Blue Bungalow Farm

The Blue Bungalow Farm is moving!

2011-07-20T15:35:00.005-05:00

The blog, that is. Not the actual farm.

For a while now I've been posting my reflections about urban homesteading at two locations: here and at Wauwatosa Now, where I'm a community blogger. From this point on, please read my posts only at the Blue Bungalow Farm blog at Tosa Now.

Thanks for visiting this page!

A Fishy Trip to the Beach

2011-07-12T17:03:00.005-05:00

One of our favorite perks of life in the Milwaukee area is easy access to the shores of Lake Michigan. We moved here in 2006 from land-locked Champaign-Urbana and soon formed a habit of visiting the lake, sometimes daily, to dip our feet in the water at Bradford Beach or walk along the shore at Klode Park in Whitefish Bay in search of sea glass and cool rocks.

Despite our love of the gorgeous expanse of Lake Michigan shoreline, we rarely wade further than our knees into the great lake's waters. Very few locals swim in the ice cold lake – partly because, well, it's freezing, and partly because of the unimaginable things one might find in the water. Like blobs of algae, garbage, maybe human and pet waste (really). Never mind the unseen poisons in the water thanks to industrial dumping by BP in Indiana and others.

At a recent trip to a Milwaukee beach, we confronted all of the above pollutants – including pet waste (someone's unleashed dog trotted by and peed in the sand right in front of us). But the most memorable pollutants were dozens of shiny little fish baking on the shoreline.

Source: Introduced Species Summary Project

When we first arrived, we found a decent spot in the sand and watched our three girls run to the icy water to wade. Almost immediately, one of them was able to catch a fish with her bare hands. She brought her prize to us and I suggested that she temporarily place the small silver fish in a plastic cup lying in the sand so she could study it (the cup was one of many pieces of trash laying on the beach). She placed the fish in the cup and watched it float, belly-up. "It looks dead," I said, wondering if the process of being captured was too much for the creature to handle. She dumped the fish into the water. Then, a few moments later, she caught another fish. And then another. "Why are these fish so easy to catch, and why do they all look half-dead?" my husband and I wondered. We speculated that the "living" fish our girls caught were sick and about to join their dead brethren on the shore.

Of course, given the local lore about Lake Michigan pollution, our first thought was that the fish were dying because of something in the water. We grew increasingly squeamish watching our girls play in what we assumed to be a polluted lake. The longer we sat, the more the odor of the dead fish, along with sea gull feces, overwhelmed us. To make matters worse, biting flies surrounded us. Then that dog trotted along and peed. The dog pee was the last straw. We packed up and moved our party to Alterra on the Lake.

We were perplexed for days about the dead fish, wondering what caused this phenomenon. Any time creatures die en masse, humans speculate. Were the fish deaths caused by industrial waste dumped into the water? By global climate change? Is it an omen? My overactive imagination gravitated toward the worst.

Then came an answer to why this seemingly mysterious phenomenon is occurring. We learned from a WISN report that the fish are called alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus), a smallish, invasive herring. According to the report, alewife deaths are common this time of year. The die-offs are probably caused by temperature fluctuations in the water. Still curious, I did some googling and found a few articles on the subject of the alewife die-off, including a recent piece by the Associated Press and WISN's web coverage. Both reports claim that the deaths are a normal phenomenon that occurs with this invasive species every so often.

But isn't Lake Michigan so polluted as to be deadly to some of its fish? This is a popular assumption on the part of many beach-goers, myself included. I asked the DNR's Southern Lake Michigan Fisheries Supervisor Bradley Eggold about pollution and whether it harmed the alewives. His answer? It is "very, very remote" that water pollution is a factor in the alewife deaths. "Alewives are very sensitive to changes in water temperature, especially at this time of year," he said. "These water temperature changes occur every year. Other major reasons why these alewives die-off every year include 1) they are native to the Atlantic Ocean and therefore live in saltwater. They can have trouble regulating their salt/water in their bodies, 2) spawning stress and 3) low food availability."

Harvey Bootsma, Associate Professor of the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, agrees that pollution is "highly unlikely" to be a cause in alewife deaths. "This is a common occurrence on the great lakes, and it's almost always due to changing physical conditions in the early summer."

Temperature fluctuations, says Bootsma, are normal, and not necessarily caused by global climate change. "Alwives have been doing this ever since they entered the great lakes."

Regardless of what is causing the alewives to die, the fact remains that our beaches can sometimes feel as dirty as the nearby public restrooms (if you've been at the public restrooms by the lake shore on a busy summer day, you know what I mean). That goes for both the shoreline and the water itself. Although pollution may not be the cause of alewife deaths, it certainly contributed to an unpleasant beach experience. The amount of litter on the beach alone bordered on disgusting. All that filth on the shore made me wonder how clean the water is.

I asked Dr. Bootsma whether pollution in Lake Michigan is a problem. "The water itself is quite clean," Bootsma said. "There are some areas where there are localized problems, called 'areas of concern'. You can read more about them at http://www.great-lakes.net/envt/pollution/aoc.html." An Area of Concern (AOC), according to Environment Canada, "is a location that has experienced environmental degradation." This map indicates that in MKE the Milwaukee Estuary is an AOC, due to "significant contributions of toxic substances to the Milwaukee Estuary AOC from upstream sources" (e.g. the Menomonee River).

The bottom line is that it's fairly safe to swim in Lake Michigan water if you're not in an AOC – that is, if you can stand the cold. And it's probably not a big deal for kids to be catching half dead alewives in the water, as long as they're not handling the ones that have been dead for a while. But many of our beaches are filthy -- there's no doubt about it. The sand is littered with waste, as well as bacteria from the feces of abundant sea gulls who gorge themselves on our garbage.

What might we do about our filthy beaches and our AOCs? While some of these issues are perhaps too deeply rooted for us to change on an individual level, Bootsma suggests a few things average citizens might do to help clean up Lake Michigan: "1. Mercury comes from coal burning power plants and other industrial (and natural) sources…reducing energy consumption helps, and people should also be careful how they dispose of hazardous waste; 2. Some near-shore problems are caused by excessive phosphorus loading to the lake. Some of this comes from urban runoff, so if people apply fertilizer (or any herbicides or pesticides) to their lawns, they should do it sparingly. A video that highlights some of the work we have done in this area can be viewed at http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/29499314; 3. Water quality is sometimes affected by overflows of storm sewers or sanitary sewers, so water conservation methods (using rain barrels; disconnecting sump pump drains from the ditch) can be helpful; 4. Be careful about what we flush down the drain. Unused pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and paint should be disposed of properly; 5. One of our websites has more useful information on beach water quality: http://www.glwi.uwm.edu/documents/non-pointdweb.pdf."

Seems to me that the simplest thing any beach-goer can do is to pick up trash off the shore. That and avoid feeding the gulls.

Beyond these measures, the DNR's Bradley Eggolt says it can be helpful to get involved through education and activism. Educate yourself by seeking out a range of sources on these issues. Then look for opportunities to become active. "The best advice I can give is to get involved," Eggolt explained in a recent e-mail. "Whether it is because you are a beach goer and want clean beaches or you are a fisherman and you want to catch salmon and trout, read and learn about the issues and attend meetings where these things get discussed… It could be a local fishing club, environmental group, nature center, etc. With that said, you would not have to join a group or go to those meetings, just read and get involved in whatever way that person feels comfortable doing."

Transitioning with the A/C

2011-07-02T16:25:00.002-05:00

Today I caved and did something I've only done a few times over the last four years: I turned on my air conditioner. It's not particularly stifling according to the thermometer, but after 24 hours with a heat index in the mid-to-upper nineties, it was steamy inside my house. The six of us (including one 90-pound, long-haired dog) were starting to wilt.

This moment of weakness seems an especially grave sustainability sin because it occurred, unwittingly, during Power Down Week, when local sustainers are challenged to "make their carbon foot print as small as they can" from June 25 to July 3. The week concludes with Energy Independence Day at Gordon Park in the Riverwest neighborhood of MKE. I've been away from my computer a lot these last few weeks, working on various gardening projects, so I missed the Power Down announcements on Facebook and various e-mail lists.

Though using my A/C (especially during Power Down Week) may hurt my eco-cred, I don't feel too guilty about it. Why? Because to me, this is what transitioning to environmental sustainability is all about. I fear that for some, sustainability can become a "more radical than thou" sort of exercise, a kind of competition to see who can tough out a higher degree of energy independence. Don't get me wrong – the fewer fossil fuels a person uses, the better. And events like Power Down Week offer fun ways to raise awareness about the transition movement. But the extremism required to suffer through a heat wave without A/C doesn't come naturally to most Americans, who have been coddled by comfort and convenience for generations. Can those blessed with A/C realistically be expected to revert to nineteenth century discomfort overnight? Judging by the responses of many of my A/C-loving friends to the concept, I think not.

Enter the transition movement, a philosophy that emphasizes weaning oneself off of fossil fuels. This is the concept behind Transition U.S., which posits that "life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it’s better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise." It seems clear that fossil fuels like oil and coal -- extremely potent sources of energy that have powered the pace of human progress over the last 150 years -- are unsustainable resources, especially at the rate we are using them. And yet, to a certain extent it is unrealistic to ask Americans to quit their fossil fuel addiction cold turkey. That might be possible for a radical minority, but not for the masses. With this in mind, should the more radical among us simply shake our heads sadly and wait out the end of the modern world in our wind-powered eco-villages? Or should we take the hands of our less willing friends and families and help them baby step toward sustainability?

Having many reluctant transitioners among my loved ones, I choose the latter option (though the former does have its appeal). That's one part of the reason I turned on the A/C today. Sure, part of it was because, after a sleepless night dousing my head in cold water every half hour, I reached such a point of overheating that I could not function normally. But instead of toughing it out until the cool air returned, as I've done in the past, I chose to use the perfectly good air conditioner I own, if just for a day or two. Doing so, I feel, helps keep me honest and human. It helps me to empathize with those who don't think they can lead more sustainable lives because they don't want to give up their creature comforts. It also helps me to strike a balance. I can enjoy the A/C when I really need it, while also turning it off as soon as the extreme heat passes.

To me, this is the essence of transitioning. The Transition movement is about using the resources we have more sparingly, more judiciously. It is about slowly adjusting to a slightly less comfortable existence. For me, transitioning means keeping the thermostat set at 63 to 67 degrees in the winter, instead of 75. It means mowing half my lawn with a manual "reel mower" and the other half with a gas-powered machine. It means using both rain barrel and municipal water to hydrate my gardens. And it means only turning on the A/C when there is a heat index above 95. Transitioning makes our conversion to energy independence slow but sustainable. It is a luxury we now have while energy is still relatively cheap and readily available.

Part of transitioning involves "powering down," a little bit at a time. Another part involves shifting from using fossil fuels to using sustainable energy sources. This can be difficult for those of us who lack the funds to purchase wind turbines or solar panels. Thankfully, we can support renewable energy to fuel our A/Cs, furnaces, lighting and appliances by participating in WE's Energy for Tomorrow program. For $10 a month, a household can help fund WE's use of renewable energy (biomass, hydroelectric, solar, and wind), reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 15,264 pounds annually (and reducing waste of limited fossil fuels). Our family just enrolled. We are thrilled to know that when we cave and power up instead of down, we're supporting renewable resources when we do so.

Want to learn more about the transition movement? Here are a few more resources you might find helpful:

Green Neighbor

http://greenneighbor.org/main/

Sign up for the Energy for Tomorrow program through the Green Neighbor website and get a $5 gift certificate to Alterra Coffee!

Sustainable Tosa

http://sustainabletosa.blogspot.com/

Transition Milwaukee

http://transitionmilwaukee.org/

Wauwatosa Energy Committee

http://www.wauwatosa.net/index.aspx?NID=269

WPR interview with Patricia Benson, Board Member, Transition U.S.

http://www.wpr.org

Vanishing Bees

2011-06-09T11:18:00.003-05:00

Growing up, I was absolutely terrified of "bees," the name I used for a variety of tiny monsters with dreaded, piercing stingers and stripy yellow and black backs. I was destined to get stung, I reasoned, if one of them came near me. As a child I was always afraid of any creeping, crawling thing, but my exceptional fear of bees and wasps was sealed when I was about seven years old. One evening, I bolted outside the second the last bite of dinner was consumed so I could ride my bike in the waning hours of daylight. As I pulled my bike out of the garage, I unleashed the wrath of a yellow jacket. It chased me up the sidewalk until my hero arrived: Jack, the burly tough-guy next door, who lifted one gigantic work boot and smashed the creature underfoot.

I spent my entire childhood running in this manner from bees and their kin. While conventional wisdom holds that a person confronted by a bee should stand like a stone, lest flailing arms and screaming scare an insect into stinging behavior, I held firm to my own belief that running was a more effective evasion method. And it did work for me – over the three and a half decades of my life I have never been stung.

I held on to my fear of nearly all creatures of the order hymenoptera for a very long time. That fear worsened as I grew up and read books like A Taste of Blackberries, in which a young boy dies from an allergic reaction to bee stings. My grandma is allergic to bees, so I figured that I might be, too. All the more reason to flee on sight of any yellow-and-black-backed insect.

A few years later, I met my husband, a man with almost no fear of bees. He spent hours as a boy trying to capture them with honeyed jars and, unlike me, was able to distinguish between a honey bee and a yellow jacket wasp. When we were hiking and confronted a fuzzy bumble bee, he'd try to pet the thing. I later had three children by this man, and amazingly, they displayed the same bee-loving behavior. My firstborn daughter so loved the little creatures that she continued to try to capture them as pets, even after she was stung.

Having children who spent hours at play turning over rocks in search of arthropods piqued my own curiosity about all insects, including bees. So I bought an insect field guide and began to learn the difference between the "gentle giant" bumble bees and the aggressive hornets. I learned that the horrifying Ichneumon wasps with their excessively long stingers have no interest in humans (their "stingers" are actually ovipositors used to inject eggs into the insect prey they parasitize). The more I learned, the more my fear melted away. That fear was replaced by enchantment, curiosity, and fascination. My husband's macro-photos of insects, including various bees, helped me to see the beauty of their world. Here's one of his photos, of a bumble bee pollinating a flower:

Photographer: Steven T. Zydek

Soon, I became interested in honey bees in particular, due to their manifold virtues. Honey bees are amazing creatures. They are organized in a way that suggests high intelligence, though their human-like civilization is more innate than learned. Bees are crucial pollinators. Without them, many of our most prized fruits would not, well, come to fruition. And of course, bees provide us with delicious honey and fragrant, useful beeswax. The more educated I became about these creatures, the more I loved and respected them.

Naturally, then, I was disheartened to learn about the recent rise of what has been dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder. Honey bees, it seems, are disappearing. CCD is a mysterious and potentially disastrous dilemma. Bees aren't simply dying overnight, leaving their corpses in mounds around their hives. If this were the case, perhaps it would be easier to trace the source of the problem. Instead, worker bees – the small female honey bees that collect pollen to feed their young and care for the queen -- are simply disappearing, flying off in confusion and dying when they can't find their way back to the hive. The disappearance of workers ultimately causes a hive to collapse over a span of a few months.

Many theories have been bandied about as to why the bees are disappearing, from climate change to cell phone radiation to industrial beekeeping methods and even supernatural phenomena. A couple weeks ago a study was released that again pointed the finger at cell phones as the culprit, indicating that their signals are confusing and killing bees. So stated this article shared across social media.

But cell phones are not the real cause of CCD, say beekeepers interviewed in Vanishing of the Bees. We recently viewed a screening of the documentary at Unity Church in Wauwatosa. The film largely blamesneonicotinoid pesticides as the cause of CCD. These chemicals work not by being sprayed on the leaves of crops, but within the system of the plant (hence the name "systemic pesticide"). Theorists point to treated plants as having a detrimental effect on bees, who do not die instantly after exposure but bring tainted pollen back to the hive. Over time, larval bees, who have been reared on toxic pollen, grow up confused and disoriented and are eventually incapable of leaving the hive without wandering too far and dying.

Abroad, some beekeepers and apiarists are so certain of the link between systemic pesticides and CCD that they have worked to successfully ban neonicotinoids. Cf.http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/about/intheworks/ccd-european-ban.html and http://www.bayer-kills-bees.com/.

In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency will not take a strong stance against neonicotinoids as the cause of CCD. They say research isn't conclusive enough to institute a ban. Why? According to the film, studies conducted by chemical companies stating that neonicotinoids were not harmful to bees (adult bees did not die within a few days of exposure to these pesticides) were submitted to and accepted by the EPA as proof that these pesticides are not causing CCD. Here's the EPA's statement on the issue.

Whatever the cause, if CCD continues it may have a devastating impact on humans, as well as bees. According to the film, bees are required to pollinate a third of the food we eat, from fruits to tree nuts and many things in between. Without ample honey bees, farmers are required to ship bees out of state to do the pollinating of select food crops, causing food prices to rise. Without any bees, we will simply not be able to enjoy many fruits, nuts, and seeds. Can you imagine a world without apples? Pumpkins? Sunflowers? It boggles the mind to think of the impact of the death of honey bees. In addition to the threat to many of our staple foods, Colony Collapse Disorder is perhaps symptomatic of environmental toxicity that is bound to have an effect on all life – human included.

What can be done to stop the death of bees? Until the cause of CCD is determined, it may be difficult to completely eradicate the problem on the residential level. That said, there are things any citizen can do to help protect bees. Find (or host) a screening of a documentary like 'Vanishing of the Bees' or the similar film Queen of the Sun. Plant bee-friendly plants in your yard, like sunflowers, pumpkins, and bee balm (Monarda). Cease from killing dandelions and clover in your grass – they are important food sources for pollinators like honey bees. Commit to keeping your yard chemical-free. Don't fear honey bees – they help us survive and make the world a beautiful and healthy place. They rarely sting humans unless bothered. Take a beekeeping class through the University of Wisconsin Extension's Urban Apiculture Institute. Lobby the government and the EPA to work harder toward finding the cause of CCD.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, educate yourself about insects. Know your bee and wasp varieties and avoid killing honey bees (if you see a swarm, DO NOT spray it with pesticides – most people fail to realize that bees are at their most tame when they are swarming. Call a local beekeeper and he or she will collect the bees for you). As citizens we have to stop believing the hype about "bugs" and learn to tell the difference between beneficial insects (without whom would mean certain death for humans) and true "pests."

Here are a few more bee-related resources:

Beekeeping in Milwaukee brochure

Beepods

Growing Power Bees

Milwaukee Waukesha Beekeepers Association

Rolling Meadow Honey Farm

Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine article on bees

Accidental Hot Composting

2011-05-25T19:11:00.003-05:00

In my last blog post, I shared some of my knowledge about composting in honor of International Compost Awareness Week. I began composting in 1999, when I bought my first bin (something along the lines of this). Composters like my first bin are often touted as a way to achieve "hot composting" – the black plastic container absorbs heat, or so the ad copy goes, thus encouraging organic waste to "cook" into rich black compost.

As I explained in the aforementioned blog post, hot composting occurs when wastes rich in carbon and nitrogen are mixed in the right proportions (30 C : 1 N). A few scoops of soil or finished compost (for the microorganisms within) are thrown into the mix. The pile is kept moist and well-aerated and, if one is lucky, the bacteria in the pile will begin to consume like maniacs. They eat and breed in such a frenzied manner that they generate heat in the process. This heat is a sign that waste is breaking down rapidly.

I have no idea if my first compost bin really worked – sure, the waste I put inside broke down, but when I tried to remove it a year later the receptacle fell apart, and I never really found out if the compost heated. This is consistent with stories I’ve heard from other gardeners who have invested in expensive plastic composters only to find they broke or collapsed after a year or two of use. While not all of these bins bust so quickly, they can fail to deliver in their promises to cause the kind of heating that creates crumbly black "Gardeners' Gold" within three months’ time.

A few years after my disappointing first run with hot composting I opted to try passive composting. With passive composting, you basically throw stuff in a pile and let it rot for a year. You don't aerate by turning the pile, nor do you water the pile; you simply let nature take its course and enjoy a small amount of compost each spring. In 2003, my father-in-law built me a two-sided bin with an open top, removable wooden slats in the front, and chicken wire sides. I've been passively composting ever since, harvesting compost once a year.

That is, until about two weeks ago. That's when, despite the cold and rain, I discovered that my “passive” pile out back had accidentally become a hot pile – so hot, in fact, that it has been steaming for over a week. Here's a photo in which I almost captured the faint vapor rising one cold morning when I dug into the pile:

A hot compost pile is desirable because (A) heating causes compost to form much faster – it only takes about three months; (B) the quality of the compost is higher because of all the additional microbial activity encouraged; and (C) weed seeds and pathogens are "cooked" through the pasteurization process that takes place in the pile.

