jenny.shadegarden

  My friend, Virginia, is having to dig up her garden to make way for a laneway house. She has given me a collection of plants to re-home. Yesterday I constructed my first garden mounds using the hugelkulur method.  The first step was to dig and rake back the garden soil I put down last spring. The soil that was placed on cardboard last spring came up easily. The sections where I ran out of cardboard were threaded with fine white roots from the poplar tree. It's roots go everywhere. The second step was to pile leaves from the poplar tree to make a thick bed to lay a foundation for each garden mound. The third step was to pile the garden soil on top of the leaves.  The fourth step was to bring a large helping of compost from the kitchen bins. This compost is also full of worms. The fifth and last step was to plant some of the transplants from Virginia into the new mounds.  What I like about this method: The worms can go up and down between the ground and the mound - w...

  When I finished gardening yesterday I had the sidewalks blown clean and the leaves collected in the gardens. Last night another rain storm blew in and today the sidewalks are covered with more leaf gold. This year I am trying a new method to incorporate the leaves into the garden. Instead of putting cardboard down to create a semi-permeable barrier between tree roots and garden beds, I am laying down a thick carpet of leaves. Then I am piling a mound of dirt made up from last year's beds and new compost from the kitchen, as well as worm castings (and worms) from the worm bins. I'm adapting the Hugelkultur Method to take advantage of the windfall from the poplar tree, but also to protect my garden beds from the moisture and nutrient thieving tree roots that stunt growth above ground. I'll wait until things dry out a bit and then collect up this latest batch of leaves to form the foundation for more garden mounds.

  Every year our giant Lombardi Poplar tree drops leaves and branches by the truckload. In the past we would send this windfall to the City composting system.  This year I started to think about the leaves, how I could use them to create a base for my garden beds instead of using cardboard.  The leaves don't break down for the worm bins because they retain their shape unless they are mulched with the lawn mower. Mulching with the lawn mower doesn't work because there are so many leaves they clog the machine. My thinking this year is that I am going to use the leaves to create an organic barrier between the moisture and nutrient thirsty tree roots while providing a semi-permeable membrane so the worms can move in and out of the garden bed. At the same time, I don't want to make any permanent garden beds, I want to be able to move the beds around to continue building up the layer of leaves season after season.  This year, I started an experiment of creating a moveable ...

  It is time to re-organize the garden for winter composting and garden layout for next spring. My best growing results have been in the garden bags using a combination of inert 'compost' soil from the city and then adding worm castings and live compost from my system to add life to the soil.  Putting the plantings into the garden bags protects them from the invasive tree roots from the poplar tree, it also means they are dependent on me for all their water and nutrients.

  Yesterday I extracted 70 lb of worm castings from my 10 bins (bin on the right). This was one week of production. I am trying to get into a regular weekly schedule for extracting castings and feeding the worms. The bin on the left is the mix of food and bedding to be added for this week's feeding. My worm production system is utilizing the sterile compost soil produced by the City of Vancouver (city soil) and turning it into high quality, microbe rich worm castings. Last week I extracted 65 lbs of worm castings to make room to add new food. Most of the green food had been consumed. Last week's food recipe: old alfalfa pellets, somewhat moldy (part of green mix) overgrown lettuce plants from the garden (part of green mix) city soil (part of brown mix) coffee chaff (part of brown mix) This mix was soaked in water for several hours to soften the alfalfa pellets. After extracting the worm castings, I divided the bin of food into the 10 worm bins. There is a layer of old, damp car...

  My garden is partially shaded by surrounding trees. The soil environment is dominated by a giant Lombardi Poplar that sends it's hungry thirsty roots everywhere. I am not an experienced gardener, I've been trying permaculture techniques to create a food garden. This year I planted in garden bags to protect the food plants from unfair competition. We brought in several truckloads of soil from the city composting system, which has nice texture but no nutrients or micro-organisms. I started worm farming to generate worm castings to add as soil amendment to the city soil the garden bags.  This is my first time starting basil plants from seed. This happy basil is being watered regularly with a slurry of worm castings. Sometimes I soak banana peels overnight and mix the worm castings into that mix. The plants prove the theory. Adding worm castings to city soil, with some banana peel water once in a while, creates a viable growing medium for food plants in garden bags. I have disco...