jenny.shadegarden

  Good morning. No matter what difficulties we face as we think about our next right steps, I take comfort in knowing that my ancestors faced the same sunrise and similar challenges: food, shelter, comfort, connection, security. They managed somehow. We can do this.

  Whenever there is a dry moment I am working on collecting and processing the leaves for garden and worms. I have worked out a pretty good method. First I use the blower to lift the leaves onto the garden soil. I have a cordless Makita blower. I wear a tool pouch to carry extra batteries so I can get all the blowing down in one try. I carry 4 fully charged batteries to get both curbs and all the sidewalks picked up. It makes a huge difference getting it done frequently so the weight of the leaves doesn't build up too much. Then I run over them with the lawn mower. It must look kind of funny to see me 'mowing' my garden when I don't have any grass. It does the trick, though, because the leaves are left shredded. What I notice is that the shredded leaves have significantly less volume than the unshredded leaves.  After the leaves are shredded I am working on rototilling them into the garden soil. We hauled this soil in from the municipal composting system. We learned las...

  Every year our giant lombardi poplar sheds a mountain of leaves. The last leaves don't usually drop until the end of November. In years past we have raked up the leaves, bagged them, and sent them to the City for composting. This year is different. After every windstorm and during breaks in the rain, I am going out and blowing the leaves onto the garden and the boulevard. Then I run over them with my lawn mower to break them into smaller pieces. After that I am rototilling them into my shade garden to grow food next year.  At the same time, I am creating an infinite food source for my burgeoning worm farm. I am going to use the leaf mulch mixed with a bit of garden soil to feed my worms. In years past, when a pile of leaves was left unattended for any period of time, when I would finally get them picked up there would be worms already feeding at the bottom of the pile.  My plan is to be ready to sell worm castings and worm tea next spring. There is something very satisf...

  I have a happy ginger root that is sprouting on my window sill. I would like to plant it. I am thinking of putting it into a container of potting soil to stay on the window sill for the winter and then maybe I can transplant it into the garden next spring. I have never done this before. I would appreciate hearing other's stories of experience, strength and hope to give this ginger root the conditions it needs to thrive and multiply : )

  The October rains are here. I did not get all the gardening tasks done that I had hoped by this time. However, there is still time before the soil can no longer be worked. The weather is still surprisingly warm, even as the rains soak the leaves on the ground. There will be lots of leaves to build up the soil for next year's planting.

  The seeds I germinated in July did not produce plants. I planted them after they had sprouted and they did not grow after that. This is due to (at least) three issues: Lack of knowledge for preparing the soil bed Lack of knowledge for planting seeds Lack of knowledge for watering new seeds To address these three issues I have taken the following steps: Download the Gardner's Bible ( The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, 2nd Edition: Discover Ed's High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions: Wide Rows, Organic Methods, Raised Beds, Deep Soil ) to my Kindle and get Mom to read it out loud to me while I am working in the kitchen; Set up new garden beds for new seed plantings Layer 1 - recycle cardboard to set up barrier between tree roots and new garden soil Layer 2 - thick layer of existing, non-productive garden soil Layer 3 - lime dressing to balance existing soil ph Layer 4 - alfalfa pellets to add nitrogen and mulch to the soil Layer 5 - potting soil to...

  My garden is shady and we are in our first year of building life into the compost soil from the City recycling program.  Our first priority this year is to produce salad makings so we don't have to buy greens from the grocery store. It is very satisfying to go out in the garden and pick radishes and greens for dinner instead of throwing away 3 day old greens from the grocery store and recycling the plastic container. Yesterday I purchased seeds from the garden centre and took a few from each packet. I put them in their own paper napkin and placed them in a plastic container. I soaked the napkins and left the covered container in a kitchen drawer. I marked the day for germination start on the Google calendar and gave myself a notification in three days to check to see how they are doing. Once they are ready, I will plant them in the shadiest part of the garden in the napkins, soaked in water collected from the worm farm and covered with a mulch of alfalfa pellets. As the seas...