Accomplishing hot composting can be tricky. Most believe they fail to generate heat because their pile isn’t getting enough sun or warmth, though my case is proof that these variables have little to do with hot composting. My pile is in a shady spot in the back of my yard, next to an ash tree. The day I first found it steaming it was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit, extremely windy, and overcast. Not exactly the scorching day you'd expect would cause yard waste to heat. Nor is my bin made of heat-absorbing black plastic, which many companies claim is an important factor in successful hot composting (cf. this model, which advertises that "this high-performance tumbler is made of 100% recycled plastic in a heat-absorbing black color which helps compost 'cook'").

I'm not 100 percent sure what I did to cause my pile to heat, but I do have some theories:

(1) The pile is big. The whole thing is at least 3’x 3’x 3’. I'm not sure if it's absolutely necessary to have a big pile in order to achieve hot composting, but it certainly helps, for two reasons: one, the greater the variety of waste I throw on the pile, the more I increase the likelihood of balancing nitrogen to carbon, and two, the more waste, the more for the microbes to eat. I currently throw any and everything I can compost into the bin, from yard waste to kitchen scraps (my own and those I’ve collected from neighbors and, occasionally, local restaurants). I throw in large amounts of dried weeds and dead leaves from the yard (for the carbon) as well as buckets of moist, nitrogen-rich kitchen scraps. This helps me get closer to striking that important carbon to nitrogen balance of 30:1.

(2) The pile has LOTS of sticks in it. In the past I omitted the sticks, as they take a very long time to break down and are a pain to pick out of my passive pile once a year. HOWEVER, I learned in my Master Composter class that sticks, because of their size, create necessary pathways in the pile for air. So I allowed a number of sticks of various sizes into the pile, which I believe helped to aerate it, thus reducing the need for turning (something I seldom do).

(3) The pile is very moist due to ample rain. One of the main reasons folks’ piles don’t' heat is because they dry out, especially mid-to-late summer. Compost piles need to be watered when it's not raining – especially if they contain a lot of carbon-rich materials like dead leaves. It has been raining a lot this spring – which has limited the amount of time I’ve been able to spend in the garden, but has worked wonders on my compost pile.

Of course, my happy composting accident has me revved up to try intentionally hot composting. So lately I've been checking the pile daily and have even started turning it with a pitch fork. It’s so fun to see all the black crumbly compost steaming in the center of the pile. If my hot pile keeps working so well I’m sure I’m going to have compost by mid-summer, which will offer a nice pick-me-up for the veggies and herbs growing in my raised beds.

Do you have a question about composting or a composting success to share? E-mail me at gardensnotgarbage@gmail.com or leave a comment below. Or, stop by the Tosa Farmers Market on Saturday, May 28 at 11 a.m. and learn about composting basics at the Historic Little Red Store (7720 Harwood Avenue).

Do You Compost?

2011-05-05T12:16:00.004-05:00

If your answer is yes, you have my permission to skip reading this blog post.

If your answer is no, I'd like to make a special appeal to you: consider engaging in the simple, delightful process of turning organic "waste" into the resource it really is. This is International Compost Awareness Week, and in honor of the event, I'd like to challenge you to make a bold move to cease throwing kitchen scraps into the trash and instead give composting a try. In doing so you'll discover for yourself how magical (and how easy!) the act of composting can be.

Composting is magical because it takes garbage and turns it into a useable product – compost, also known as "humus." Humus is a crucial but often lacking component of healthy soil. Adding compost to the earth reduces the need for commercial soil amendments, as well as manufactured chemical fertilizers that can run off our properties and into the rivers and lakes, polluting our water supply. Compost adds nutrients and micronutrients to depleted soil, helps soils retain moisture, and reduces erosion. This allows us to grow healthier plants, from vegetables and fruits to native flowers and even grass. It can act as mulch and side dressing and can be used to make "compost tea." Compost can be purchased, of course, but it is virtually free, after start-up expenses, once you begin converting your own kitchen waste into this natural resource.

And composting really IS easy. There are three main ways to compost -- choose your favorite. The bottom line is that anything you do to return resources to the soil, rather than send them to the landfill, is an important contribution to environmental sustainability.

The first method of composting I'm going to discuss is probably the most well-known. Hot composting is a technique whereby your aim is to "cook" your vegetable-based waste. Food scraps heat and thus break down faster into compost. Contrary to popular opinion, a pile doesn't necessarily heat because of the sun or summer temperatures. It heats when beneficial composting bacteria go to work inside a pile, heating it to degrees upwards of 160 F. This pasteurizes the pile and creates high quality compost quickly – the total turn-around time is about three months when a pile properly heats.

While this is a fantastic composting method, it can be tricky to get a pile to heat. Heating requires a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 30:1 in the waste. Carbon rich materials include things like dead leaves and hay. Nitrogen rich materials include fresh-cut grass, vegetable scraps, or manure. Many say a good rule of thumb is to mix two parts carbon-rich "brown" materials with one part nitrogen-rich "green" materials. In order to heat, the pile also needs to be adequately moist (about as wet as a wrung-out sponge) and it needs to good oxygen flow – aeration is encouraged through regular turning of the pile.

Sounds fun, doesn't it?

Um….sort of? I know I don't have time to do all these things. I would, of course, LOVE to see my big ol' pile out back get so hot it steams, but I know accomplishing this is no small task.

An alternative is what is called "passive" or "cool" composting. This is the outdoor composting method of choice for those who are extremely busy – or just plain lazy. I think I may have one foot in each of those categories, which is why this method works so well for me. The main difference between hot and passive composting is the amount of work that goes into it – and the amount of time it takes to create usable compost. For my pile, I simply dump waste into the bin. I try to layer the types of waste I add – for example, if I dump in nitrogen-rich veggie and fruit scraps I will cover them with carbon-rich dead leaves. I do this to help the carbon-nitrogen balance and to cover any offensive-smelling waste that might attract flies. Occasionally I will also turn the pile, although I admit I don't do it often enough to call it "hot" composting.

Interestingly, right now my pile is so big that it seems to be heating, despite my laziness. If it heats, it will compost faster. Otherwise, the compost from a passive pile is typically ready in six to twelve months. I usually harvest compost in late spring, just as I'm preparing my vegetable beds.

One caution: if you choose passive composting, avoid adding weed seeds to your pile. Though most weed seeds will be destroyed by heating, without the heat the seeds may survive the composting process and end up sprouting in your gardens.

The third method is worm composting, AKA vermicomposting. I've written about in the past on this blogand I own a small vermicomposting supply business; I encourage you to peruse those resources if you want to learn more. Vermicomposting is my favorite composting method, simply because it's fast, can be done indoors year-round, and produces a superior compost that plants love. Worm composting creates finished compost in approximately two to four months.

With all three methods, avoid adding meat, fish, poultry, dairy, and other animal products, as these wastes create offensive odors and can attract pests. Also avoid adding heavily processed and salty foods, charcoal briquettes and ashes, and dog and cat feces. Paper products are OK – throw those coffee filters and paper towels in with your fruit and vegetable waste. They'll break down quickly in a compost bin of any kind.

As for composting systems, you can invest in an expensive commercial compost bin, and if you want to do this, more power to you. Just make sure you read as many user ratings as possible before spending money so you have an idea of what to expect. Of course, you do not have to buy an expensive commercial bin to compost. There are plenty of plans for bins, ranging from a simple cylinder made of chicken wire to more complex wooden systems. You can also use concrete blocks to build bins. The Wisconsin DNR has a nice site with composting resources, including info on types of home composting bins. Check it out.

My passive bin is made from scrap wood and chicken wire, which allows for decent air flow around the pile. Wooden slats in the front slide up and out when the time comes to remove the compost. The two sides allow me to focus on adding waste to one side at a time; when the first side is ready, I remove any unfinished materials and place them in the other side, then begin adding new waste to the second side.

If you are unable to compost yourself, you may be able to find a neighbor to help you. I use my large bin to help neighbors compost. I also feed neighbors' waste to the thousands of red wiggler worms that eat garbage in my basement.

If you can't find a neighbor to help you compost, locate a community composting collective, like the Milwaukee Community Compost Network. Or, start a collective yourself.

If you have a big composting bin and not enough waste to fill it, you might consider offering to compost for your neighbors. You can also try to compost for local restaurants and grocers. There are many possibilities for composting. By working together, every community can turn their garbage into gardens!

The Joys of Nurturing Baby Plants

2011-04-19T20:23:00.001-05:00

Every spring for the last three years I've started my own vegetable and herb seeds indoors. This year, I spent about half of the last day of March mixing growing media, prepping flats, and planting seeds. Two flats of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and lettuce are now growing in my cold basement under lights. Eight flats of tomatoes, eggplant, basil, peppers, and other heat-loving plants are in a mini-greenhouse that sits in front of my eastern-facing sliding glass doors in the kitchen.

In about one week I’m going to plant two more flats of seeds: pumpkins and sunflowers. I start these large, fast-growing plants indoors, even though the package directions say to sow them outside after the last frost. Why? I’ve heard slightly older sunflower seedlings, for example, don't taste as good to rabbits when they are a little less tender. By starting them indoors, away from hungry herbivores, and then transplanting them after the last frost, the critters tend to leave them alone.

The seed starter mix I use is based on the following recipe, inspired by Gayla Trail of You Grow Girl:

Combine equal parts of:

- peat moss OR shredded coconut fiber (I alternated between the two – both retain moisture; peat moss provides nutrition)

- vermiculite (ground up mica; expands and holds moisture)

- perlite (exploded volcanic rock; provides aeration)

I filled a five-gallon bucket with this recipe; at the end I threw in about a quart of worm compost. According to You Grow Girl, seeds don't need fertilizer until they've sprouted their second set of leaves (the first set of "true leaves"). A peat-vermiculite-perlite mix doesn't contain much nutrition for plants; it is ideal for seed starting because it is light and friable, but once the energy contained in the seeds is used up by the sprouting process, plant nutrients will need to be added by way of fertilizer and/or soil amendment. Hence the addition of worm compost: adding compost gives seedlings a little food in case they need it before I get around to adding extra nutrition.

My 10-year-old daughter and I filled paper-based egg cartons I've saved over the last year with our homemade seed starter mix. We planted seeds in each carton and then placed the cartons in plastic flats.

I water by filling the bottom of the flats and letting the cardboard egg cartons soak up the liquid. This is preferable to watering from the top, which can be disruptive to the plants.

Seedlings are a joy, but they require work. Each morning I check on them – I make sure they are constantly moist and turn them toward the light if they are leaning too much. I keep a look out for mold in the greenhouse, which can grow if it becomes too humid inside. I thin out weaker plants. This allows selected seedlings to grow stronger, as they won’t have to compete as much for soil nutrition. (One tip I picked up somewhere along the way is to thin seedlings with scissors. Cutting off unwanted seedlings at the base of their stems, instead of pulling them up by the roots, can be less disruptive to the roots of the seedlings you want to keep).

Soon the seedlings will be far too large for the little egg-shaped pots in which they are currently stretching out their roots. So around the time I plant my pumpkin and sunflower seeds I will also transplant my other seedlings into larger pots – anything from reused 4” pots from old plant purchases to repurposed plastic food containers with drainage holes poked in the bottom. My biggest problem at transplant time will be figuring out how to make room for the bigger pots. Space in the mini-greenhouse is limited, so I will have to choose the strongest seedlings and discard the rest. It is so hard for me, though, to destroy viable seedlings, so I typically end up saving way more of them than I should. I squeeze extras into a second greenhouse I put up in my dining room window.

In early May it will be time to harden off my tender babies: when the danger of frost has passed, I will give my seedlings time to adjust to the wind and sun outdoors by placing them in a shady spot for a few hours each day. Then I’ll bring them in at night. This will continue for a few days, until they are strong enough to be planted outdoors.

Why do gardeners go to all this trouble to keep these tender baby plants alive indoors? Part of it is frugality: a packet of seeds costs only a couple bucks; from one seed packet you can conceivably end up with dozens of plants that would be far more expensive if purchased as seedlings. But there’s much more to this process than saving money. After all, time is money, isn’t it? Nurturing seedlings does require an investment of time.

So it’s really not just about saving money – not for me, anyway. What started as an exercise in frugality has become a worthy spiritual endeavor. As seeds grow, I am able to observe and participate in the mystery of life. I nurture and serve these tiny, vulnerable creatures; they will eventually come to serve and sustain me when I harvest and consume their fruits. In their death they will bring forth new life when the remnants of their fruits are composted and used as food for a new generation of plants.

This process is precious and sacred, and I enjoy every second of it.

More on Grow Lights

2011-03-28T09:45:00.001-05:00

You may recall that a while back I posted an article on growing plants indoors under lights. The article recommended eschewing the purchase of expensive grow light systems and instead growing under simple two-bulb workshop ballasts, each with one soft and one cool white fluorescent bulb. These two inexpensive, readily available bulb types have just the right kind of light to stimulate plant growth.

After posting Read This Before You Buy Grow Lights, I received a couple of responses to the post, mostly from commercial vendors of grow lights of various types. I found one of those messages intriguing because it presented a concept entirely foreign to me: growing under LEDs (Light-emitting Diodes). Here's the letter sent by Alex McQuown, Research Director of EcogroLED in Riverside, CA:

"Hi Heather, I read your grow light article and I thought I'd give you a few bits of clarification.

"Fluorescent lamps are actually a pretty poor choice for indoor gardening. The output maintenance for the bulbs is rather dismal (as is the lifespan of any electrode-based lamp,) the heavy amounts of green light actually interfere with some aspects of plant cellular division and maturation, and the phosphors are not hitting optimal chlorophyll absorption peaks (two in red and two in blue, plus another huge photomorphogenic peak in the UVB range and potentially a peak in the IR range.) Also, due to the low efficiency of fluorescent lamps (approximately 17%) a ton of energy is wasted.

"You'll be forced to change those bulbs out almost every year to maintain the brightest output possible. Canopy penetration is pretty dismal as well, with a typical T8 lamp only being as intense as the sun almost literally on top of the bulb - this means the usable photon flux density is within a very short range - about 8 inches from the light is the maximum usable distance before the umol level drops below usable densities.

"For just over a hundred bucks you could buy a 50w LED system that would've covered that entire setup, plus increased your productivity several times over, you'd (practically) never have to worry about replacement, and the coverage is out of this world….

"You should consider LED lighting."

* * * * *

Unsure of how to respond, I forwarded McQuown's message to my UW-Extension Master Gardener Training instructor, Sharon Morrisey, who serves as a Consumer Horticulture Agent for the Extension. She was the one who taught us Master Gardeners-in-training that expensive grow lights aren't necessary for growing indoors. Morrisey, too, was unfamiliar with using LEDs as grow lights, so she communicated with her fellow "co-horts" at the Extension. UW-EX greenhouse manager Johanna Oosterwyk responded: she doesn't recommend LED grow lights for hobbyists, though she agreed with McQuown that LEDs are more efficient at the commercial level. Here's Oosterwyk's response:

"[McQuown] is right on several counts. An LED fixture is more efficient and can produce a better growth response than a traditional fluorescent, incandescent or HID fixture. There are two reasons for this. First, the energy efficiency of LEDs is well established -- you get considerably more light energy per watt of electrical energy. Second, although individual LEDs are small and their output is moderate, they emit light in a very narrow wavelength. Manufacturers use this as an advantage by wiring together an array of LEDs that emit in the wavelengths that plants absorb best (red and blue). As you guys remember from class, both blue and red are needed for specific development responses (germination and flowering respectively). So not only is efficiency increased in production it's increased in absorption and use as well.

"However, I would still not recommend them to hobby growers. The initial costs are too high (though coming down) and for houseplants you just don't need that kind of radiation output. In addition, though you won't find yourself replacing bulbs every few years, when you do have to replace LEDs you will have to replace the entire fixture (or at least the entire light array), not just a single LED. They are all wired together on an electrical board so it is not a simple matter to swap one out. LEDs are supposed to be long-lived, but their lifespan can be greatly reduced by over-heating, so an effective cooling mechanism is essential or you will be replacing your fixture long before the 50000 hours he cites.

"Also, I don't know anything about the quality of [EcogroLED]; for a comparable product look here: www.lumigrow.com...

"LED growth fixtures are new enough that manufacturers are still working out the bugs. Which LEDs are best? In what combinations? Does the housing keep them cool enough? It will be interesting to watch them develop and in the next 5-10 years. Maybe we will be recommending them to hobbyists. There's a large study being undertaken by several universities and Orbital Technologies of Madison (former students of UW Hort Prof Ted Tibbits) more info here."

* * * * *

Did you get all that? I know. It's pretty complicated stuff. The bottom line, I think, is that the two-fluorescent bulb approach works fine for those wishing to give a few flats of veggie seeds a head start indoors in early spring. For anecdotal proof of this, check out the progress of my two flats of lettuce started in mid-winter. This is how my "Pablo Lettuce" seedlings looked on January 28:

And here they are now (see flat on far left):

I've already harvested some of this lettuce and it tastes great!

Where do your seeds come from?

2011-03-09T19:34:00.003-06:00

In early March, gardeners begin planning which seeds to purchase for spring vegetable gardens. Seed companies know this, so around this time seed catalogs start appearing in our mailboxes. One of the catalogs I've been receiving for a few years comes from Gurney's, located in Ohio. I'm also on their e-mail list, so I frequently receive special offers, sometimes daily.

Around the same time my last Gurney's catalog arrived, I also received an unsolicited catalog from a company called Henry Field's. So I thought I'd do a little comparison shopping by reading the catalogs side-by-side. I figured this would help me compare the two companies’ products and prices.

That was when I noticed something strange: I discovered many identical products in both catalogs. For example, I noticed that "Rainbow Carrots" were in both catalogs, with the same picture (flipped in one). This seemed off, but it wasn’t exactly shocking – many companies purchase seeds from the same wholesaler, right? No big deal.

Then, a few days later I received two seemingly urgent e-mail messages about major discounts at both Gurney's and another nursery I’ve ordered from in the past, Michigan Bulb Company. Both e-mails were formatted in the same way. Out of curiosity I read the fine print on each message. Turns out they are owned by the same company – Scarlet Tanager LLC.

Out of curiosity, I googled "Scarlet Tanager LLC" and came upon this fascinating piece, reprinted from Countryside Magazine.

According to this article, many seed companies are owned by umbrella corporations like Scarlet Tanager LLC (an organization that, quite interestingly, doesn't seem to have its own website). These companies owned by Scarlet Tanager give the illusion of small and local – when you buy from Michigan Bulb Company, for example, you might imagine that your seeds come from a family farm in Michigan. In actuality, as reported in this piece, most of the seeds sold by these companies are purchased at the lowest price possible from mega-corporations like Monsanto. Monsanto, as you may know, has gained notoriety after being exposed by documentaries like Food, Inc. and King Corn. These films and many others have accused Monsanto of patenting and therefore controlling their own genetically modified seeds, making it illegal for small farmers to save seeds from patented varieties. [Incidentally, Monsanto crafted a response to the claims made in Food, Inc. I’ll let you be the judge of whether Monsanto has a right to sue small farmers for saving patented seeds].

What I’ve learned from this experience is that one must be very careful when assuming that seemingly local, family-owned farms aren't connected to Monsanto. Take, for example, the Wisconsin-based Jung Seed Company. Many assume that Jung is a local family company and therefore worth supporting in the fight against GMO foods. I looked into the matter of who owns Jung and the answer is somewhat complex, but it does seem that there is a Monsanto connection. The company that was originally owned by J.W. Jung was later split into two groups – Jungs Garden Centers and Jung Seed Genetics, which is owned by Monsanto. Cf. this discussion thread at seedsavers.org.

To be fair, I've bought products from companies like Jung, Gurneys and Michigan Bulb in the past and have been satisfied with their products (with a few notable exceptions, like the "bare root" hazelnut shrubs from Gurneys that turned out to be complete duds). The tri-color butterfly bush, the Nanking cherry shrubs, the dwarf fruit trees – they have all been quite successful. However, I wonder, what is the true cost of buying these cheap frankenplants? Am I unwittingly supporting genetic modification, corporate patenting of life and the demise of seed saving by purchasing from these companies? These are questions I am now pondering as I prepare to purchase seeds for the 2011 season.

Where do your seeds come from? Do you make a point of buying only locally-grown, unpatented seeds? If so, who are your favorite local growers and seed sellers? Do you participate in a local seed exchange? Do you save your own seeds? Or do you simply buy seeds of those who offer the most interesting varieties at the lowest prices, regardless of who's selling them? Weigh in by leaving a comment below.

From this point forward, it is my personal goal to stick to buying only heirloom varieties of seeds (which are not patented or genetically modified) and/or purchasing from companies that have taken a stance against GMOs and patents. If you would like to do the same, you may find this list helpful (use the search function to quickly locate Wisconsin vendors on the list). Or, join the Seed Savers Exchange,like I did,and get discounts on rare heirloom seeds http://www.seedsavers.org/.

Touring the Food Revolution

2011-02-21T10:44:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I took my three girls to Sweet Water Organics for a tour of their facility at 2151 South Robinson Avenue in Milwaukee. Sweet Water is an indoor urban fish and vegetable farm in operation since 2008. I've been following their progress over the last couple of years and figured it was time to check the place out. Tours are $10 and absolutely worth the money if you have any interest in learning about pioneering sustainable agricultural practices occurring right here in Milwaukee.

