Worms are thriving on a mix of cardboard, sterile compost dirt from the municipality, coffee chaff from a local coffee roaster, alfalfa pellets, kitchen compost and clippings from mowing the yard. I have not been an exemplary gardener this year. I have been trying to do too many things everyday and falling behind on everything. I did not have a plan when I laid out my beds in the spring and I created areas that were difficult to access for watering. I don't know which volunteer plants to keep and which ones I need to remove or at least reduce. I tried soaker hoses this year but because my plantings are in clumps on raised beds, a lot of the water is falling in areas that don't benefit the plants I am cultivating but it does benefit the plants I don't want to cultivate. My rain barrels are catching rain on the west side of the house but most of my garden is on the east and south side of the house. I have to carry every gallon from the rain barrels around the house to throw...
Today I visited Burnaby Red Wigglers and met Bintoro Gunadi, founder and Soil Biologist. It was fascinating having him explain what the worms are, what they need, and what to expect. I took home two handfuls of worms and a bag of worm cocoons and inoculum. When I got home my gardening friend, Honami, stopped by and showed me how to set up my worm nest in a food waste bucket. We added leaves and torn up paper to the small amount of food waste in the bucket. Then we tipped the bag of worms in, covering them with the inoculum. We left them to do their magic with a lid on the bucket, carefully placed in a shady area out of direct sun. Going forward, we will put the garden waste in the outdoor bins, and that is also where we will put our coffee grounds. They are too acidic for the worms to enjoy. So now we have a kitchen compost for food waste that is growing worms. I cannot explain how satisfying it feels to have this worm culture start up. The worms are so quiet and ...
A modest collection of mustard greens and lettuce leaves from our first year garden. I walk around my neighbourhood several times a day to exercise with my dog. I notice other boulevard and front yard gardens and see how big their plants are at this time of year. My garden does not come close to the production I am seeing in my neighbour's gardens. However, it is a first year garden in a front yard and boulevard that have been continuously under construction since 2011. Before we started renovating to put a new basement under our house, our entire yard was surrounded by a mature, 30' cedar hedge. It was very hard to get anything to grow near that hedge. The hedge was removed to make way for excavation to install a new foundation and basement under our 1911 house. The entire yard was dug out, new drainage and foundation installed and then the foundation walls backfilled with sand. The only soil remaining was around the perimeter, and it was the soil that had been condi...
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