams that, while not truly nightmares, were certainly creepy. Especially since the "aliens" are a kind of virus that takes over your body and gives you super-senses while compelling you to do anything to spread it. ARGH.

The books, though, are very very good, and I highly recommend them, even if the first one is hard to get into sometimes--one of the main characters is incredibly unpleasant a lot of the time.

There were lots and lots of worms in our soil, which made us all happy.

Comments

You need to wait on some things

[5minutelimit.livejournal.com]

Some plants and seeds shouldn't go out yet because it is too cold-- the ground isn't warm enough yet, and we could still get a cold night.
You can plant peas and peapods now, and you are fine on the radishes lettuce, beets,carrots and spinach (hell, plant some more,they dig up the ground and you can plant things in their place later) but I'd advise you to wait until May 15th on squash, beans, celery, cucs (I know, you hate them, but your roomies may want them),basil, and tomatoes. The last three should be started indoors, but I have some to give you.
Your compost pile will get smaller really quickly as it wilts. If you look at it today, you will be surprised. Be sure to keep it wet an stirred, and have some brown stuff in there (the straw). You might want to start a second one so the first one can "cook" because it would be nice to have some in a month... to much your new baby plants.

Re: You need to wait on some things

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

We put out two basils and one tomato because they had starter plants at People's. But we're waiting on the seeds. We don't have a place to put them indoors, or we might start them.