Sweet Water is a fascinating project that brings the aquaponics system made famous in recent history by Growing Power's Will Allen to a repurposed industrial building on Milwaukee's south side. Aquaponics involves creating a growth cycle whereby fish like Tilapia and Perch are farmed in tanks; the waste they create is used to fertilize edible plants like lettuce, wheat grass, watercress, sprouts, and so on. This is an organic, sustainable growing method with the potential to revolutionize the food industry.

On our tour we congregated in a classroom and heard the back story of Milwaukee's aquaponics revolution from former Growing Power board member, Sweet Water co-founder, and local food revolutionary James Godsil, AKA "Olde." Following the lecture we were able to explore Sweet Water's aquaponics system. My three young daughters helped feed the fish. We then heard all about the science behind the aquaponics method. Following our aquaponics lesson was a Q + A period that was still going when I had to leave (my daughters started getting antsy). We were there for at least an hour and a half.

Sweet Water tours are every Wednesday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at Noon; children under 10 are free. Growing Power (located on the north side of Milwaukee) gives daily tours at 1 p.m.

Learn more about Sweet Water Organics at www.sweetwater-organic.com.

The Wonder of Worms

2011-02-11T16:37:00.004-06:00

This weekend I'm giving a vermicomposting workshop to our neighborhood garden club. It's the first workshop I've ever done on the subject and I'm thrilled to be able to share my knowledge of this unique practice with others. In case you're unfamiliar, vermicomposting is a special way to return the nutrients in vegetable waste to the soil. It involves keeping earthworms indoors, using them to eat coffee grounds, apple cores, carrot peelings, and other waste. They eat kitchen scraps and turn this "garbage" into a rich natural fertilizer.

My interest in vermicomposting began several years ago, when I began hearing that folks were keeping "pet worms" in boxes in their homes and using them to compost. I was fascinated by the idea of having a little composting factory right in my house. So one day I decided to give vermicomposting a try. I did some research and built my own bin using an 18-gallon plastic storage tote. I bought several containers of red wiggler worms from a local bait shop, dumped them into the bin atop moistened newspaper strips, and began my vermicomposting adventure.

Truth be told, my first couple of years experimenting with worms were rocky. All went well with my first bin until I started noticing tiny fungus gnats all over the place. Frustrated with the pests, I moved the bin outdoors, buried the too-moist, nitrogen-rich bin contents with with dry, carbon-rich materials, and left the bin alone for a spell – a very long spell. In fact, I left the bin outside all the way through the winter. When I returned to the bin in the spring, I had a container full of lovely compost, but no worms! It was then that I learned the hard lesson that worms cannot survive above ground outdoors during a Wisconsin winter.

Determined not to give up, that spring I started a new bin, this time with a bucket of worms from Growing Power in Milwaukee. As I started to get the hang of vermicomposting I soon added a second bin. Then a third. Then I started building bins for friends and family. I'm now at the point where I'm so into vermicomposting that I just launched a little side business called Gardens, not garbage! to help others establish their own worm bins. I also hope to continue to give workshops in the area. Vermicomposting is a fabulous way to reduce waste while creating an amazing organic fertilizer in the process. If you do it right it doesn't smell and works like magic.

The best perk of vermicomposting, for a gardener like myself, is being able to use vermicompost to revive tired houseplants. I brewed up some "vermicompost tea" about a week ago using this method. Before using the tea to water and fertilizer my houseplants (everything from dracaena to dwarf pomegranates, figs, and coffee plants) I decided to try something I recently learned about in my Master Gardener class: I gave my houseplants a shower. I took all my houseplants and put them in my two bathtubs, then rinsed them with warm water, cleaning dust from their leaves (excessive dust can inhibit photosynthesis). After rinsing the leaves and soil thoroughly, I allowed the water to soak through the pots, washing away the build-up of salts that can occur in the average houseplant pot due to treated water. After their bath, I poured my brew of compost tea on the plants' leaves and into the pots. The compost tea serves the dual purpose of acting as a foliar rinse and a fertilizer. The beneficial microbes in the tea strengthen the plant, positioning it to better resist diseases and pests. The tea also adds nutrients to the pot, bringing dead soil back to life.

My plants now look so healthy and shiny and new. Though the task of showering them was a bit painstaking, I don't imagine that the process will have to happen more than once or twice a year. Of course, I will probably repeat the compost tea every few weeks, because it's so beneficial. It doesn't take much vermicompost to make the tea – only about a quart per five gallons of water -- and it's fairly easy to make. The benefits are definitely worth the trouble if you want happy house plants!

A Little Bit of Good News About a Lot of Snow

2011-02-02T11:58:00.004-06:00

By now most of us are channeling our way through mountains of snow following snowmageddon (I’m taking a short break to warm my frozen hands after shoveling for two hours this morning). Building up so much snow against our bungalow caused me to return to a question I have every time we get dumped on like this by Mother Nature: do the heavy banks of snow against a house's foundation act as a kind of insulation, helping to retain heat? Or does the snow act more like ice in a cooler, chilling the house?

I'm inclined to believe the snow insulates more than it chills. It's tough to find a very scientific answer to my question, but these two blog write-ups on the subject seem logical enough: "Using Snow to Insulate Your House" at self-reliance-works.com and "It's cold! What difference does snow make?" from scienceandsarcasm.com. The conclusion is that snow does have an insulating quality, though I would suspect it's minimal -- foundation snow berms and a little roof top snow help, perhaps, but unless our homes are totally buried they're not insulated all that much.

That said, I haven't found a source yet that says snow chills a house. So keep shoveling! There's nowhere else for this much snow to go anyway, other than against our homes. Hopefully it's helping to keep our houses a tiny bit more insulated so that when we return inside from shoveling, we're a little warmer.

Read This Before You Buy Grow Lights

2011-01-28T13:59:00.003-06:00

As you may recall, I started Master Gardener training this January through the University of Wisconsin Extension. I'm learning so much each week. For example, did you know that poinsettia leaves are NOT poisonous? Our fantastic instructor, UW-EX Consumer Horticulture Agent Sharon Morrissey, said one of her professors in college demonstrated this fact by consuming poinsettia leaves in front of his students. I also learned that those who grow seedlings indoors need not invest in fancy "grow lights," which frequently cost two or three times more than other fluorescent lights. In order to grow, plants need "red" and "blue" light – that is, bulbs that emit these kinds of rays (not colored red or blue lights but white lights that are tinged with these parts of the light spectrum). To accomplish this with a two-light ballast, you could use one cool-white bulb, which emits blue-tinged light, and one soft-white bulb, which emits red-tinged light.

As soon as I learned this I went straight to the hardware store and bought a 48", two-bulb shop light ballast for $15 and four 48", T8 bulbs – two cool white and two soft white. Each two pack was about $5. I am going to hang the new light behind my other shop light, under which I'm currently growing lettuce seeds. The first light appears to be working just fine so far, and I've saved a lot of money not purchasing a "real" grow-light system (depending on how elaborate the system they can cost upwards of $100, often far more).

Here's a photo of my basement shop light. Growing underneath are two flats of lettuce atop space-saving mini tables my father-in-law constructed for me. The second shop light will be added after I purchase extra long chains for the ballast so I can bring the bulbs closer to the flats (the chains that came with the shop light are much too short).

By the way, you don't have to wait until early spring to start seeds. I'm growing lettuce in my basement under lights. These "Pablo" lettuce seeds I received courtesy of Seed Savers Exchange and planted on January 15 seem to be doing well!

Hom Energy Inspection: Part Three

2011-01-19T22:31:00.006-06:00

As you may recall from previous Blue Bungalow blog posts, we had a home energy inspection in late 2010, conducted by Tim Guillama of Beyond Energy, LLC. A house is inspected to determine how much conditioned air is typically cycled through in an hour. A draftier home will have a higher "air change rate" than a well-sealed home and, thus, higher heating and cooling bills. When our home was inspected this December, Tim determined that our air change rate was about 13.8 per hour.

Following the inspection, Tim suggested that we have our house and attic insulated. We couldn't afford to do it all at once, so we decided to start by sealing and insulating our attic and basement. We also had our old house exhaust fan replaced with a more energy efficient model. After we had this work done by Insulation Technologies in Milwaukee, Tim returned to our house and again conducted his blower door test to determine the air change rate. It improved from 13.8 changes per hour to about 10.

Our latest WE bill arrived one day after Tim's second inspection, on Tuesday, Jan. 12. The bad news is that gas prices are on the rise again, and this was reflected in our bill. The good news is that the amount of therms we used last month went down from last year, from 761 to 665 (the average temp was one degree warmer this year, which may account slightly for the decrease in therm usage – it went from 23 degrees F last year to 24 this year).

I'm also pleased that our overall energy usage is much lower than average, as evidenced by the following graphic provided by WE:

All in all I'm very happy that we're bringing our therm usage down as prices are rising. We'll still probably pay a great deal to heat our once-drafty old bungalow, but perhaps not as much as we might have.

Much of our home energy efficiency endeavors were made possible by our friend Mike Arney, who is quietly and ardently working to inspire Tosans to go green. He has helped us and he can help you, too: get involved with the new Green Neighbor program (the brain child of Mike Arney and John Bahr). Click on the Green Neighbor checklist to learn about measures you can take to make your home more energy efficient.

There are still several things, both large and small, that we'd like to do to reduce energy consumption in our household. I plan to write about them here – stay tuned.

What measures have you taken to green your home?

The Blue Bungalow at Wauwatosa Now

2011-01-10T14:25:00.004-06:00

In case you weren't aware, last week I began posting this blog on the local My Community Now website, Wauwatosa Now, which is owned by the same company that owns the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I will continue to post the same content at both blogs. To view the other location, go to www.wauwatosanow.com.

Recycling the Christmas Tree

2011-01-10T14:01:00.008-06:00

By now most Tosans' Christmas trees are curbside as we await this week's garbage pick-up, when, on our scheduled garbage day, the trees will be hauled away and turned into mulch. In the past I have pruned off the branches of my Christmas trees and saved them for mulching and composting. This year I was busy, so I decided simply to send our dried up balsam fir to the city. My husband dragged the tree out to the curb last weekend.

I soon began to regret this decision – especially after I came across this list of monthly gardening tips at the Hawks Nursery website. Hawks reminded me not to give up those precious evergreen boughs, as they are very useful in the garden. Thankfully, I found a bit of time to drag the tree to my blueberry patch, where, wearing heavy duty gloves, I cut it to shreds with garden pruners. I then spread the needles around the shrubs, where they will serve as mulch and, hopefully, acidify the soil a bit -- blueberries love acidic soil, and pine is a mild acidifier.

When I got most of the needles off the tree, I replaced what was left of the tree on the curb. (Note: I learned the hard way not to save the trunk and branches as firewood: pine sap tends to explode when heated, which can be dangerous and destructive).

I admit it feels a bit weird to hack apart a Christmas tree. The skeleton that now remains on my curbside is undoubtedly going to make some passersby wonder what the heck we Zydeks do in our house during the Christmas season. On the other hand, recycling my tree is such a beautiful way to continue celebrating Christmas long after December 25 -- that evergreen tree symbolizing eternal life will now also symbolize resurrection as breaks down in the soil, giving new life to other plants.

It's not too late to recycle your tree! Pull it off the curb, clip off the boughs and place them on your garden beds as mulch. Or, save the clippings in a bag and let them age, spreading them as needed during warmer weather or adding them to your compost bin.

Question about Home Inspections

2011-01-04T08:56:00.007-06:00

This morning I want to share a question from a friend in Tosa re: home inspection and insulation, as it's something I am frequently asked:

Heather,
We're looking into the whole home inspection thing because like you, we have a drafty old bungalow and are paying out the ears each month. I was wondering how much your assessment cost? Did you do the blanket assessment or did you pick & choose individual testing to be done? Was it a lot of do the air seal and insulation? And you said that there is a marked difference?
Karri

Karri,
I think the inspection cost around $300. Generally they run from $300 to $500, depending on the size of one's home. We did the whole assessment, for which the inspector looked at the home's air flow as it relates to heating and cooling. FYI, the inspector doesn't look at, say, lighting, or water usage, or appliances. These are things a consumer can easily assess on one's own. Air flow is much harder for a consumer to assess, and it's important to assess, as heating and cooling account for a majority of a home's energy usage -- which can be A LOT if one lives in a drafty old bungalow. Our first February in Wisconsin the We bill blew my mind. I could simply did not expect to pay $400 or $500 a month on energy each winter when I had been paying closer to $200 a month in Urbana, Illinois.

BTW, the company that inspected our home is Beyond Energy, llc. You might want to contact your neighborhood association to find out if any of your neighbors are interested in getting an assessment. Many energy inspectors offer group rates.

Following the inspection we had our attic air sealed and insulated. We also insulated our basement. The cost was about $3,500 – this is a significant expense for us, but we felt the cost is worth it for the following reasons, in no particular order: (1) improving the comfort level of our home (2) saving money (in the long run) (3) preserving energy and protecting the environment, and (4) preserving an old home while bringing it up to twenty-first century standards. I haven't seen a full month's We Energies bill since we had the work done, so it's too early to analyze cost savings, but the house does feel warmer. Based on estimated savings, my husband figures it'll take us about five years to recoup inspection and insulation expenses.

We were pretty happy with the company who did the work: Intech, located in Milwaukee. They've specialized in home insulation for decades and have had thousands of happy insulation customers, so we knew we were in good hands. They also offered us the most attractive price. The were pleasant and professional, didn't use sub-contractors, and completed the work in one day.

Heather

My Gardening and Sustainability Year in Review

2010-12-28T11:32:00.009-06:00

As I prepare for the start of a new year, I've taken a few moments to reflect on some of my accomplishments and failures in home and garden, and on what I plan to do in 2011.

Five Accomplishments

Helping a neighbor compost. My partially-sighted neighbor frequently walks by my house. She knows I'm into composting, and one day as she passed by she mentioned an interest in composting. She asked me if she could bring over kitchen scraps to dump in my bins. I agreed. Every few days throughout the summer she walked over her little cool whip containers full of coffee grounds and corn cobs. It was a fine arrangement that, alas, won't continue, mostly because her daughter moved home from New York and will help her compost from now on.

Sharing our car. Our sustainability-minded neighbor Mike Arney wanted to sell his family's second car. He bikes almost everywhere so he doesn't have need for a car on a daily basis. However, he wanted assurance that, should his wife need their only car, he would have access to a car if necessary. So Mike drew up a little contract stipulating terms of our "car sharing program" and we all signed. Mike has a key to our Toyota Sienna. He pays us a small amount of money every time he uses the car to cover gas, insurance, wear, and tear.

Insulating our home. After last year's debacle getting our home inspected by Keith Williams and then never hearing back from him after repeated requests for info, we finally had our home inspected again. This time the inspection was conducted by Tim Guillama of Beyond Energy, LLC. Mike Arney graciously paid for the inspection. We learned, among other things, about channels leading heated air from our basement up and out of our uninsulated attic. After Guillama's inspection we paid a local company to air seal and insulate our attic and basement. As the workers were installing insulation we noticed a marked difference in the warmth of our house. This is very exciting for us -- we're hoping our house will not only be more comfortable but will finally be more energy efficient.

Planting hazelnuts. The bare root hazelnuts I ordered last year from Gurneys turned out to be duds, and when I requested new ones they told me they had none left and simply refunded my money. So this fall at the Village Green Street Fair I ordered two hazelnut shrubs from the Victory Garden Initiative. This in addition to my red and black raspberries, blueberries, red currants, white and red grapes, apples, cherries, strawberries, and arctic kiwis. In a few years I hope my yard is an edible Eden.

Signing up to become a master gardener. As stated in my last post, I've been meaning to do this for some time now. Classes start on January 13. I cannot wait to begin.

Five Failures

Trying to grow veggies next to a black walnut. I finally concluded this last summer that the reason three quarters of my square foot gardens struggle to produce anything is because they are situated within close proximity of a black walnut tree. Black walnut toxicity is a known cause of failure of many plants, due to the tree's secretion of the chemical juglone. Juglone is potent and toxic to many plants and may be the reason I've had so much trouble growing anything nearby other than hostas. (My compost bin is next to the black walnut…now I'm wondering if I should move it so that juglone doesn't get into my compost as well. Ugh.) I can't bear the thought of removing the tree – it is perhaps the most beautiful thing in my yard. I also had hopes of someday attempting to harvest the nuts.

Killing ants with pesticides. One of my square foot gardens was infested with ants. I decided out of desperation to place some ant motels made for gardens in the bed. I hate using chemicals of any kind and regret this. I also hate killing creatures recklessly. However, I wasn't sure what other options I had. I considered a few natural methods (e.g. feeding them cornmeal) but read online that most of them don't really work. I also placed a praying mantis egg pod in the garden but nothing seemed to come of it.

Throwing away old fiberglass insulation. We pulled a great deal of old insulation out of our basement. It was doing more harm than good according to Tim Guillama. Trouble was getting rid of the stuff. We might have given it to Restore, but much of it was positively filthy, due to the mouse problem we've had for years. So Steve bagged it and sent it to the landfill.

Watching my apple tree die. I do not know what the cause was, but my adolescent Cortland apple tree exhibited signs of stress in late July, when the leaves started curling. Then in August the leaves browned completely. I don't know if the tree was sick and went dormant or died. I'm going to see what happens this spring but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Not preserving the harvest. I am ashamed to admit that I have let intimidation of canning get the best of me. I have not yet tried canning seriously. I have many of the tools – a boiling water canner, tongs, and a number of used mason jars. But I'm afraid of botulism. I have a bit of germ phobia. I'm afraid that if I can I'll do something wrong and everyone will get food poisoning when they eat my canned goods.

Five Things I'll Try in 2011

Planting a rain garden. After last year's July flood Steve and I started talking about installing a rain garden. The trouble is figuring out where to put it so it's most effective, as well as getting permission from the city. I hope we will make time to participate in Tosa's http://www.wauwatosa.net/index.aspx?NID=774 rain garden program in 2011.

Learning how to properly fertilize. I want to get more serious about organic fertilizing methods. I am optimistic that doing so will increase my harvest. To date all I've simply spread compost in May when I plant seeds and seedlings. I want to see if I can try to fertilize throughout the season, as well as learn about soil maintenance.

Moving my veggie gardens. I want to eliminate the three square foot beds next to my black walnut and replace them with fruit-bearing shrubs compatible with black walnut. Then I will grow my gardens on the very sunny patch of land right next to my driveway where I've successfully grown pumpkins in the past.

Selling seedlings. For a while now I've been thinking about buying a farm. While that plan is a long way off, I want to work toward making my dream a reality by slowly saving up. One way I might do this is by starting annuals, perennials and herbs in March and then selling them, garage-sale-style, in May.

Taking a step closer to beekeeping. I desperately want to try beekeeping but still don't know how I will make it work. It's not really legal here in Tosa, other than at the county grounds, where I believe you need to participate in the http://urbanapicultureinstitute.org/ Urban Apiculture Institute in order to keep bees there. Though I may not actually keep bees for a few more years, I want to spend some time reading about bees and observing the actions of beekeepers.

Blessings to you and yours in 2011. Happy gardening!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-23T08:45:00.002-06:00

Update and Winter Composting (part two)

2010-12-21T10:53:00.008-06:00

Happy Winter Solstice!

I apologize for my lengthy break from blogging. I admit I've found it difficult in the past to sustain my blogs for any great length of time. Generally life gets in the way, and in this case, it most certainly did: I started graduate school in September. In late 2009 my employer told me I would have to earn an M. A. in English in order to maintain my position as an English teacher at a local college. Thankfully, my husband works for Marquette, which means I can go to school virtually for free. So I applied to Marquette's M.A. in English program and was accepted last spring. Needless to say, taking two graduate courses this fall, along with teaching English 101 at two colleges (Marquette and Bryant & Stratton) kept me very, very busy. I managed to survive the semester, but the pace of my life was so fast and furious that, for the sake of my sanity, I decided to slow things down a bit. So next semester I'll only teach at one school and take one graduate course. That leaves me time to focus on my friends and family and the coming gardening season.

Having a bit more time on my hands will also allow me to train to become a Master Gardener. This is something I've wanted to do for years and I'm positively thrilled that I'll finally be able to take the Master Gardener class at Boerner Botanical Gardens this January. I'm also hoping to have more time to update my blog. Though I have given up on blogs before, I don't want to let go of the Blue Bungalow. It's very helpful for me to articulate my gardening, composting, and sustainability discoveries, and I hope you'll share your discoveries with me. I may not write much, but I aim to at least put up some pictures now and then. And if I have time, I will try to post updates about my experiences as a Master Gardener trainee.

Today, in the interest of sparking conversation, I want to pose a question: how do you compost over the winter? As I wrote last year, in the past I have found myself wrestling with how to compost effectively during the cold months. My worm bins tend to get overloaded in the winter, and in order to access my backyard bin I have to trek across an ungodly amount of snow-covered dog droppings strewn across the back lawn. Heading back there a couple times a week to dump a tiny kitchen scrap bucket into a frozen compost bin isn't all that appealing.

