They play pinochle on your snout
This post is dedicated to the wonderful rustydog, who I miss. A lot.
I finally bought some composting worms. Last time we had a Buffy thing in San Diego (what, a year and a half ago?), rusty talked to me about composting, and right after that I got another plastic garbage can, intending to use it for composting. I looked for worms online, but couldn't find fewer than 2000/shot, and that was too many. And then we used the garbage can for yard waste, and I put it off, and put it off. I added "compost" to my TiVo wish list, so I've seen a few shows on yard composting, and they all consisted of how to build a leaf and twig composting crate thing for the yard, so we've been planning on that. Then, a couple weeks ago, watching a show on how to compost kitchen stuff, it hit me: I'm a moron. I was thinking of composting as one thing, with leaves a kitchen waste in a big ugly wooden thing in the corner of the yard, when I should separate the two.
So I went to Lowes, and they had some great short Rubbermaid bins for like $2 (I got 3- you can never have too many storage units); I drilled holes in the sides and bottom of one of them, put some damp shredded newspaper (from my boss, since I don't get the paper) in the bottom, some yard dirt on top of that (they need grit to digest properly), put in a bunch of the worms from the big bag o' worms, and some mushrooms and a green pepper past its prime. The bag came with 250 worms, so I put a nice handful at the base of each of the cirtus trees, some for the camelias, and some on the big pile of leaves from the fall pruning. I hope all my pretty little worm piles are fat and happy. I'm actually thinking of getting some more worms, due to the amount of produce (leeks and cauliflower) I put in the small bin from yesterday's dinner. I'm wondering if 250 more worms would be helpful, or of that's too many. I don't want to spread them in the front yard because the front yard's a battlezone, with me killing all the grass and weeds for the lawn to be unearthed by our neighbor.
I'm hoping the next few weeks will see things starting to happen in the front yard, like planning for where plants go, and me starting to prep the house for painting on the outside. We've settled on a bright green color, and we'll fill the grass-free yard with a lot of flowering plants. I hope it won't be color overkill. I can't wait for y'all to see it. Now that my back and neck are doing better, the consistent rain has ceased, and it's getting warmer, I can start to prune back more plants, and scrape the crappy old paint off the trim. It's going to be a huge amount of work for me, but the 3K quote I got from a trusted professional painter has motivated me.
I finally bought some composting worms. Last time we had a Buffy thing in San Diego (what, a year and a half ago?), rusty talked to me about composting, and right after that I got another plastic garbage can, intending to use it for composting. I looked for worms online, but couldn't find fewer than 2000/shot, and that was too many. And then we used the garbage can for yard waste, and I put it off, and put it off. I added "compost" to my TiVo wish list, so I've seen a few shows on yard composting, and they all consisted of how to build a leaf and twig composting crate thing for the yard, so we've been planning on that. Then, a couple weeks ago, watching a show on how to compost kitchen stuff, it hit me: I'm a moron. I was thinking of composting as one thing, with leaves a kitchen waste in a big ugly wooden thing in the corner of the yard, when I should separate the two.
So I went to Lowes, and they had some great short Rubbermaid bins for like $2 (I got 3- you can never have too many storage units); I drilled holes in the sides and bottom of one of them, put some damp shredded newspaper (from my boss, since I don't get the paper) in the bottom, some yard dirt on top of that (they need grit to digest properly), put in a bunch of the worms from the big bag o' worms, and some mushrooms and a green pepper past its prime. The bag came with 250 worms, so I put a nice handful at the base of each of the cirtus trees, some for the camelias, and some on the big pile of leaves from the fall pruning. I hope all my pretty little worm piles are fat and happy. I'm actually thinking of getting some more worms, due to the amount of produce (leeks and cauliflower) I put in the small bin from yesterday's dinner. I'm wondering if 250 more worms would be helpful, or of that's too many. I don't want to spread them in the front yard because the front yard's a battlezone, with me killing all the grass and weeds for the lawn to be unearthed by our neighbor.
I'm hoping the next few weeks will see things starting to happen in the front yard, like planning for where plants go, and me starting to prep the house for painting on the outside. We've settled on a bright green color, and we'll fill the grass-free yard with a lot of flowering plants. I hope it won't be color overkill. I can't wait for y'all to see it. Now that my back and neck are doing better, the consistent rain has ceased, and it's getting warmer, I can start to prune back more plants, and scrape the crappy old paint off the trim. It's going to be a huge amount of work for me, but the 3K quote I got from a trusted professional painter has motivated me.