This year I am trying something new, and so far it seems to be working out well: I'm using a five-gallon plastic bucket as a temporary compost bin. The bucket is right outside my kitchen door; every day I fill it with kitchen scraps. It's been slowly filling up over the last two weeks. When it's full I'll make the trek to the backyard bin. My hope is that I won't have to do this nearly as often as before because the five gallon container is much bigger than the little ice cream bucket I used in the past.

Perhaps as the winter wears on I may muster the courage to try using five gallon buckets as *indoor* compost bins. I would keep them in the basement, filling as needed with scraps balanced with carbon-rich material and compost. I'd probably dump the bins in the outdoor compost bin in the spring, or, if I have finished compost, put them directly into my gardens. I've yet to try this because the idea of having rotting food in the house (without worms to break everything down) unnerves me a little. What if my garbage-eating golden retriever discovers this unsavory feast? Or the buckets attract vermin? Or my guests learn of this potentially embarrassing habit and brand me a garbage hoarder? What if I load up the buckets and then forget about them, or don't balance them properly and wind up with a disgusting or even dangerous mess?

I know what you're probably thinking: excuses, excuses. Come January, I'm going to have to get serious about winter composting. After all, not only do I want to dispose of compostable material responsibly and cut down on the waste we send to the landfill, but I also need as much compost as I can get this spring.

Anyone had any luck with indoor composting in five gallon buckets? Do tell.

Switching to Twitter

2010-03-23T15:55:00.004-05:00

I've been super busy this winter, mostly due to my job teaching English at a local college, but also because I just recently finished the lengthy process of putting together my application to Marquette University's M. A. in English program. I was thinking for a while of hanging up my blogging hat, but wondered if maybe a switch to Twitter would allow this busy teacher-writer-mom to keep sharing the details of my moth rearing and gardening adventures without the burden of having to elaborate. Think I might still use the Blue Bungalow blog for posting photos. In the meantime, enjoy the tweets via the Twitter widget to your right.

Green Withdrawal

2010-01-26T11:12:00.014-06:00

This time of year, I start to go through green withdrawal. I can already feel myself welling up with a desperate longing for warm weather, for the sweet smell of dirt and rain and chlorophyll and the sight of green life springing from the earth.

In the meantime, I can only hope to soak up winter sun through my kitchen window, nurture my indoor plants, and dream about my springtime gardening and lepidoptera-rearing plans.

To ease my withdrawal symptoms, today I took some stratified White birch seeds out of my fridge and planted them in a small pot. If I can manage to grow a potted White birch indoors, perhaps I will be able to take some Luna moth cocoons out of the fridge and let the moths eclose early (I can't let them eclose until I have ample supply of White birch and/or Black walnut leaves at hand). I'm not very hopeful about this, though. Even if I do get a sprout or two, the baby trees won't have enough leaves to feed hungry moth caterpillars, not for a very long time. Still, it's worth a shot.

Ach! This winter has been mild so far, but it's killing me nonetheless. I miss our sunsets by the Great Lake, I miss warm air, I miss the porch swing and my gardens and nighttime walks. Thank God for the Mitchell Park Conservatory; the domes will be my lifeline until the spring. That and my mini greenhouses, which (I hope) will be filled with seedlings in just a few more weeks.

Toilet Paper Rolls for Seed Starting

2010-01-19T11:58:00.004-06:00

Just learned about the following on the Victory Garden Initiative Google list and thought it was worth sharing: www.yougrowgirl.com/thedirt/2007/04/13/toilet-roll-seed-starter/.

What a cool way to repurpose garbage! Thanks to You Grow Girl for sharing the idea.

And I apologize for my silence. It's been pretty quiet here at the Blue Bungalow since my last post. I hope to write more as spring approaches.

Home Energy Assessment: Part Two

2009-12-21T18:49:00.012-06:00

In Part One of my home energy assessment write-up, I mentioned that our 91-year-old house is very expensive to heat during cold weather –- it can cost us roughly $350 for gas alone in January and February each year. To locate the source(s) of the inefficiency, we had an energy audit in November, performed by home performance consultant Keith Williams.

Keith arrived at 9 a.m. on November 19. The inspection lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes. When he was done with his inspection, I asked Keith several questions about my house, as well as about home energy efficiency in general.

First, I asked Keith to explain his work as energy auditor. He likened his role to that of a doctor. "We give houses physicals because they're energy sick," he said. After an inspection, he sends the homeowner his "prescription" for how to make a house "energy healthy." He also refers the homeowner to "specialists" (insulation contractors, etc.).

Unlike window, insulation, and HVAC contractors, who may inspect homes and write estimates for ways to make a home more energy efficient, a home energy consultant's inspections and recommendations are unbiased because a consultant does not sell products or services (other than the service of inspecting a home, of course).

Keith's inspection consisted primarily of air pressure and wall insulation tests, including an infrared scan and a blower door test. He told me that our house's air change rate per hour is 7.5. That means our house needs to be re-heated about seven and a half times every hour. The goal should be fewer than three.

The main problem with our home, he said, is a few uninsulated walls, particularly one he identified in our upstairs that opens into the attic. Conditioned air is flowing out of the top of our house, causing our home to be drafty, inefficient, and dry.

Incidentally, Keith said the 92% efficiency furnace we bought two years ago will only works at 92% if the house is properly sealed.

Keith has yet to send us his formal report, but in our informal conversation he said adding insulation to the uninsulated walls will be key to tightening up our home and improving our air change rate per hour.

As soon as I've received Keith's final report, I will begin getting estimates on insulation. Then, once we've made certain changes to our home, Keith will come for a follow-up visit to inspect work and verify safety (there are risks that go along with making a home more air-tight, e.g. carbon monoxide poisoning and mold/humidity problems). Keith's inspection fee of $375 covers both his first inspection and his follow-up visit.

With Keith's report he said he will send me a list of consultants who can make necessary changes to my home. In order to be on Keith's list, consultants must meet certain standards; underperforming or unethical companies don't make the cut. Keith said he receives no money from the contractors he refers.

FYI, if you're wondering about the efficiency of your lighting and appliances, home energy consultants don't typically assess these things. Their focus is on home heating and cooling, the most significant part of a home's energy bill.

Here are some other things I learned from Keith during his visit:

On saving money while making a home more energy efficient: Keith said that it's hard to pin down exactly how much money can be saved from making a home more energy efficient, mostly due to fluctuations in temperature, price of fuel, and resident lifestyle (how warm individual families keep their homes). While some changes may cause a homeowner to save money, those changes can be costly, so the ultimate goal of energy efficiency isn't to save money – it's to reduce energy consumption. Generally, though, consumers who make recommended changes to a home can expect approximately 20 percent savings in fuel/cost.

That said, there are many tax incentives that can bring down the high price of retrofitting a home to make it more energy efficient, and having a formal energy audit can make a consumer eligible for some of these incentives.

On fireplaces as a manner of heating a home: Keith said that anything that uses a chimney to generate heat is not energy efficient, as the chimney will suck warm air from the house. Plus, radiant heat from a fireplace doesn't spread very far. A fireplace consumes 20 percent more energy than it produces. Bottom line: don't use a fireplace to heat a home. Use it for entertainment. And remember to keep the flue shut when the fireplace is not in use.

On replacement windows: replacing windows can make a home more energy efficient, but this improvement should be low on the list. Changing windows from an R-value of 1.5 to an R-value of 4 will cost $30 per square foot, whereas changing walls from R-4 to R-19 costs about $2 per square foot. You'll get much more bang for your buck by adding insulation.

As soon as I hear back from Keith I hope to share his verdict and discuss our future plans. In the meantime, have a merry Christmas and a happy, blessed 2010!

BOOK GIVEAWAY

2009-12-11T13:50:00.007-06:00

As you may know, I edited a handbook on social justice issues called The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World." I have a few extra copies of The Revolution sitting on a shelf in my living room, along with copies of my novel Basil's Search for Miracles, and I'd like to give some away. Respond to this post before the end of the day on Tuesday, December 15 with a practical suggestion for how folks can serve those in need this holiday season. When you comment, your name will be entered into a drawing for a package containing two of my books (if you win, you can choose which ones). I'll try to get the books in the mail to the winners in time for Christmas.

Should you choose to participate, make sure you include some way for me to contact you in your response (i.e. yourname(at)email(dot)com). Thanks!

Home Energy Assessment: Part One

2009-11-22T18:21:00.036-06:00

Four winters ago we lived in Urbana, Illinois, in a tri-level home built in 1964. Our gas bill circa January of 2006 was roughly $125 for the use of about 119 therms to run a gas furnace, water heater, and range (the biggest percentage of gas going toward home heating). The average daily temp that month in Urbana was about 33 degrees.

When we moved to southeast Wisconsin in October of 2006, we were stunned by our first Jan/Feb 2007 power bill. The price to heat our 1918 bungalow with roughly the same square footage as our tri-level was nearly 2.5 times what it was in Urbana.

Here's a comparison of our gas usage/cost in January, 2006 in Urbana and January, 2007 in Wauwatosa:

House Size

Urbana: approx. 2200 sq. ft.

Wauwatosa: approx. 2200 sq. ft.

Gas Cost

Urbana: $1.06/therm

Tosa: $1.14/therm

Avg. Temp

Urbana: 33 degrees F

Tosa: 22 degrees F

Therms

Urbana: 119

Tosa: 270

Total Cost

Urbana: $125

Tosa: $310

Being further north and in a slightly colder climate we expected higher gas bills. Plus, gas prices were about 8 cents per therm higher between winter of 2006 and winter of 2007. Still, math isn't my strong suit, but I'm venturing a guess that the difference in temperature and the price of gas weren't significant enough to increase the use of therms from one house to the other by 250%.

With only one income and three little mouths to feed (four if you count our beastly, all-consuming golden retriever), we were strapped for cash our first year in Wisconsin – and continue to be. After all, at about $500, our average January power bill rivals many folks' rent payments.

To offset the huge cost of winter heating, we made a decision not to run our A/C in the summers. Suffering through some infernally hot summer days without air conditioning brought our monthly budget payment (the average of all 12 months' gas and electric usage) to about $280.

That wasn't good enough for us. So we began cranking down our heat in the winter. Unfortunately, even keeping our thermostat set in the mid-60s didn't bring down our wintertime bill significantly. All it did was make our fingers and toes a lot colder.

So two years ago we replaced our old heater with high efficiency (92%) gas furnace. Then, one year ago, All American Window & Door installed triple pane, argon filled replacement windows on the second story of our home. We programmed the thermostat with a conservative schedule and, on nobler days, sucked it up, put on sweaters and turned down the heat a few more degrees. We turned down the temperature on our water heater, too.

While every little bit has helped, to our dismay the current gas payment continues to be about $310 to $387 during the coldest months. That's about of 270 to 340 therms at the current cost of $1.10 per therm.

Colder weather aside, there's another factor that explains the huge difference in heating our Urbana home versus our Wauwatosa home: "house health." Our practical tri-level in Urbana was a solid, well-insulated construction with brand new windows added in roughly 2002. Conversely, our partially-insulated blue bungalow is drafty and inefficient.

We love our impractical blue bungalow, so our goal is to help it use as little energy as possible. In that spirit we struggle onward, trying to determine what more energy savings we can squeeze from our house.

Thankfully, this fall we were offered a special opportunity. The Wauwatosa Home Energy Efficiency group offered us a free energy assessment in exchange for us opening up our home for experimental purposes. At $300 to $400 a pop, home energy assessments are not cheap, but a good one can provide accurate, unbiased information on how to make a home more energy efficient.

We learned the hard way the cost of the kind of biased "energy assessments" that are currently being offered by various enterprising contractors. Windows, siding, insulation, HVAC and other contractors are all vying for consumer and government dollars ear marked for "greening up" residences and businesses. We were wooed by window contractors' promises of energy efficiency into spending thousands for what amounted to nice windows that hardly saved much energy or money at all.

I don't exactly regret replacing windows in our home – our upstairs is much more attractive and comfortable now – but was this the most effective energy saving technique? Not by a long shot.

Our home energy assessment was conducted just before Thanksgiving. The inspector was Keith Williams of West Allis, a "home performance consultant" with nine years' experience. Keith was one of the first consultants in the state of Wisconsin. Prior to working as a consultant he ran his own insulation contracting business for 22 years. He's a certified building analyst, a certified energy rater, and is nationally recognized as a trainer.

In part two, I'll talk about Keith's visit and what he told us about our house.

Winter Composting

2009-11-05T09:34:00.040-06:00

The arrival of winter can render composting an unpleasant endeavor for folks in the northern reaches of the U.S. Here at the Blue Bungalow, we don't care much for trudging across our snow-covered, dog-dropping-strewn back yard with bowls of congealing kitchen scraps. Worse, those scraps are dumped atop a frozen, snow-capped pile that won't decompose until the spring and can't properly be turned. Winter composting outdoors is a task we at our house are likely to neglect once the blizzards start rolling in, as they did last December:

I don't think I could even *find* my compost bin under all the snow that fell during that terrible onslaught of wintry weather!

For me, the answer to the problem of winter composting is simple: we'll rely on our indoor worm bins. When and if the worms get overloaded, we'll add more bins. This way, we'll be able to continue composting our kitchen scraps through the winter, reducing the amount of garbage we send to the landfill and building up a beautiful supply of compost for the spring planting season.

But vermicomposting isn't for everyone. To illustrate, allow me to share an e-mail I recently received from a fellow sustainer in Tosa. He asked the following:

Good Morning Heather, Do you have any experience with winter composting without worms? My wife doesn’t like the worm idea indoors. I found one solution at finegardening.com that sounds pretty interesting. Just wondering your thoughts. Dave in Tosa

I told Dave I've never tried indoor composting without the assistance of the amazing red wiggler. Of course, as a vermicompost enthusiast, I couldn't help but try to convince him to give vermicomposting a shot. I told him:

You know, worms aren’t that bad – esp. if you are very careful to keep a tidy bin and follow vermicomposting rules. Do you have a basement, or some other out of the way area your wife doesn’t frequent? You could try keeping them tucked away in some place so she doesn’t have to see them regularly.

Truth be told, my husband is not a big fan of the worms, but he tolerates them b/c he knows they are little wonderworkers. I used to keep them in my kitchen, which was fine, but at least a couple of times in warmer weather the fungus gnats got out of control. When that happened in the summers of ’08 and ’09, we moved the bins outdoors, where they remained just outside my kitchen door. When it got cold I moved them in again. Now they’re in my basement, which seems to work well. It’s cool down there, which keeps the gnats down, but not so cool that it kills the worms. ...

Do you and/or your wife garden or grow any plants indoors? If so, the worms, I've found, are indispensible in organic gardening. And the "compost tea" that can be made from worm castings and compost keeps indoor plants very healthy and happy.

I should make it clear that while I think every household should have at least one worm bin, the last thing I would want to do is encourage marital discord. IMHO a spouse (or roommate, or child) should never stress over sustainability techniques he or she is not ready for. Hopefully, my friend will find an alternative solution that appeases his spouse if she's still not ready for worms. And who could blame her? Worms aren't exactly the most appealing creatures on first glance.

I asked Dave to let me know if the winter composting solution mentioned in the finegardening.com article above works for him (and his wife). I'll let you know what he reports. Who knows -- maybe I'll try this method myself.

Finally, I'd like to add two comments about the gnat problem that has plagued my vermicomposting efforts since the get-go:

A friend of mine, who uses the same style of bins I do, told me she doesn't have gnats because she never feeds fruit to her worms -- she gives them only veggie scraps and coffee grounds. I imagine that a great number of microscopic pests arrive in our kitchens on the peels of bananas.

When I was at the 350 carnival a couple Saturdays ago in MKE, vermicomposting demonstrator Godsil of Sweet Water Organics told me that he doesn't have problems with gnats because he absolutely submerges all food waste with carbon-rich material. I've been using strips of newspaper to cover the nitrogen-rich materials added to my bins; Godsil uses finely shredded leaf mulch. This made me wonder if perhaps the hand-torn newspaper strips I'm using aren't fine enough to really bury the food waste. Perhaps gnats are still able to slip through the copious air pockets in the newspaper shreds to get to the food (or from the food, as the case may be) and do their breeding.

I think I'm going to gather a bagful of autumn leaves and keep it beside my worm bins this winter for composting. I wonder if the leaf mulch will be healthier for the worms and will do a better job of covering waste. Plus, it's probably better to send old newspaper to the recycling center, rather than into the earth. Aside from the dubious inks and other contaminants in the paper, reusing dead tree matter via recycling prevents further trees from being harvested.

Trial and Error, Part II

2009-10-24T08:37:00.019-05:00

As promised, here's a more detailed report of my experience growing various fruits and vegetables this summer.

Apples: Of my two apple trees, I got about five crisp, sweet-tart apples from the young Cortland and absolutely nothing, not even so much as a blossom, from the small tree I was attempting to grow using the espalier technique. I think I'm going to transplant the espaliered tree to a different area and give it a bit more room to grow. I'm sure it's too young to bear fruit.

Berries: I harvested a trivial amount of blackberries and a handful of late-season raspberries. I also noticed several volunteer raspberries popping up around the yard, which may or may not be a good thing. Got no blueberries at all. Next year I'll focus on fertilizing the berry shrubs with vermicompost and pine needles. On a different note, I pulled a volunteer raspberry inside several days ago and I'm now trying to root it in a cup of water. We'll see what happens.

Carrots: My big mistake with the carrots was planting them too close together. I wish I would have spread the seeds more sparingly. This error resulted in some very large carrots surrounded by a half dozen teeny tiny, useless carrots. A few of the big guys resembled hairy, multi-legged beasts more than vegetables. I'm storing most of the remaining carrots in my basement, in a 5-gallon bucket filled with loose, dry potting soil.

Container fruit trees: My dwarf fruit trees and shrubs (pomegranate, fig, blueberry, orange, pictured to the left) did well. They quietly grew all summer long in containers on my front porch steps. Some of them doubled in size, and one of the pomegranates even grew a few tiny flowers.

Cruciferous Vegetables: The cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage) mostly grew well, but they were attacked by slugs and cabbage worms, which rendered most of the crops inedible toward the end of the season. The three Brussels Sprouts took forever to get going, and the few sprouts that finally grew big enough to eat were riddled with holes.

Grapes: My white and concord grapes grew by leaps and bounds along the chain link fence, but didn't flower or bear fruit, which leads me to wonder if I need more of them for pollination purposes.

Herbs: This year I focused on growing the herbs I use most: basil, oregano and cilantro. The cilantro was useful in June, but by the time the tomatoes were ripe and ready for salsa-making, the cilantro had gone to seed and wasn't of much use at all. The oregano did very well, as did the basil. In fact, I was able to bring a few of my basil plants indoors and they are now growing in my mini-greenhouse in the kitchen. I also grew lemon balm, lavender, dill and chamomile. I dried the chamomile and some of the lavender. They are currently strung up with twine in my kitchen, along with a basil plant from the Lincoln Vegetable Patch that had gone to seed.

Onions: The onions I planted on the side of my house (pictured at right, half-sliced and almost ready to go into a zucchini stew) were small things, barely bigger than the onion sets. That said, they were fresh, potent and delicious.

Okra and Pole Beans: Both of these veggies (fruits?) yielded little -- hardly anything to cook with. I blame the cold, dry season. I'm wondering, also, if okra doesn't grow well this far north.

Potatoes: I don't know what went wrong. Seems like ants might have gotten to a good many of them. I did manage to get a bowl full of red potatoes at one point, but by harvest time most of the golden potatoes had disappeared.

Pumpkins: I wasn't expecting much, because I hear growing pumpkins from seeds is rather hit-or-miss. I learned that this is somewhat true -- we did get some pumpkins from the garden at my parents' house in Illinois and I grew about nine little guys on the sunny side of my house. But vines we started from seed at the patch at the Lincoln Patch were fruitless. To the left is a photo of one of the pumpkins I grew at my house. It's sitting on my desk, next to my printer. Right now our pumpkins are being used for decoration, but we may carve them and bake the seeds for snacks.

Sunflowers: Hands down, the sunflowers were my favorite plant of the season. I think the trick to getting a lovely crop of beautiful, elegant "Velvet Queen" sunflowers was starting them indoors and then transplanting them when they were old enough to no longer appeal to rabbits but not so old that they'd become spindly and floppy. I didn't harvest the seeds for consumption (not sure if this was the best variety for saving the nuts) but we enjoyed them tremendously -- it was especially fun watching the yellow finches and mason bees go at them.

Tomatoes: My cherry, roma and beefsteak tomatoes did great on side of house and not so great in the backyard. The vertical growers in the square foot gardens didn't do as well as the near-wild tomatoes I let go crazy, without cages or stakes, on the sunny, dry side of my house. I barely watered them and they yielded tons. The upside down planters were highly disappointing. In fact, though I did see about two or three tiny tomatoes growing from each one, I didn't even bother harvesting the sad little fruits from either my homemade upside down planter or the real, patented "Topsy Turvy" planter. I'm not sure what went wrong: too much water, too little? Not enough sun? Either way, I'll likely not try this technique again.

Watermelon, eggplant, bell peppers and pepperoncini: Got nothin'. Absolutely nothin'.

Zucchini: Other than my many tomatoes, my zucchini plant was the biggest winner in terms of crop size, but it spread far beyond the confines of its allocated square foot and ruined the chances nearby peppers had of bearing fruit, covered as they were by the large and prickly zucchini leaves. The zucchini seemed relatively pest-resistant and drought tolerant, which meant huge zucchini fruits with which to make many-a-loaf of sweet zucchini bread. I also used it on pizza and in a couple of stews. I learned from the stews that if you let zucchini grow too large, the skin gets tough and the seeds grow so big they can be a little overwhelming. Next year I'll harvest them sooner, rather than later.

So that's about it. Am I happy with the way things turned out? Yes and no. I was able to grow a fair amount of food, even if I didn't really bother with canning this year. And yet, I was disappointed with the failure of so many plants to produce edible fruits and vegetables. Overall, though, I'm not really depressed about the way the season ended, because I've learned so much. Thankfully, we still live in a time of relative abundance in America, so as many "transition movement" folks have said, if we're going to make mistakes, now is the time to make them. Looks like I made mistakes aplenty this year, but that only gave me a better education at the school of hard knocks.

The Trial and Error of Gardening: Part I

2009-10-19T09:09:00.001-05:00

The harvest is winding down and frosty weather is upon us. Now I'm reflecting on the growing season past and considering how I might change things next year.

If you've been reading this blog since its inception in the spring, you know that I had ambitious garden plans that were derailed by concerns over my health that cropped up (pun not intended) mid-summer.

Even though the year didn't turn out the way I hoped it would, my efforts weren't all for naught. I did get a tremendous yield of tomatoes as well as a good deal of basil, oregano, carrots, zucchini and a few other things. And most importantly, I learned many lessons throughout my second edible landscaping season.

For example, I learned that while the four square foot garden beds I created in the back yard did bear fruit, they were not nearly as fruitful as I expected. The biggest problem with the SF beds was that larger veggies ended up exceeding the space of their squares and choking out nearby vegetables and herbs. Next year I'll probably focus on using the square foot gardens for onions, carrots and other smallish root vegetables and grow wider and taller plants elsewhere.

I was also reminded this summer of a lesson I am apt to forget: the virtue of taking baby steps. Next year, instead of biting off more than I can chew, I hope to focus on fruits and vegetables I know I can grow successfully. I'll limit my experiments to one or two novelties and focus on the tried and true with most of my energy.

I was also reminded of the importance of staying on top of watering. The summer of '09 was very dry. Between mid-June and mid-August we hardly received any rain at all. My rain barrels were empty almost all summer, and I hate moving around a hose, so I admit that things got a little, shall we say, parched. Thankfully many of my plants seemed to do OK in spite of this, but I wonder how much better things would have been if I had used my sprinklers more.

I did nothing to deter pests this year, and while I didn't have a problem with rabbits or other mammals, slugs and cabbage worms did a fair amount of damage. Next summer I'll get serious about deterring pests using organic home remedies.

One of the greatest of my discoveries this summer is that vermicompost rocks! Whenever and wherever I use it the plants seem happier, bigger, and more disease resistant. It's worth battling occasional outbreaks of fungus gnats and fruit flies to keep my bins going. I just moved my two vermicompost tubs to the basement and I'm back to the routine of fertilizing our indoor plants with a weekly dose of vermicompost tea. Depending on how much I want to trek out to the backyard compost bins this winter, I might just start another worm bin or two in my basement. It'll be much easier to compost kitchen scraps indoors in the winter, and I'll have more luscious vermicompost to use on my gardens next spring.

For my next blog post, I'll share a more detailed report on the various plants I grew in my garden this summer and how they turned out. Stay tuned!

Cancer Consciousness

2009-09-28T16:43:00.012-05:00

After I shared my experience with thyroid cancer in August, I was approached by a Facebook acquaintance who is an editor for Creation Care, a sub-community of SustainLane.com that brings together people of faith committed to stewardship of the earth's natural resources. She asked me to share the story of my experience with cancer and how it affected my views on sustainability with Creation Care's readers. Here's the piece I submitted.

If you make your way over to the SustainLane site, you might consider perusing the other content and joining the social network. This "people powered sustainability guide" has the potential to be a great resource for folks interested in urban homesteading and green living.

The fruits (and vegetables) of our labor

2009-09-27T19:48:00.014-05:00

We did it! After months of planning, we were able to successfully launch the Tosa Farmers Market this last Saturday, September 26.

Our fledgling collective of Wauwatosa residents came together too late this season to launch a full-blown farmers market in 2009, so we decided in May to kick-off the 2010 season with a one-day event in 2009 that would offer a foretaste of what is to come. The Tosa Farmers Market "Kick-Off" was fantastic. The turn out was phenomenal -- it exceeded our expectations, especially given that our starting budget was humble, our lead time was short, and the morning of the event was dreary and overcast. Despite these things, we had a very special, wonderful day.

Highlights included the jazz and strings musicians (mostly high school students who performed beautifully), the preschool story time in front of the charming Little Red Store provided by Molly Del Vecchio and Nancy Clarkin, Maxi's Southern Comfort's hot breakfast offerings, and the kettle corn guy, who might have sold his delicious honey-coated popcorn all day, the line was so long. The morning was exactly the kind of community outing we'd hoped it would be.

Unfortunately, the handful of actual produce vendors at the market were so bombarded with customers that they were mostly sold out about half-way through the event. Latecomers seemed disappointed by the lack of fruits and vegetables available after 10 a.m. This is, I suppose, a good problem to have, and hopefully next year's vendors will know to expect large crowds at Tosa's weekly farmers market. Let's hope so, anyway!

Now we have to wait until next June for the fun to begin again. My heart aches at the thought of waiting so long for Tosa's next market day!

Bad Days Happen.

2009-09-12T14:29:00.023-05:00

This morning *so* did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I thought it was going to be great -- it's a beautiful sunny Saturday, and we had plans to spend it with family celebrating my two-year-old niece's birthday in Illinois.

At 10 a.m., my niece's present was wrapped, I had a bag of tomatoes to share with family at the party, and I even thought to cut a big sunflower for my niece. We were ready to go.

Steve asked me to drive to Illinois, because he had homework for his music theory class and wanted to get it done in the car. Fine. I love driving. So we left. I wanted to swing by Fondy Food Center beforehand to visit their "Eat Local Celebration." We drove east from Tosa, zig zagging around to avoid construction on North Avenue until we finally made it to 17th and North, the location (I thought) of Fondy.

We couldn't find it! Since we were pressed for time on the way to the birthday party that began at 11:30 a.m. in Round Lake Beach, we decided to jump on 43 south and begin our journey to Illinois.

It was disappointing not finding Fondy, but I can always find it some other time. We cruised for about an hour on 94 south, got off at Grand Avenue in Gurnee, and were on the home stretch. Then, about a block and a half before we reached my sister's house, I heard a sound that always makes my blood run cold: a police siren. I Looked in the rear view mirror. Is that for me?

Yes. I pulled over and the police vehicle pulled over right behind me.

I really didn't have a clue as to why I was being pulled over. I didn't recall speeding. Was my license expired? Darn -- I must have forgotten to renew my license plate sticker.

A female police officer approached my car, asked to see my driver's license and registration and said (or rather, barked), "did you know you were going 42 in a 25?" She looked inside my car. "And your daughter is unbuckled!"

I looked behind me. Sure enough, my four-year-old was standing in front of her car seat, feet on the ground, seat belt swinging behind her, unclicked.

Remember, I have no voice. It's still barely stronger than a whisper nearly three weeks after having two neck surgeries, and the surgeon told me it could take weeks or even months to return.

We didn't argue with her. We just shuffled through our wallets looking for our new insurance cards, which we couldn't find. Must have forgotten to put them in our wallets this August when they came in the mail.

I've been under a lot of stress lately, and although I'd managed to more or less keep it together until that point, I couldn't help myself. Tears started flowing.

The officer went to her car and came back with TWO citations -- one for speeding and one for the seat belt. Adding insult to injury, I actually have to go back to Illinois on Oct. 20 for a court date because of the seat belt situation.

After the officer drove away I continued to weep, mortified that I'd have to enter a birthday party red-faced and share with all the guests my shame. Without a voice. And with a big scar across my neck. Nice.

But it got worse. We pulled into my sister's driveway and there were no cars in sight. The garage doors were shut. The house was dark. No one was home!

No one is home? Did we get the location wrong? Is my mom hosting the party at her house nearby?

Steve called my mom on my cell. "Oh, Heather, I'm so glad you're able to call me," Mom answered.

"Uh, no, this is Steve." He told her about the tickets. She told him that the birthday party is actually NEXT Saturday. This morning the family was at Grandma's house, having a gay old time.

I started crying harder.

We backed out of my sister's driveway. Steve and I switched places so he could drive and I could cry my eyes out.

At that point we were both dumbfounded at the police officer's accusation that our child was riding without a safety belt. After all, as Steve puts it, I'm the "Seat Belt Nazi." I'm always ADAMANT about my kids wearing seat belts.

It occurred to us that our four-year-old might have popped out of her seat when we had stopped, because she often does that when she knows we've reached our destination, and we were in my sister's neighborhood.

We grilled our kids. "Did Anya get out of her seat before or after the car stopped?" Various answers were shouted from the far back seat. Finally we asked the culprit herself. She must have heard me talking with her dad about whether I should plead innocent or guilty, because I swear I heard her mumble "guilty."

"Speak up, honey. Did you get out of your chair when the car was still moving?"

"Yes."

Great. Guess I'll be pleading guilty at that court date on October 20. And paying the great State of Illinois $130 in fees. Which totally sucks because money is so tight for us right now, what with all these doctor bills and the fact that I can't teach this semester because of my voice. Those two little traffic violations are going to hurt.

I wish I could say something hopeful and inspirational, but today I'm just cranky. My eyes are sore and tired from crying and I'm feeling emotionally drained. I have taken solace in cooking this afternoon, and not only am I looking forward to trying my hand at making calzones, I also discovered large carrots in my garden, so we'll now have carrot cake for dessert. I'll be using the bounty of tomatoes throughout my yard to make sauce for the calzones, and found two more large zucchinis in my garden that I'll be able to use this week. So I guess I am thankful that even on a day like today, the fruits of the earth can lift my spirits.

Fourth Random Act of Publicity: My Mom

2009-09-08T08:25:00.037-05:00

It's the last day of the Week of Random Acts of Publicity and I'm breaking the rules again today, because my final random act, like my first, doesn't involve a book at all. Not yet, anyway.

Dawn Wakefield Sullivan is a hair over 5 feet tall and 57 years old. She decorates her suburban home with crosses and icons, Americana kitsch, and pictures of her favorite actors playing vampires. She's my mom, and today I've decided to publicize her writings.

My mom is the reason I write. When my three sisters and I were young, she taught us multisyllabic words and recited "d-i-c-t-i-o-n-a-r-y" when we asked her to spell something for us while doing our homework. She encouraged us to appreciate good music, movies, theater and literature and read voraciously, all the while drinking Tab Cola by the gallon and never missing her soaps or an afternoon episode of Jeopardy (for which she mysteriously knew EVERY "question").

Decades later, she's still going strong. Last time I was in her car, she pulled out her iPod, blasted Nelly and sang her heart out. She even incorporated some upper body dance moves as she drove. Did I mention that she's 57 years old? Um, yeah.

Having lost both her father and step-father as a child to untimely deaths, my mom desperately wanted to create her own traditional, two-parent family. She made it her goal to have one, so when my dad proposed, she dropped out of college after one year as an English major and got a day job to prepare for wedded bliss. Ever the devoted mother and wife, she decided years into her marriage to go back to school. This was no small task for a mother of four teen and pre-teen girls living in a remote suburb of Chicago, but she managed to get an Associate's Degree in English when I was in high school. She's had a few careers since, from working in the insurance industry to her most recent job as a cardiac technician in a hospital.

She's a woman who accomplishes what she puts her mind to. Which is why I hope that decides, soon, to sit down and start pounding out some book manuscripts.

Right now she's a bit obsessed with vampires, thanks to Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball. Yes, she's an absolute True Blood junkie. Do I find it odd that my mom spends her days searching the web for TB fan fare, reading and re-reading Harris's novels and watching and re-watching episodes of TB? A bit. But then, it's my mom's eccentricity that makes her so lovable.

Until my mom releases her first novel, we'll have to enjoy her occasional piece of fan fiction and her blog.

Below is a piece my mom wrote a few years back, then reposted to her blog several months ago. It's a personal essay about the death of her step-father, David "Roy" Nudell.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I came of age in 1964. I was twelve. I can tell you the exact day – It was November third. My step-dad died that day.

Let me back up though. The day I was born, my dad was in the hospital. He had collapsed at work and they did not know what was wrong with him. It turned out he had a brain aneurism and he died two and a half weeks before my third birthday. I actually remember some things about him. I am certain that, even as young as I was, I felt a crushing loss. But children are resilient, and I learned even then that if you block pain, you can function. You can survive.

When I was five, my mom remarried. My step-dad became my dad. In every way. I didn’t think of him as a step-dad. He was just my dad. Life was simpler then. There were not a lot of families like mine. Not a lot of children suffered such a devastating loss as I had. There wasn’t a lot of divorce back then, and there weren’t as many blended families as there are now. This was the post-war era. Women were through helping with the war effort. They left the factories so that the men coming back had jobs. Women went back into the kitchens. Dads worked. Moms stayed home with the kids. Leave it to Beaver. Father Knows Best.

I felt like a misfit. I was already the girl who had lost her ‘real’ daddy. I just wanted to be like everyone else. My new daddy was so sweet. He loved me; I WAS his little girl. I had a second chance. Then my brother came along, and we were – gosh – we WERE just like a real family. Dad worked. Mom was home. A girl and a boy. A house in the suburbs. WOW.

But my step-dad was sick. I watched him with fear. Coughing. Slowing down. Eating a funny diet for a sick man. Coughing more. God, I used to listen to him cough and I would stiffen. He would go down to the basement – we had another bathroom down there. He would go down there when he wanted to be sick. I think he did this to be further from us so as to spare us, but we knew. We heard. Even now, today, more than forty years later, I can go down to that bathroom and look at the knotty pine paneling covering the wall, and if I look in just the right spot, I can see a tiny fleck of his blood. From the coughing. The blood remains a silent sentry. I want it to stay there. Does that seem crazy? It is a piece of him. Oddly, I find it comforting. He was there.

I made some bargains with God.

OhpleaseGodiwillneveraskyouforanythingagainjustdontletmydaddydienottwoyoualreadytookonefrommejustnottwothatwouldbesounfairpleaseGodandmymommyitwouldhurthersomuchpleaseGodiwillbesogood

But God moves in mysterious ways.

And I lost my step-dad on November 3, 1964. A couple of days before, he had gone back into the hospital for surgery that they thought would help him. The morning he was going back in, I was getting ready to leave for school. I was almost out the door and my mom said, “Hey, aren’t you going to kiss your dad goodbye?” I said, “Well, I’ll be seeing him again real soon”. Denial. It was the last time.

So the fateful day, I came home from school. There were cars parked in front of our house. Strange. I came to the door and Aunt Sylvia was there to greet me. “Dawn, your mom wants you to go get a haircut. Walk over to Mr. Vito’s and get one, then walk home.” OK. No questions asked. It was 1964, remember? I went obediently. Sat there for an hour. There were no other customers at Mr. Vito’s, but they did not seem to be taking me. They did not walk me to the shampoo station. They did not walk me to the salon chair. They swept the hair off the floor. They chatted, ignoring me. I was patient. After all, this was 1964. Kids did not question adults. I guess they had been told to stall me. I sat there with a sick feeling. My brain was screaming SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT. THIS IS NOT RIGHT. But finally, I felt the pull to go home. I cleared my throat and asked them if I could get my haircut now. They did it and let me go.

I walked home and saw my mom, and I knew. She took me into the back yard where we could be alone. She was shaking. She looked at me and said two words. “He died”. I had never, before or since, seen such pain on a person’s face. The sound of heartbreak in my mother’s voice was wrenching. I will carry this memory, fresh as that day, my whole life. When my first daddy died, I felt the loss. Immeasurable. When my second daddy died, I felt the grief.

On this day, my childhood ended. On this day, I learned what children usually learn much later – that sometimes, things do NOT work out. That sometimes, terrible things happen to people. That you cannot protect those you love from heartbreak.

The thing about grief is, that when you’re in it with someone else, it actually helps. Because you can focus on the other person – on getting them through it – and push the pain away a little. I was so worried about my mother it enabled me to bury my own suffering. She had to go back to work. I took on some more responsibilities – mostly around caring for my brother after school. I worried about money. Twelve years old and I worried about how we would manage. We had to pay for the blood. Blood cost a lot of money. There had been a lot of blood to pay for. My mom tried to give some, to offset the cost, but her veins kept collapsing. In time I was able to function because as I mentioned above, I just wanted to be normal. But now, I was REALLY different at school. I had lost TWO fathers. Who has ever lost two fathers? I felt their pity. I felt their curiosity. I felt their judgments about how I should be grieving. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter. I used to say about my first dad, it’s OK – I don’t remember him. I used to say about my second dad, it’s OK – he was my step-dad. Can you believe it? It was NOT OK.

It wasn’t until I was married and had started having my own children that it all started coming back to me. It was always a huge milestone when each of my daughters turned three.

From that point on, they would have more than I had.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Third Random Act: Jane G. Meyer

2009-09-08T08:24:00.021-05:00

For my third Random Act of Publicity I've created a Facebook fan page.

Remember how I said yesterday that I don't care much for pedantic religious children's books? Well today's Random Act is to honor a person who has worked in religious publishing and resists every impulse to edit and release "pretty tracts." She is someone who approaches publishing with the heart of a craftswoman and artist, and for that I think she is worthy of a little extra attention.

Her name is Jane G. Meyer, and she is both an editor and an author of children's books. Lovely books. Good books. Books that inspire.

Jane was my colleague at Conciliar Press, where she served as the children's books editor. She is also one of my mentors, having encouraged me and championed my work when I was just getting started with fiction writing. Jane's passion and enthusiasm for children's literature is contagious. She is so committed to the craft that she works tirelessly to improve the inspirational titles that we offer to our children. And she isnt' just a great professional. She's also a wonderful woman who brings light and joy to the often cranky world of publishing.

I've decided to create a Facebook Fan page to celebrate Jane and her books. If you're on Facebook, I urge you to become a fan. Unfortunately, today Facebook seems to be massively malfunctioning, so you may have to try becoming a fan of Jane at a later date. In the meantime, you can check out her website at www.janegmeyer.com. Or visit her Amazon page and buy some of her books, including the newly released picture book The Life of Saint Brigid: Abbess of Kildare.

Second Random Act: 'From I-ville to You-ville'

2009-09-08T08:22:00.072-05:00

Today participants of the Week of Random Acts of Publicity were asked to write a book review. Here's mine.

I don't like pedantic children's books all that much. Especially when they're religious. Yes, I know that probably sounds surprising, given that most people know me as someone who writes for religious publications and spent a year doing publicity for a religious press. Thing is, I much prefer the rare religious children's books that infuse spirituality with engaging stories to books that are glorified tracts with pretty pictures. I'll happily take a well-crafted secular story any day to a poorly-crafted religious tract. (Incidentally, I hate that I have to refer to any publication as "secular" or "religious," but that's a whole other blog post).

I admit that when I first heard about the book From I-ville to You-ville by Mersine Vigopoulou (published in 2006 by Uncut Mountain Press), I assumed this children's title released by an Eastern Orthodox publisher was more "pretty tract" than "beautiful, spirituality-infused story." I'd heard of the book long ago, but assumed, quite unfairly, that it was yet another dull, preachy, morally "safe" book we'd have to force feed to kids who'd rather be reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Still, I'd heard good things about the novel from many folks I like, so out of curiosity I picked up a copy at a friend's house last weekend, sat down on the couch and started reading. Thirty-five pages later, I put it down only because I was at a party, and much as I wish this weren't true it is SO not cool to sit on a couch reading a book when you're at a social gathering. (Thankfully, my friend let me borrow the book).

'From I-Ville' is part picture book, part novel. Its hard cover, larger trim size and bright illustrations make it look like it's targeted at preschoolers, but it is actually fairly text-heavy, which means it would work better as a family read-aloud. The story involves a boy named "Stubborn" from a "great kingdom called I-ville." I-ville is ruled by a goddess-queen named "Conceit" who lives in a crystal palace at the center of the kingdom. The people of I-ville love their home, but they've got problems. They fight a lot. Every person wants to do things his or her own way. And the children never play together, because when they do each one wants to be the leader, and they can never agree on who gets that coveted role.

One day Stubborn happens to meet a stranger outside the walls of I-ville -- a girl named Serenity. She is traveling past I-ville with her father on her way home to a placed called You-ville. Stubborn immediately takes to Serenity because she is kind and sweet. He likes her even more after he challenges her to a race and beats her. After losing the race, Serenity lavishes Stubborn with praise, instead of complaining like the children of I-ville. "Well done!" she says, shaking his hand. "You run like the wind!"

Stubborn is surprised to learn that there are other kingdoms beyond the walls of I-ville, and he likes Serenity so much that he asks Queen Conceit if he can journey to the distant land of You-ville. She grants him his wish to be a "great explorer of I-ville" and off he goes on his journey.

Despite Stubborn's overwhelming self-confidence and the prideful notion that he'll have no trouble finding You-ville, he ends up wandering and can't figure out how to complete his journey. Then he stumbles upon a kindly "elder" (illustrated wearing the garb of an Athonite monk -- the one marker in the entire book that reveals the religious leanings of the author). The old man instructs him on the way to find You-ville. The entry to You-ville, he says, is a small, low passage, like a tunnel.

"I'm small," Stubborn says, "so I should be able to pass through."

"I don't think you'll fit," says the elder.

"I'll bend down then."

"The secret," the elder continues, "is this: in order to pass through, it's not enough just to bend down. You need to shrink your ego."

You might think, based on the naming structure of the characters in 'From I-ville,' that they are as one-dimensional as Goofus and Gallant. Surprisingly, this is not the case. While the people of You-ville are innocent, thoughtful and Gallant-like, the people of I-ville, selfish as they may be, are redeemable, human, and capable of love. This makes the story all the more intriguing, as we wonder what will happen when Stubborn makes his journey back from You-Ville to I-ville to share the good news with his countrymen about loving one's neighbors as oneself.

Yes, the book is simple and pedantic, in the same way that the great fables of Aesop or the Ancient Greek myths are pedantic, encapsulating critical life lessons in absorbing stories. 'From I-ville' speaks directly to readers living in a world where Ego is king, where selfishness is a virtue, and where "God" is a positive force whose sole reason for existing is to bring us the good things we wish for (think Disney godmother, except not as chubby).

The truth is, we live in a world full of fleeting joys that disappear like vapor almost as soon as they come. The happiness that lasts is the joy that comes from loving and serving our neighbors. Sure, it's important to take care of oneself to a certain degree, but if we spend all our lives making ourselves the gods and goddesses of our own personal "I-villes," we'll never really know true joy.

Imagine, for a second, if our world was You-ville -- a place where EVERYONE put the interests of others before their own. What ecstasy would we all experience if all humans were motivated primarily by the desire to bring joy to the lives of others?

First Random Act: Tuesdays at Ten

2009-09-08T08:13:00.037-05:00

It's my first day participating in Darcy Pattison's Random Acts of Publicity Week and I'm already cheating.

Because Tuesdays at Ten, my first 'random act', isn't a book. Rather, it's several books. It's also rhymes and songs and finger plays. And it's a talented singer/guitarist, a Spanish teacher with word cards, a creative photographer snapping shots, a cast of adoring fans and one adorable storyteller named Molly Del Vecchio.

Del Vecchio's concept is simple -- once a week, she offers a structured 30-minute story time that brings families out of their homes and into a local cafe for fun and friendship.

A former elementary school teacher and mother of a 5-year-old, Del Vecchio begins and ends her weekly story time with hugs for the many friends -- big and little -- who wouldn't miss their weekly pick-me-up. In between the hugs are songs, finger plays and books: Molly reads a few different picture books related to the theme of the day, which can be anything from feet to friendship to firefighters. She not only reads the books to her audience, she carries along a crate full of picture books from the local library. When story time is over, moms and dads mingle while children romp around, often finding a cozy spot to flip through one of the library books they've dug out of Del Vecchio's crate of books.

Del Vecchio is already a local celebrity adored by the Tosa toddler set, so hopefully it won't be long before she'll be able to share her stories with a wider audience. She's already expanded her storytelling efforts: she recently started doing birthday parties and special events under the moniker Happy Hour and was hired this summer to teach part-time at the Milwaukee Zoo. Let's hope this is just the beginning of a fabulous storytelling career.

Let's also hope that other creative moms and dads around the world will follow Del Vecchio's lead and start their own story hours in coffee shops around the globe. The beauty of Del Vecchio's simple idea is that it promotes literacy among our children and helps families engage with the community. Kudos, Molly!

Random Acts of Publicity

2009-09-07T19:02:00.022-05:00

You may know that I write stories, and as such I'm a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. This morning I learned from an SCBWI e-mail about an intriguing concept dreamed up by another children's writer named Darcy Pattison. It's called Random Acts of Publicity Week. Darcy's idea is for book loving folks to spend a bit of time each day for one week promoting the books they love out of the goodness of their hearts.

I *love* this idea. As a former book publicist and as someone who is disillusioned with American mongering-I-mean-marketing, I find this concept refreshing. I am coming to believe that books truly succeed not because of the scheming of corporate marketeers, but because they are GOOD, and because the average consumer is intelligent enough to recognize a book's quality and then share the good news with their communities.

Or at least, that's the way things should be, and the Week of Random Acts is just the kind of concept that supports this publicity model.

Starting tomorrow morning I'll unveil my four random acts of publicity, one each day. I'm not going to say much right now, but I'll give you a hint: I'm promoting books/authors because they're GOOD but also because they're flying under the radar right now. Sure, I'd love to publicize Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, or Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, but I don't really think they need the publicity.

One more thing: I might cheat a little. Pattison recommends we follow a regiment that involves a different kind of act each day, and that we promote *books*. I might promote an author, instead of a book, or I might promote something related to books, but that isn't a book. And because Tuesday's action is to promote something by word of mouth and I *still* don't have my voice back after two thyroid surgeries, I'm going to have to take a different tack.

Now I just have to narrow my choices down to only four days' worth of book-related things to publicize. Yikes!

Till tomorrow, friends.

The Trials of Life

2009-08-27T07:42:00.041-05:00

The summer has gotten away from me, I'm afraid, and as I was preparing a post about what I've learned this season about gardening through trial and error, a much bigger life lesson was pitched my way.

I found out on Monday, August 24 that I have thyroid cancer. This is the note I shared on Facebook announcing the news to friends and family:

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Dear Friends,

I know several of you have asked me to give you an update on my thyroid situation.

To give some background, about four years ago I was told I was "pre-hypo thyroid." Thyroid troubles were on my radar, so this summer when I noticed a very slight swelling in my neck I went to the doctor. He knew I was pre-hypo and also that I had been diagnosed as fairly anemic in the winter of 2009 (which can, for women, be a symptom of thyroid troubles). So he ordered a thyroid sonogram the following day, then called me the morning after with the news that I had a small (1/2 inch) nodule on the right lobe of my thyroid gland.

The next step was a FNA (Fine Needle Aspiration), the results of which that came two days later indicating not that the nodule was benign or malignant, but rather that it was a suspicious "follicular neoplasm" that would have to be surgically removed to be biopsied.

On August 20 I had the one-hour, out patient surgery on my thyroid gland. The surgeon removed half of my thyroid and the suspicious nodule. The surgery was the easy part -- the recovery was no picnic, but thankfully, it went rather quickly: it is now day five and my 3" neck wound is stiff and itchy, but otherwise I feel pretty good.

When I went in for my post-surgery consult on Monday morning, my doctor had not yet received the news from pathology. My mom was with me, so she took me out to lunch and to a movie to settle my nerves as I awaited the news. It was about 1/3 of the way through Julie & Julia that my cell phone started buzzing. I answered and it was Dr. Bowman with the news: the nodule contained malignant cells, meaning I have the horrid "C-word": Cancer. I'd have to return to surgery immediately to remove the remainder of my thyroid.

My voice was still weak from the first surgery, so I mostly just cried as he told me the news, and then pulled my mom out of the movie and we went home. Steve left work early and joined us. I cried on and off for a few hours, but Steve and my mom were a positive, calming force. After my mom left, Steve and I decided to do something relaxing, as much as that was possible. It was a beautiful evening, thank God, so we started walking. We decided to walk all the way to the mall 2.5 miles away, taking the path along the Menomonee River, and I think it was the best thing I could have ever done. The walking was so empowering and wonderful that by the time I made it to the mall I felt 100 times better, then and for the rest of the night, and until today. We had salads and smoothies at Panera and then hung around at the bookstore for a while before walking home.

This morning, pre-surgery #2, I'm trying to keep busy and stay positive. I'm cleaning the house, weeding and watering my gardens, organizing my office. I go in for surgery at 11:45 a.m., then they operate at 1:30. I will stay over at the hospital one night and then go to my parents' house to recover for a few days.

I think this will be a critical turning point in my life. I am learning so much from this experience, life lessons I have mostly regarded as cliches until now. Like how to not take things for granted, how to let myself be taken care of by the people I love, what true friendship means, how to not let anxiety get a grip on my soul, how to stay positive, how to treat my body as a temple, and how to live in the moment.

Obviously I'm not through this storm just yet. But I am hopeful that, as they say, "this too shall pass." And I ask you for your thoughts and prayers as I make it through this trial, and I thank you for your thoughts and prayers to this point, and for your love and support.

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As I was sitting in that movie with my mom on Monday, I could barely concentrate. I'm a pretty high strung person, extremely neurotic, and I sat there in the dark theater turning over and over in my mind the possibility that I might have cancer. I imagined the doctor's voice as he said the word "malignant" and hoped I wouldn't panic. I thought about that scene in Hannah and Her Sisters, when Woody Allen's extremely neurotic character Mickey is sitting at the doctor's office waiting for the M.D. to return with results of a cancer test. He first imagines in horror the doctor coming in telling him he has the c-word. A moment later, the doctor enters and tells him he's fine. When Mickey learns he's OK, he runs through the streets, kicking up his heels.

I was hoping that my experience would be like Mickey's; I fantasized about how great it would be when I, too, could possibly run through the streets kicking up my own heels.

Surely the news would be good, I told myself. I had already suffered enough through the first surgery and the terror alone of possibly having cancer. God would let me off the hook. I am a relatively healthy 33-year-old with virtually no family history of cancer; surely I was one of the 90 percent of folks who find out their thyroid nodules are benign. And anyway, hypochondriacs like me are never *really* sick, right? Being a hypochondriac offers a sort of superstitious consolation: we who worry about problems we don't have are safe from actually having those problems. "If I fake it, I don't have it," said the character Bob Wiley in the film What about Bob. To date, this has always been my way of coping with rampant fears.

But there in the dark, after consoling myself with these mostly irrational thoughts, my mind would swing to the dark side. I would tell myself I had to accept the real possibility that the news wouldn't be good. And I'd try to brace myself for the worst, and hope that I wouldn't crumble if and when the doctor said the word "malignant."

Back and forth I'd swing, every minute, every second, as I waited for The Fateful Phone Call.

"Calm down, Heather," my mom said to me in the Theater, putting her hand on my arm. "Whatever the news is, we'll get through it."

"Yes," I replied, "but the thing is, I'm scared. Tomorrow could either be the best day or the worst day of my life."

I realize now, in retrospect, that what I should have said was not that tomorrow would be the best or the worst day of my life. The day I found out I had cancer was merely another "first day" of my life, just like the day I went off to college, or the day I got married, or the day I gave birth to my first child. It was a day for a new beginning, a day to open my mind to a new way of thinking and living, and a day to face my fears of death and dying and acknowledge that no matter how hard I run from suffering, no matter how arduously I work toward distracting myself from these frights, suffering and death are real, and each and every one of us encounters them. So it isn't so much the fact that I will encounter trials that I should anticipate, but rather how I will deal with them when they inevitably come. This is the beginning of healing and growth.

Of course, I have spent some time wondering why or how I could have gotten cancer when none of my parents and siblings and very few of my relatives have had this experience. NO ONE in my family, to my knowledge, has thyroid cancer.

I could speculate on causes. Tainted water. A high-carb diet. Too many convenience foods. Radiation exposure through my cell phone or through climbing a local radio tower when I was a rebellious teenager. Irradiated food. Standing too close to microwaves. Pesticides. There are all sorts of ideas floating in my mind about how cancer cells could grow in my body, and if I wanted, I could cling to blame of any one or multiple causes, of my own behaviors or of someone else's, and cling to the hope that if I just do X, Y and Z I'll be able to beat this problem and never suffer again.

The truth is, it doesn't matter. My mom said something very striking to me that day at the mall. I was telling her that, like all people who experience something painful or dreaded, I briefly went through the "why me" period. I cried, whimpered, and felt lost and alone. I asked God, "Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?" My mom, a woman who, before the age of 13, lost both her biological father and her beloved step-father to untimely deaths, responded in this way: "why NOT me?" We all have to suffer. There is no avoiding it. And if not us, it will be someone else who suffers. The good thing about suffering is that we can experience what so many others have experienced, and share in the trials that are a part of the human condition. And, God willing, when we suffer we are offered an opportunity grow in leaps and bounds.

And it is a tremendous blessing to be able to really grow, to learn from suffering. It is life affirming and healing to suffer. Because in between periods of despair, of anxiety, of feeling more alone than you ever have before, of feeling like the pain and fear will never subside, there is a light that comes when you acknowledge that a power bigger than yourself is Good, and that power will bring you safely to the other side if only you hold on with all your might.

I'd like to say one more thing about that power -- about God. If you know me, you know that I am a pretty "religious" person, although I hate to use the term. It's almost my claim to fame. Heather Zydek, she's "really religious." Churchy. She's an "Orthodox Christian," whatever that means. It's true that I am a church-going sort, that I take the Christian tradition as seriously as this anger-prone, foul-mouthed, gluttonous, passionate woman can. So when I prayed for a miracle prior to my surgery, I in my fragile, weak faith did genuinely hope for something miraculous to happen. And when the news was bad, instead of good, and I had to endure not just one but two surgeries to my throat within five days, some folks, even religious, might have become angry with God. God didn't heal me, so therefore God does not exist. And if He does exist, either He doesn't like me or He's a big jerk.

I admit I was tempted to play this game. But I clung then, and continue to cling, to one idea that overrides all my doubts. After the first surgery, I was filled with despair and panic. And what I repeated most during those days were two prayers: the words of Psalm 23 ("the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want") and "Please, God, do not forsake me. Do not abandon me." These prayers, and, I believe, the prayers of many loved ones, helped me to realize that God is not far away from us, ever. He is right there, on the other side of a mysterious veil, and if we reach out, he will invisibly but powerfully give us the strength to go on. There is so much comfort in this. God may not have made my cancerous nodule disappear before surgery, but He held me close when I felt Despair pulling me with all its might into a pit from which I might have never returned. And He gave me hope and wisdom to see that He can use all things for Good.

And aside from this, I now believe that one should not discount the miracle of modern medicine. Sure, Western medicine is wrought with problems, and I'll be the first to admit it. Still, the fact that a 69-year-old surgeon could gracefully remove my cancerous thyroid gland and bring great comfort and healing to me is a gift from God. Miraculous, in its own sense. Every day I wake up, and with every breath I breathe, I have a new chance to live my life better, to truly experience the good around me, and to truly love all the people I meet.

Now my mission, my beliefs in sustainability and a clean earth and in real communities are clearer, but more personal. Because I feel all the more passionately about wholesome food and clean air and water, but also about living a life in the moment, not rushing to bigger, better illusions, and not ever taking God's many gifts for granted. That starts with appreciation for the fruits of the earth that sustain us, and it starts with good, loving stewardship of these gifts, and with loving compassion toward one's neighbors. And it ends with trust in God, and a willingness to hang on to Him during this sometimes wild ride called life.

Good Moths and Bad Butterflies

2009-07-20T07:48:00.008-05:00

Moths and butterflies are popularly believed to sit on opposite ends of the good-evil spectrum. Moths are often listed among the ranks of the villains of the insect world, and butterflies generally likened to angels, fairies, and other sweet, precious things.

In reality, there are "good" moths, and there are "bad" butterflies. Or rather, there are butterflies that can be quite a nuisance.

First, the good moths. I have Luna eggs -- lots of them. And I'd love to give some away. If you have any interest in trying to raise them, either as an ongoing hobby or as a one-time educational opportunity for yourself and/or your kids, please e-mail me. Lunas relatively easy pets, especially if you have easy access to their food supply: black walnut, white birch or sweet gum trees.

Speaking of good moths, I found someone in West Allis, another Giant Silk Moth hobbyist, who wants to trade eggs with me. He is raising Cecropias, Polyphemus and Monarch butterflies. I've always wanted to raise both Cecropias and Monarchs, and he doesn't currently have any Lunas. So today I'm supposed to drive out to his place, where he raises his moths in a large outdoor cage he uses to allow the mating females to "call" any males in the area with their scent hormones. Should be interesting.

Oh, and in my geekiest move yet, I started a Facebook fan page for Saturniinae. If you are on Facebook and like these amazing creatures as much as I do, please become a fan by searching on the name of the group: Giant Silk Moths.

Re: the bad butterflies. I harvested my first two brocoli florets late last week. Just took a kitchen knife and sawed off the biggest pieces. They were green and flawless, but for one thing -- caterpillars, small ones, hiding beneath each floret. And of course, I didn't discover this until *after* I blanched the brocoli for a pasta salad I was going to bring to a dinner with friends.

Had I bought this brocoli from the store and found it covered with worms, I might have tossed it right into the garbage, or perhaps the compost bin. But I painstakingly grew this brocoli myself. I wasn't going to give up on it that easily. So I very slowly examined each and every tiny bit to remove the half-boiled caterpillars. Needless to say, my children did not want to touch my "worm salad." My friends and Steve politely ate the salad, as did I. It tasted fine, and I'm fairly certain I got all the worms out, but I still ate every bite in terror that a forgotten worm would be revealed on someone's fork.

The pale green caterpillars are the offspring of a creature one might mistake as beneficial pollinator, a charming white butterfly that flits happily over one's vegetable garden before laying eggs all over the place.

I'm not sure how to handle something like this in the future. My understanding is that the best remedy for these or any "cabbage worms" is to remove the caterpillars as you find them and then squash them underfoot. I don't want to spray them with anything toxic -- that's surely far worse than finding unappetizing but probably healthy caterpillars on your food.

If anyone has a good organic worm removal method, please share. It's an icky sort of problem to have, to say the least. And I have yet to see what is revealed when I harvest the cabbages and cauliflower florets that are growing in the same square foot garden those charming white butterflies seem to love desecrating with their eggs.

My New Promethea Moths

2009-07-15T20:05:00.013-05:00

This afternoon a friend tagged me on a Facebook photo of two large moths. The photo was taken by her relative in Menomonee Falls. My friend, who knows of my moth-fixation, was hoping I'd be able to help ID her cousin's find. I knew right away from the photos that the moths were either Cecropia, Polyphemus, or Promethea. I asked for more wing shots and then determined that they are Promethea moths -- a kind of Giant Silk Moth that is a relative of Actias luna.

I mentioned that my friend's cousin should try to save the eggs of the female moth (in the picture, the two were mating). She said raising moths wasn't really her cup of tea, but mentioned that I could claim the eggs -- and the moths -- if I so desired. It took me about ten minutes to decide whether it would be worth it to drive out to Menomonee Falls from Tosa to retrieve the moths. The decision was made when my friend's cousin told me that to prevent them from flying off while I was en route to her house, she coaxed them onto a stick and then put them in a five-gallon bucket with a screen top. "I'll be over right after dinner," I said.

I am now delighted to have in my brief possession a beautiful mating pair of Promethea moths. The male has wings that are a rich, dark brown (almost black) with waves of lighter browns on the back and more reddish colors underneath. Sadly, his wings are now tattered from all the time spent in flight, searching for a mate. The female's wings are in better shape at this point; they're a beautiful reddish-brown, with dots and waves of white and brown and other lovely accents. The wingspan is between three and four inches.

Naturally, I turned to the Canadian moth guru Bill Oehlke for information on how to rear Promethea offspring. I'm hoping the female will lay her eggs on a paper towel I placed in the five gallon bucket.

Here are two photos. The first is the best shot I could get of the active-but-worn-out male and the impregnated female; the second is a close-up of the female.

These two Promethea join the nine-plus Lunas that have eclosed over the last couple of days inside my moth terrarium. I already have eggs from one mating pair of Lunas and look forward to raising a new generation of caterpillars -- hopefully two kinds!

A Bright Moon in a Dark Sky

2009-07-11T16:17:00.016-05:00

I realize it's been a while since I last posted to the blog, and frankly, it's probably because I've been a bit depressed since the caterpillars pupated. It's that time of year when so many people are out of town, the Fourth of July is over, and summer vacation gets into a kind of lull. Beyond that, though, there've been a few little upsets that got me down. For example, it looks like a creature of some sort snatched my baby pomegranates, because they're gone. My yard is starved for rain, the rain barrels are empty. Worst of all, I have *another* raging case of compost gnats in my vermicompost bins, an embarrassing problem for someone folks think of as a "go to person" on the subject of vermicomposting. I'm not sure whether to bring in the heavy artillary (beneficial nematodes) or perhaps dump the bins in my outdoor composter and start over with new worms. There is nothing worse than having to examine every beverage before taking a sip to make sure there aren't any gnats floating in the top. Major nasty.

So then today I got to spent a few hours with my mother-in-law and a friend at eight private gardens for the annual Secret Gardens of Wauwatosa Tour, which was great. I saw so many lovely things today that it inspired me to keep plugging away at my own gardens. At the same time, though, when I got home my own yard suddenly looked rather pathetic and messy, which again has me feeling glum. There's still so much work to do, and it's time consuming, potentially expensive work. Ugh.

Yes, fanatic growers do have their rough spells.

Thankfully, amid all this self-pitying I was given a special gift. When I sat down at my computer this afternoon, I looked over at the bankers box in which all my cocoons are sitting and saw one pale Luna moth resting inside. With the help of my two older daughters we gently lifted him out of the box and put him inside my screened butterfly terrarium.

Here are two photos of my new moth:

Isn't he sweet?

Transformation

2009-06-30T14:31:00.006-05:00

This morning I sifted through the cardboard bankers box that currently houses my luna moth caterpillars to separate cocoons/pupae from larvae, as well as to remove dead leaves, stripped tree branches and caterpillar droppings.

In the sorting process I snapped some photos. Here's a late bloomer, getting ready to pupate. The little guy lifted his head off the branch he was hugging when he noticed my flash:

And here's an arrangement of pupae on the bankers box lid. Looks like some of the caterpillars spun pupated and then fell from the silken cocoons they'd spun. I'm not sure what this means for these "homeless" pupae. Should be interesting.

A very rough head count amounted to at least 40 cocoons and perhaps as many lazy caterpillars ready to pupate. I'm still willing to share. Any takers?

On a related note, in the process of removing the skeletons of devoured White birch branches I was able to save several White birch seeds. I put them in a one gallon zip lock bag and refridgerated them in the hopes that stratifying will ready them for planting, maybe in a few months. I'd love to be able to grow these beautiful trees; the parent birch in my neighbor's yard is gorgeous.

June Color

2009-06-29T11:26:00.017-05:00

Here are some photos from around the yard this morning of June 29, 2009:

Purple Petunias, lovingly deadheaded daily:

Baby Cortland Apples:

Veggies doing their thing:

Carrots and okra, started from seed:

Mara's Morning Glory:

Coreopsis:

Pomegranates!

Yellow Lilly:

A little June color:

Chillin' in the new hammock:

Three Sisters Update

2009-06-27T20:21:00.015-05:00

No, not my three sisters (if you weren't aware, I'm the firstborn of four girls). This blog post is in reference to the Three Sisters garden I planted at my parents' home in Northern Illinois. The Three Sisters method is a Native American gardening technique that involves the mutually beneficial combined planting of corn, beans and squash.

I started my plants from seed, and now, a little over a month later, everything looks pretty good. Below are a few pictures of the progress.

As you may recall, I started with four mounds of clay-heavy soil ammended with mushroom compost and peat moss, planting corn seeds in the center (some with pole beans, some without) and then either squash or melons in outer rings.

Here's a front view of the whole garden:

The following photo is of a bed that includes corn, pole beans, and watermelon. The watermelons are slower growers -- they're much smaller than the squash plants at this point. The same is true of the watermelon plant I'm growing in my own backyard. I'm not sure if this is typical or if I've done something wrong. We shall see, in time.

Below is a photo of the rectangular bed, which includes two mounds. The mound on the left has very large zucchini in the outer ring -- so large, in fact, that it's crowding the slower-growing corn. Today I adjusted the zucchini leaves, pushing them outward to give the corn a bit more room to breathe. The mound on the right includes a mix of honeydew and cantaloupe surrounding the corn. The melons, again, aren't growing at nearly the same rate as the squash.

Below is a picture of my fantastic pumpkins -- this is probably the most successful mound of the four. Still no flowers or fruits, though.

It'll be fascinating to watch how this experimental garden continues to develop. I'll keep you posted!

Ornamentals

2009-06-24T21:41:00.016-05:00

When I bought my first home (another blue bungalow in a different city) I became, at the age of 23, an instant garden enthusiast. I wanted to take the weedy, densely shaded backyard I had in my hands and turn it into a sanctuary. Beauty was my number one objective, and I spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over the course of five years on perennials, mulch, ponding gear, and all sorts of other things to make the yard beautiful.

Several years and three children later, with a sunnier yard at my disposal, and with an energy crisis and global climate change upon us, I have focused almost exclusively on growing edibles. Beauty is still an objective, but it has been knocked down a few pegs on my gardening priority list as I hyper focus on growing things that are practical and useful.

Having said that, today I was able to visit the lovely Monches Farm in Colgate, WI, where my mother-in-law bought me an early birthday present: ornamental perennials to fill some empty spaces in my front yard. The very helpful horticulturalist at Monches introduced me to a new (to me) kind of perennial that I think I'm going to love: Coral Bells.

I came home with six new baby plants: two variegated purple and silver coral bells, two bright, lime green and yellow coral bells, and two containers of "blood grass," a shorter ornamental grass with blades of burgundy and green. The blood grass ties the other two plants together nicely. Here are some pictures, taken after sunset with my flash:

There is something so important about creating a beautiful space in which to live. Having a lovely yard should motivate a family to stay home and play, rather than look elsewhere for entertainment and fulfillment, wasting fuel in the process. I'd say that makes ornamentals pretty practical!

Spinning Cocoons

2009-06-23T18:41:00.012-05:00

Today began with a visit to Tuesdays at Ten at Cranky Al's, where I brought some of my Luna moth larvae for a preschool story time centered on moths. It was so cute seeing how excited the kids were to touch such big, bright caterpillars! Here are two photos: one of two large lunas crawling on a stick and the other of my daughter and a caterpillar friend:

I've been slowly finding homes for a small percentage of the many caterpillars that have made it to the fifth instar. I also noticed today that one of my green caterpillars appeared to be blushing. At first I thought something was wrong until it occurred to me that perhaps it was preparing to spin a cocoon. Several photographs at the Actias luna wiki verified that Lunas can turn a pinkish hue just before pupating. Sure enough, just within the last hour we noticed several cocoons in our bankers-box-turned-Luna-habitat. Exciting stuff!

The wiki entry stated that unless lunas are diapausing over winter, the pupation process should take about two weeks. We'll see if, come early July, we have a new generation of adult lunas eclosing from their cocoons!

Note to Self

2009-06-19T16:01:00.006-05:00

Do not buy organic bone meal fertilizer for your flowers and vegetables if you want your dog to stay away from the garden.

And make sure the dog's water bowl is filled so he is not compelled to drink from the pond.

Harvest Time -- Well, Sort Of

2009-06-18T11:23:00.013-05:00

There is this lull, just after the big spring planting push, where an impatient gardener like myself feels both relief and a sense of mild depression as she asks herself, "now what?" It's almost hard to believe, at this point, that all those little seedlings and seeds I planted will actually bear fruit in the seemingly distant future. They are certainly growing, some by leaps and bounds, but still -- providing food? It's a bit difficult to fathom.

The beauty of spring crops like lettuce is that they offer a glimpse into what is to come in, say, August. And last night I got to experience that little glimpse when I harvested a colander full of mesclun lettuce from my front planters. Our family of five enjoyed a lovely Greek salad, with feta cheese, homemade greek dressing and sesame crackers. Had a loaf of sourdough from Breadsmith on the side.

Truthfully, the lettuce was a little soft because it had come close to wilting from the heat the day before. But other than that it provided a lovely eating experience. The lettuce leaves were flawless, protected as they were from rabbits and other pests, and there was nary a hole in any of the leaves. Totally pesticide free as well!

The thing that got me, though, was how quickly we ate all that lettuce. I mean, these five lettuce plants, which completely filled two large pots on my front porch, amounted to ONE meal for our family. How many lettuce plants would it take to feed us for a year? I'm still chewing on that one.

On a different note, I'm working on patching and beautifying my ugly lawn. The back yard in particular has huge bare spots. Out back I dumped compost from the city on the bare spots, then spread one bag of milorganite over the grass, then seeded. That was just before the torrential rain we got last night. My fingers are crossed!

I also took some of my many remaining seedlings (mostly tomatoes) and planted them in the onion patch on the side of my house. I STILL have leftovers, if anyone wants to claim them. They're looking a little sad at this point, so I'm sure they'd be thrilled if someone planted them in good soil and gave their pent up roots room to stretch.

Projects Galore

2009-06-10T15:58:00.044-05:00

Things have been a bit quieter around here over the last week or two as the excitement from our spring planting has simmered. A simpler summer routine of watering and weeding is upon us. In the meantime, my attention has shifted from the raised vegetable gardens at the Blue Bungalow to a few other projects, including the following:

I launched a tiny vermicomposting business called Gardens NOT Garbage. I'm interested in finding a few brave clients in the Milwaukee area who are willing to try out my products: two sizes of "simple vermicomposters," with or without red worms. If you are interested, e-mail me.

Speaking of vermicompost, as I've been developing GNG and as I read through the book Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof, I've been experimenting with compost harvesting techniques. I mentioned in an earlier post how I had harvested some of the finished compost from my first bin using a homemade sifter and got about one five-gallon bucket of beautiful vermicompost (which I used to amend the soil at the new veggie patch at Lincoln School -- see below). Now I have begun an experiment that involves a different separation method: I took a smallish piece of galvanized hardware cloth with 1/4" mesh and used it to divide one of my bins in half by sliding it down the middle of the compost/bedding/worms. I am going to try putting fresh kitchen scraps in one side of the bin in the hopes that the worms will gradually migrate to the fresh waste. When they do, I hope that they will leave behind harvestable, worm-free compost. This is a slower harvest process but seems to be pretty easy if one is willing to wait for the compost. I'll let you know how it goes!

We planted a vegetable garden at Lincoln Elementary School! The whole project came about rather serendipitously and has turned out to be quite lovely. It all started when I volunteered to pull weeds and spread playground mulch at the school last Friday. As I was talking with the other parent volunteers, I proposed using some of my excess seedlings to plant a small veggie patch in the weedy raised bed by the school breezeway. After weighing the negatives (watering and weeding over the summer, preteen vandals), we figured it was still worth a shot. So this week, on Tuesday morning, the volunteer landscaping coordinator and I met on the playground and got to work weeding and then planting a veggie patch and an additional herb and pumpkin area.

See photos and read the details at our blog: Lincoln Veggies.

I regret that I have yet to post pictures of my rapidly growing Luna moth caterpillars -- doing so would require macro lens skills that only my husband has at this point. So this verbal update will have to suffice. The other day the single plastic pretzel container I had them in was starting to look cramped, so I pulled them out and put them in a new pretzel container poked with holes, and as I did, I tallied them. After about 120 I lost count! I put about 125 in the new container and filled it with leaves, then dumped the remaining leaves, caterpillar poop and caterpillars at the base of the black walnut tree in my backyard, hoping that some of the caterpillars would climb the tree and find their way to the leaves at the top. The next day I noticed that there were no caterpillars out there, so either they did find their way to the food source or they were eaten by birds. We'll see if we have any adult lunas flying around later this summer!

In the meantime, I ended up dividing my remaining caterpillars into three plastic containers filled with leaves. They are getting so big and eating so much at this point that it's getting a little overwhelming. I had to make a stop at a nearby golf course where there are about five mature white birch trees in a small grove so I could harvest a bucketful of leaves. I am thinking that I may try to give some away, or perhaps bring them to the white birch grove and put them on the trees now that the gypsy moth spraying is (I hope) over for the year. If you live in the area and would like a caterpillar or two, please let me know. I'm happy to give some of them away.

As you may know, I've been involved with planning a Wauwatosa farmers market. After deciding a 2009 market for Tosa wasn't feasible, we concluded that it would be best to have a one-day "Harvest Market" this fall as a prelude to the official launch of our market in 2010. The market will hopefully take place on Saturday, September 26 in The Village. See www.tosafarmersmarket.com for news updates.

Finally, in addition to my gardening and composting pursuits, I am also a writer of middle grade fiction, and I've been working on a new book for, oh, three or four years now. I keep hoping I've written the final draft, only to end up returning to the manuscript every few months. If you don't see another post for a while, I'm probably off in a fictitious world that involves nerdy preteens, a hunt for Luna moths, two Evil Emmas, and a "holy fool." If I ever get this saga published, I'll be sure to post the news here first.

Am I overextending myself? Perhaps. But believe it or not, I'm actually starting to feel a bit more relaxed than I felt during the Earth Day-to-Memorial Day gardening push. Summer's on the horizon, school's almost out and I can't wait to have lazy summer mornings and daily hikes!

Repurpose This

2009-06-06T11:10:00.007-05:00

So I have this plastic filing container that no longer works so well because the two snaps that keep the box shut are broken. I was thinking of giving it a new purpose, but would like to come up with something more interesting than a planter or a worm bin. Any ideas?

Finally, Some Photographs

2009-06-04T19:21:00.007-05:00

I'll let these pictures from around my yard do their thousand words thing.

And finally, a photo of the "three sisters" garden I built with my dad at my parents' home in Northern Illinois:

My New Toy

2009-05-29T08:51:00.002-05:00

If you know me at all, you are aware of my coffee obsession, evidenced by the hefty stash of fair trade whole beans on my counter and the coffee plants growing throughout my house. Now I have a new coffee-related toy, and I couldn't be prouder: it's a lovely coffee grinder I got from an antique store in downtown Waukesha last weekend.

A few years ago I relied on my large combination coffee/espresso machine to make a latte for myself every day. But as I became interested in relying less on fossil fuels in my everyday existence, I started boiling water with a very heavy duty, 1950s tea kettle and using a French press to brew my daily caffeine fix. In the summer I can use my wood-burning stove outside to boil the water, but until recently I could not go completely off the grid with my coffee because I still used an electric coffee grinder to prep my beans for the press.

I stumbled upon hand coffee grinders while looking online to see if such a thing as hand paper shredders existed (they do -- I bought one, which I use to create bedding for my vermicomposter). That's when I saw my first hand coffee grinder and it occurred to me that I could probably find one at an antique store. Sure enough, there are plenty of them, in many styles and a variety of prices. Mine was about $40, which, to me, is worth it, not just because it enables me to grind my own coffee off the grid, but because it is a beautiful work of American craftsmanship. Compared to my late 1990s coffee grinder, which looks like a dull kitchen robot, this grinder is so pretty I just can't take my eyes off of it. Don't you agree?

The down side is that it now takes me about five minutes of uncomfortable grinding to make my daily cup. Also, instead of getting a good course grind suitable for a French press, this little mill grinds the coffee so fine it tastes more like espresso or Turkish coffee when brewed. Which actually isn't a big problem, because I like my coffee in the thick-as-mud range.

Now if I could just find a hand-crank TV set...

Compost Gnats and Escaped Worms

2009-05-28T09:12:00.038-05:00

Last week I wrote candidly about the somewhat embarrassing fungus gnat invasion in my worm bin. As you may recall, my husband Steve and I moved the infested bin outdoors as a temporary solution until I could figure out what my next step was going to be, whether waging biological warfare (by adding beneficial nematodes to my bin to kill the gnat larvae) or something else.

I opted for "something else," because "something else" is free, and much less scary than playing with creepy living organisms that may or may not solve my problem. So the other day I got out a few five gallon buckets and my wheelbarrow (and yes, it's "wheelbarrow" and not "wheelbarrel", as I learned today to my chagrin). I lined these vessels up on a concrete slab in my backyard, opened the compost bin, and started sorting the contents of the bin. This tedious, messy and somewhat back-breaking process involved adding about two shovelfuls at a time to a wooden sifter Steve crafted for me out of wood and 1/8" hardware cloth, then shaking the sifter over the wheelbarrow to separate the finished compost and worm castings from the unfinished compost. While some of the worms did fall through the holes in the screening, it wasn't terribly difficult to pick them out. I put the unfinished compost in one of the five gallon buckets, and then a second when the first filled up.

Truthfully, this is the first time I have harvested my compost in the entire year of its existence and I realized while doing so the task was long overdue. While I have harvested small scoops of compost/castings here and there to make compost tea, I have never gone through the bin and removed vast amounts of compost. This experience taught me three things:

To avoid problems like fungus gnat and fruit fly infestations, bins should be processed more often than annually -- maybe once a season would make more sense for an active bin, as it takes about three months for worms to process food waste.

Just as it is very useful to have a two-sided compost bin in my backyard, it will also be useful to have two side-by-side vermicompost bins instead of one. So from now on I think I'm going to alternate between two bins to keep both of them active and prevent them from becoming overloaded and prone to pests. Also, under the right conditions, worms breed like crazy, so after one year I have more than enough worms to move them into new bins and share with others.

Vermicompost is amazing! The stuff I sifted was gorgeous -- well, gorgeous to an organic gardener, anyway. It's rich, dark and crumbly. I wish I had done this worm-bin-sifting earlier, because the compost I harvested will be extremely useful in my gardens. Although some of the things I've seen over the last few days aren't really for the faint of heart, it still seems worth it in the end when I think of all that rich stuff I'll be able to feed my vegetables.

I sifted through about 2/3 of my very full bin and obtained one five-gallon bucket full of finished vermicompost when I discovered that the compost in the bottom of the bin was too wet to sift easily -- it was smelly, compacted and borderline anaerobic. So I aerated the remaining compost by scraping it off the the screening and pebbles that cover the bottom of the bin. Then I covered it with some of the unfinished compost and worms and added lots of *dry* shredded newspaper to the bin. I tend to not moisten the newspaper if the bin contents are already too moist, which is a common problem with plastic containers. I am hoping the dry newspaper will absorb the excess moisture.

Finally, I moved my processed bin to the basement, where I am going to let it sit for a while. In the meantime, I took the remaining unfinished compost and more worms and added it all to a brand-new bin. I covered the compost with shredded newspaper and set the new bin beside the original bin.

Regarding the gnats, I haven't seen any since I went through this process, although I did notice that the two flats of spinach I've been growing on my kitchen counter were also infested with fungus gnats. I experimented with pouring a homemade cleaning solution of water, vinegar and peppermint castile soap on the soil, as I've heard that diluted castile soap can kill plant bugs. I should have just made a new solution, but I already had this old solution in a spray bottle, so I thought I'd experiment with it rather than make a new solution without vinegar. The solution I poured on one of the flats did seem to kill (quiet?) the gnats, but also proved to hurt the spinach plants, as this morning they looked kind of withered. Not sure what got to them -- the vinegar or the soap, or both. I am probably going to dump that flat in the compost bin out back. I put the other flat outside, where I'll probably leave it now that it's warm enough. That's where a majority of my growing is taking place anyway, so I might as well focus on the outdoors and save indoor gardening for the fall.

One more candid confession: I have observed that two nights in a row some of the worms I placed temporarily in a five-gallon bucket with the lid loose for ventilation escaped. The awful task of scraping half-dried worms from my concrete basement floor is almost worse than finding a bin infested with gnats. Apparently these little red wigglers are SERIOUS night creepers and, in the dark, they will crawl to the top of the bin and all over the inside if it's shut. If a lid is open, they will crawl out of the bin and as far as they can get before drying up. If you have a worm bin in a place that is very dark at night, keep it shut, or make sure any screening you keep on top is too tight for the worms to crawl through (the 1/8" holes in the screen I put over the bin the second night apparently made for an easy worm exodus). After scraping about 20 dead worms from the floor, I think I've learned my lesson. Thank God they didn't escape onto carpet! Blech.

So now that I've said all that, anyone still want me to make them a worm composter? ;)

Insect Invasion

2009-05-23T08:35:00.021-05:00

I have been trying to absorb everything I can about vermicomposting over the last few weeks and even created my own bin design to make for friends and possibly sell as a part of my business idea, "Gardens, Not Garbage." Things had been going well all spring with my one-year-old vermicomposter and I was feeling pretty confident about my composting abilities until I hit a bump in the road the other day.

The problem is flies. Last year, a month or so after I first started my bin, I found I had what I thought was a fruit fly infestation. So I moved my bin from the kitchen to a shady spot in my backyard, stopped filling it with kitchen scraps for a few weeks, stuffed the bin with dead leaves and let it rest outdoors, where I kept it there all summer and for most of the winter. I thought, foolishly, that my worms could survive the cold if they were buried inside my big bin and the bin were covered with snow, which it was for most of the winter. However, in the late winter I realized I had frozen my worms to death. Ooops! Not ready to give up, however, I bought new worms from Growing Power, brought my bin inside and I was back in business. That was probably in March or so.

Anyway, it wasn't until this last week in mid-May that I discovered a halo of flies around my bin. I assumed they were fruit flies, so I did some reading online and tried one trick I found at Chow Tips: I filled a few containers with a mixture of apple cider vinegar, warm water, and a squirt or two of dish soap. I put a mason jar and a large bowl full of the stuff on top of my bin the other night and the next morning both containers had a great number of dead flies floating in the liquid.

Unfortunately, the bin was still surrounded by a halo of flies, and yesterday they were so bad, my husband pointed out, that if you looked closely at the window next to the bin there were tiny flies all over it. Nasty.

I did more reading and figured out that these aren't actually fruit flies. Fruit flies may be a problem, too, and maybe that trick with the vinegar did work for them. But it actually seemed to do nothing for the fungus gnats that may be the real culprit in this situation.

Apparently flies are a common problem among us "worm workers" (borrowing a phrase from Mary Appelhof, whose book "Worms Eat My Garbage" I am reading right now). I came across this blog in which the blogger explains an identical situation. He ended up purchasing nematodes online to put inside his bins, which he said seemed to abate the fungus gnat population.

I think many of my houseplants are also infested with the same kind of gnat, because for a while now whenever I water my plants I'll see tiny critters fly up and then go back down to the soil. I am not sure if these are a danger to the plant, or to my compost, but they sure are creepy!

I have always been very careful to bury the food scraps I place in my worm bin under copious amounts of shredded newspaper when I add waste every week or so. However, my husband and one of my children had recently taken to adding some kitchen scraps unbeknownst to me until I discovered a banana peel sitting right on top of the bedding. I read in Worms Eat My Garbage that fruit flies like to lay their eggs on their food sources (moldy fruit) so their offspring have something to eat when they hatch, but that fruit flies are not burrowers, so unless food is exposed in the bin they are not likely to go for it. Also, their eggs are often on the fruit we buy from the store, so it would make sense that a misplaced banana peel could cause an infestation.

The fungus flies are more of a mystery to me, and from what I have read, they are harder to manage. I'm not sure what has caused this fungus gnat infestation. It could be that they somehow found their way into my houseplants and then into my worm bin, or vice versa. I'm not sure if the banana peels are what caused this problem, or if it's something else, but either way I'm eager to find a solution. I'd hate for a few hundred highly irritating but mostly harmless gnats to spoil my vermicomposting operation. For now, at my husband's insistence, I have moved the bin outside until I can figure out how to remedy this problem.

To be continued...

Exhaustion.

2009-05-21T21:11:00.008-05:00

This morning I went to my parents' home in Illinois for round two of our garden project. Today I planted seeds utilizing the aforementioned "three sisters technique." I got started by raking the soil in the two square beds, mounding it in the middle and then flattening the top; I did the same for the rectangular bed, except that I made two mounds, instead of one. On each mound, I made several indentations for seeds, starting with one in the center, then six around that, then six more in an outer ring. In the inner rings I planted a mix of sweet corn and pole bean seeds in the square beds (with about three corn seeds in the center and then three pole bean seeds around the corn seeds). I only planted sweet corn seeds in the rectangular bed. Then in the outer rings I planted something different on each mound: pumpkin, watermelon, zucchini, and a combo of honeydew and cantaloupe.

I covered the seeds with peat moss, then watered them to keep them in place (it was very windy at my parents' house today). Then my dad and I laid weed barrier fabric down in the aisles between each bed. We held the fabric down with bricks until my dad has time to mulch the top.

This evening, Steve finished putting the grids on two of my raised beds, I cleaned up some yard messes, did a little weeding and, once the grids were all in place, planted several seedlings and all the potato pieces I had cut a couple days before and let dry. I now have about 60 percent of my raised beds planted.

I also planted two tiny chamomile seedlings in a container for my deck. I plan to take my oregano and lemon balm and put them in containers, too. I think from now on I'm going to grow all my herbs in containers on my deck, since so many herbs seem to spread so readily, and since they will be easier to bring indoors in the winter if I want to keep growing them inside.

In the next round of planting, which I hope to do before memorial day, I'll most likely be planting seeds -- okra and carrots definitely, and maybe watermelon and peas. I'll probably also plant the sunflower and marigold sprouts I have now in my indoor greenhouse.

Oh, and I caved today and bought a real "topsy turvy" tomato planter when I was picking up two bags of milorganite (to fertilize my pathetic-looking lawn) at Puhl's True Value. It was about $13. I think I'm going to plant one of the Wisconsin 55 tomato seedlings I got from the West Allis Farmers Market in the thing. Should be interesting to compare how my homemade upside down tomato planter compares to the real deal.

One more thing I splurged on today: 10 goldfish for our pond, as well as two bullfrog tadpoles with hind legs just beginning to sprout. Bought them from Aquaterra on North Avenue. While I was there I was tempted by an adorable, dandelion-eating Russian Tortoise. Kinda pricy, but sounds like a gentle, fun family pet. I'm thinking about it, but then again I'm so busy with my dozens of very hungry caterpillars that I'm not sure I need another pet right now.

Getting There

2009-05-19T21:09:00.025-05:00

Today was another full gardening day. My feet are dirty and sore and I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow feeling like I'd run a marathon the night before.

This morning, I went to the city recycling center to pick up a few five gallon buckets full of free compost. As I was slowly shoveling compost into my buckets and removing the many bits of plastic and whoknowswhatelse from each shovelful, I noticed one of the gentlemen nearby using a clever contraption. His vehicle was towing a cart, and on top of the cart he had built a large screen. He would shovel the compost onto the screen and every so often would tip the screen up to dump all those bits of plastic, rocks and other junk onto the ground near the compost pile. Smart!

It's amazing what ends up being composted by the people of Wauwatosa. Today I found part of string of Christmas lights in one shovelful and a small plastic snake in another.

Anyway, my compost-shoveling comrade gave me an idea for my vermicomposter: to build a small screen (maybe 18" by 18") to filter finished worm castings and compost from the worms and partially decomposed kitchen scraps in my vermicomposter.

Later in the day I walked over to Puhl's True Value with my 4-year-old and bought some aluminum screening with 1/8" holes so I could implement this idea, as well as complete some vermicomposters I'm building for friends to try out as part of the composting business I'm in the process of starting (it's called "Gardens, Not Garbage." I'm sure I'll write a separate post about it eventually). Anyway, we came home and my in-laws had arrived for a visit from Illinois, so I had to wait on tinkering with my screen idea so we could make a trip over to West Allis to check out their Tuesday farmers market. My mother-in-law and I ended up purchasing several vegetable plants: broccoli, bell pepper, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and a cool herb called "orangemint," which smells phenomenal. We came home, had dinner, and then I got to work in the backyard, trying to knock a few more chores off my endless list.

Incidentally, as we were driving down National to the "Stallis" market I noticed several raised beds in progress somewhere between 85th and 65th Streets. No idea what this is all about, but I like it!

So here's a summary of today's gardening:

I had two more dwarf fruit trees delivered Gurneys: a fig to replace my dead fig and a banana. I planted them both and put them in my southern window. I will move a majority of my houseplants and indoor fruit trees to the yard after Memorial Day.

The compost bin is almost done, but Steve only built me two compartments, instead of three, so beside the bin I added another composter with garden stakes and chicken wire. This area will be exclusively for leaf waste that I can dry so I have carbon-rich materials to add to the main compost bin compartments on top of moist, nitrogen rich (stinky) kitchen waste.

I took two red mulberries I had purchased in bare root form last year and overwintered in 1 gallon pots and planted them into very large containers on my deck. These are experimental trees -- I hope to keep these large trees small and see if they will happily bear fruit in containers.

I have one official square foot garden built and almost completely planted. This garden, like my other raised beds, is actually 5 x 5 instead of 4 x 4, so it is almost too big to qualify as a SFG; however, I did divide it into one square foot sections, and I did add a vertical gardening component at the back -- these are the quintessential parts of the true SFG. Tonight I constructed the vertical garden component with metal conduit pipes, elbow joints, rebar supports, nylon mesh and plenty of twist ties. Now it's ready to support the tomatoes and watermelon I have growing in the back row of my first SFG. 19 of 20 of the square feet are planted with various things. I was able to fit so much in this bed that it almost makes me wonder if I'll be able to use all the space I have in my tiny yard. (Somehow, though, I doubt this will be a problem!)

I am a bit late in doing this, but I had bought two bags of potatoes a while back and finally got around to prepping them for planting. I didn't realize that you have to cut the potatoes into pieces, each with one "eye." My eyes were already starting to sprout inside the bag, and they were kind of soft and old, but we'll see how well they do. I also did not know until I read the instructions that came with the potatoes that they not only need to be cut into pieces but they need to be dried for a few days before they are planted. Right now I have many pieces of two kinds of potatoes drying on paper towels in my kitchen. Hopefully this will work!

My nightly watering ritual has begun -- I've been using so much water from my two rain barrels that they are almost empty. Hope it rains soon!

Happily, I discovered while watering that my red and yellow onions are growing. Yippee!

Sadly, I decided to add some of the compost I shoveled earlier today to the two hanging baskets I had converted into upside-down tomato planters. In the process, the weight of the additional soil caused one of the baskets' chains to snap, which broke the poor tomato plant. Now I only have one upside-down tomato. :(

On another sad note, I don't think I ever mentioned what happened with that Morel Mushroom. Someone had suggested we put a glass jar over it to protect it from predators and allow it to grow more before we enjoyed it buttered up and sauteed. Well that was a big mistake. The intense afternoon sun burned the poor shroom through the glass and the thing was dead before we could enjoy it. Live and learn!

I *still* need to post pictures and promise I will do so soon.

Sore Fingers

2009-05-15T15:01:00.024-05:00

After several weeks of on and off work, I finally finished removing the "ditch lilies" (orange daylilies) from the side of my house on Friday. They were lovely, and I enjoyed them, but they are monstrously hardy, spread like the worst kinds of weeds and aren't edible (as far as I know). Rather than waste the sunniest spot on my yard with something that is more or less a weed, I decided to remove them. The process was, in a word, awful.

But now I'm done, thank God. Once all the plants were removed, I graded the whole area by mixing the existing dirt with compost and peat moss and raking it away from the house so the rain water would drain toward the lawn and away from the foundation. I planted chives, garlic, shallots and red and yellow onions in a long stretch of the bed but left parts unplanted for now. Then I laid down a thick layer of hardwood mulch over the whole area.

I also removed some wayward peppermint. Last year I planted two tiny baby peppermint plants in August (purchased from the West Allis Farmers Market) and they have since become a veritable crop of mint. I saved a small clump of it to plant in a pot, thinking at least this way I can manage it's growth a little better, then composted the rest.

I took some of these pulled plants to the composter, but those that had gone to flower or seed and those that had really heavy duty, long lasting root bulbs (i.e. the daylilies) I threw into paper bags for the city to compost with our yard waste removal program.

One important lesson I learned from all this plant removal is how critical it is to go deep when removing weeds. Pulling -- even pulling carefully to remove the roots of a plant -- often only gets a small part of the root at best. I discovered it is better to get the roots by shovel and then shake off all the extra dirt and worms before discarding or composting.

On Friday I also decided to plant some of the squares in my One True Square Foot Garden. I left about six squares empty, but planted beefsteak tomatoes, a watermelon plant, cilantro, cabbage, pepperoncini, jalapenos, and bush beans. I'll probably plant the rest of my seedlings and start seeds next week.

I should note that I like the grid on this raised bed that I think we are going to add similar grids to the three other raised beds.

On Friday night I slept over at my parents' in northern Illinois, then got to work on Saturday morning with my dad -- we transformed a dormant garden on his two acre lot into three (slightly) raised beds outlined with bricks.

For this space, I'm going to get a little experimental. I have a bit more room to work with than I do in my own yard, so I'm going to grow a variation of the "three sisters" combination of corn, beans and squash. We'll see. Incidentally, I came across this really helpful website that outlines various plant combinations.

When I came home Saturday afternoon, I jumped into yet another yard project -- removing more wayward plants (I think they're Lobelia) that had spread beyond the bed in which they were once planted years ago by a previous homeowner. Many of them were under a barberry bush, which meant getting my hands mauled by barberry thorns. I must have been pricked about 50 times. I have at least ten tiny splinters in my hands from those cursed thorns. It was so bad that now I can barely move the middle finger on my right hand, where I was pricked on one of the joints. OWWWW!!!!

Overall last night was mixed. My fingers were in pain and I lost my cell phone after having a delicious meal at hotch-a-do. We ended up driving from Tosa back to the east side and then to Tosa again and I still don't have my phone. Still, despite these things I'm thrilled that we got so much accomplished in the last few days. Plus, Steve is almost finished with my new compost bin, which I've been anxiously awaiting for weeks now.

As soon as my fingers are back in working order, I'm going to post some pictures.

Got Worms?

2009-05-13T14:58:00.004-05:00

Lots of folks have been asking me lately about composting and vermicomposting. As a result, I've been experimenting with building simple vermicomposters and I've decided I'm willing to make them for others for a small fee. If you would like an 18-gallon converted plastic tote Vermicomposter (AKA "worm bin") for your home, I am now taking orders. $20 without the red wigglers, $35 with. If you decide you want to buy the worms yourself, you can get them at many bait shops or from Growing Power in MKE for $25 per five gallon bucket.

I use my worm castings as fertilizer (straight or in the form of "compost tea") for houseplants, outdoor container plants and small vegetable gardens (i.e. square foot garden beds). The stuff is amazing; I'm fairly convinced the reason my houseplants and vegetable seedlings are so green and healthy is because I'm feeding them with compost tea made from worm castings on a weekly basis. The great thing about having a worm composter in your kitchen or basement is that it's easily accessible and can be used year round.

The other advantage of having a worm bin is the reduction in garbage you toss each week. When you add coffee grounds, egg shells, vegetable and fruit scraps and shredded newspaper to your bin, your garbage can is lighter each week, thus reducing your carbon footprint.

If you want to place an order for a vermicomposter, e-mail me directly at heatherzydek(at)gmail(dot)com. Your bin can be ready within 3 to 5 days of your order. I will provide some written instructions and will be available by e-mail to answer any questions you have about your bin.

Two Days of Major Garden Work

2009-05-13T13:07:00.001-05:00

Monday and Tuesday of this week I spent a majority of the daylight hours working on my yard, prepping gardens for planting later this week or early next. I did so much work I could barely move when I woke up yesterday and today. Here's a list of the things I've done so far.

Monday
In the morning I went to the non-local big box hardware store to buy enough supplies to make one official Square Foot Garden grid and vertical growing component. I came home to find 8 cubic yards of mulch on my driveway. My 4-year-old and I ate lunch, then I set to work in the backyard. It took me all afternoon to pull weeds from the four raised beds in my backyard. I also made two upside down tomato planters out of hanging baskets, planted cherry tomato seedlings in them, and hung them on the gazebo just beyond the sliding glass doors in my kitchen.

Of course, it's always difficult to get much of anything done with a restless little one nearby. She managed to dig a few of her own holes in the backyard where the grass is supposed to be, played with (spilled) rain barrel water and climbed on the mulch pile a bit. I did my best to get stuff done, but lost my cool on more than a few occasions. When I get in "work mode" it's so hard for me to be patient with anyone who gets in my way. Something to work on.

I took a break around 3 p.m. to pick up the kids from school and Steve from work and then make and eat dinner.

After dinner I was very thankful to have Steve's help for a bit: he installed a grid on one of my raised beds, dividing it into 20 square feet of spaces for growing vegetables. In the meantime, I worked on transplanting some bleeding hearts and ferns to make room for the 12 foot long, three compartment composter I'll be putting near my four raised beds. Steve and I also poured big bags of peat moss and vermiculite on the raised beds.

Finally, Steve removed the picket fence walls from my old composter so I could use the compost and prepare for my new-and-improved composter, to be installed next week (I hope) by Steve and my father-in-law Stanley.

Tuesday

I woke up, took the kids to school, made some coffee with my French press and returned to the compost pile, which I spent about two hours dividing into four groups: unfinished compost (leaves, twigs, tree bark, potatoes/eggs, etc.), large twigs and tree branches that were mistakenly added to the composter, bits of plastic and metal that were also mistakenly added to the compost (including two frightening plastic animals -- a bat and a crayfish -- that I thought were real for a second), and the good, usable compost, which I added by the wheelbarrelful to my four raised beds. Although it was a tedious process, it was informative -- I learned what NOT to put in compost bins.

I picked up my preschooler at 11:15 a.m. and snuck in a quick trip to the grocery store. We ate lunch and then I put on my garden gloves again and got back to work, this time on a spontaneous project: I carted some lannon stones from my backyard to built two small, slightly raised beds in the front yard, along the sidewalk and front walkway. The purpose of these beds is mostly decorative, but I was thinking of adding some of the excess daylilies from the side of my house and planting one dwarf hazelnut in the center of each of the beds. Putting the stones in place was labor intensive but went quickly; the hard part was figuring out what to do with all the grass I'd soon be covering up with mulch. I started shoveling out the grass, but having done this many times before I wasn't too enthusastic about wasting time with this project when I had onions to plant. So I ended up improvising and came up with something neat. Instead of removing all the grass, I cut the grass out around the edges of each bed; that created a lower surface. I then took the grass pieces, flipped them dirt-side-up and used them to build up the center of each bed so that the tree planted in the middle would be raised. Then I planted four clumps of daylilies in each bed around the raised center, laid newspaper over the remaining grass and covered the newspaper with hardwood mulch. (FYI, this newspaper technique is great for removing unwanted grass in garden beds. I highly recommend it.)

Finally, I filled the new holes in the raised center of each bed with compost in preparation for the hazelnut planting. Incidentally, the two hazelnut trees I had ordered from Gurneys a while back seem to be dead. In fact, I don't believe they were alive at all -- I thought they were dormant and would start sprouting leaves once planted, but they don't seem active at all. So I e-mailed Gurneys and asked for replacements and was promptly sent an order confirmation for two new trees, as well as a new fig to replace the first fig I bought that dropped all its leaves just after I planted it. I'm impressed with their customer service.

I still need to finish the daylily removal project, but I'm now about 7/10 done and ended up planting the completed portion with transplanted chives from the backyard and a great many red and yellow onion sets, shallots and garlic. I may also plant some basil, cilantro, sunflower and merigolds in this bed. I'm thinking about starting these things indoors and transplanting them in a couple weeks. We'll see.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I planted a second cell in my "salad table" with seeds, now that the first round of mesclun lettuce is growing nicely. This time I planted "Grand Rapids Tipburn Resistant" lettuce seeds.

I still have a lot more to do (i.e. planting four raised beds with vegetable seeds and plants and spreading nearly 8 cubic yards of mulch!) but I've made a lot of progress, so for now, anyway, I'm content!

One last note: looks like Luna #4 did indeed mate with one of the male moths -- the eggs I collected in a separate take-out container marked #4 hatched today! Now I've got several dozen growing caterpillars. I'll probably raise as many as I can, maybe let some go on a nearby white birch tree, save some to rear indoors, and give some away. Any takers?

A Farmer's Vacation

2009-05-12T11:39:00.000-05:00

Saturday night we returned from a very unsustainable but nonetheless enjoyable vacation in Orlando, Florida. My database administrator husband was going to a conference at Orlando Conference Center, so the kids and I decided to go along for the ride. Perhaps in another sustainer's confessional post I'll share all of the sustainability sins I committed on this trip, which included allowing my kids to sample and throw away mounds of food at the complimentary breakfast bar, using far too many disposables, splurging on the hotel room A/C and watching a lot of cable on the huge TV in our room. Oh, and spending gobs of money at Disney World. The experience definitely made me wonder what travel will look like in a sustainable world. I seriously doubt the Oil Driven Tourism of the modern era will be possible as oil becomes more and more limited. That's a bit sad for those of us who grew up enjoying this kind of travel, but on the other hand, the possibilities of a less plastic travel experience are exciting.

I did have fun collecting seeds from various tropicals in the hopes that I could experiment with growing some of them indoors, starting with the dried black seeds of a potted schefflera in front of my hotel. If I knew more about grafting, I would have perhaps attempted to clip some tropicals here and there to grow my own trees back home. I got the idea from a friend who said his wife's Swedish grandparents clip branches off of trees when they travel and then graft them onto their own trees when they return home. They are growing oranges from California in Sweden as a result of their secret snipping. I'm so jealous.

I admit I was very uncomfortable leaving my plants unattended for over a week. Before I left I watered my vegetable sprouts heavily, mostly by filling up the flat bottoms with excess water and then closing the usually-open greenhouse door (although I didn't zip it for fear that the plants would overheat). My plants have really been babied -- they're used to being misted, turned to toward light and otherwise pampered every few hours, so I was worried they'd be dried up by the time I had returned. On the other hand I was hoping that the lack of pampering would be good for starting the hardening off process.

Now that I'm back in Wisconsin my life is as exciting and hectic as ever. Here's a short list of some of the things that have happened in the last week and a half:

My luna moth eggs from Moth #3 hatched a few days ago! They are tiny little guys but they are doubling in size just about every day. I've been feeding them white birch leaves harvested from my in-laws' tree. I've tried to feed them some other types of tree leaves, but they seem to go for the white birch only. They are still living in a plastic take-out container until they are big enough to put in an aquarium. Will post pictures soon. I find it interesting that there are two kinds of caterpillars -- some are more black than green and some more green than black. I have no idea why.

Despite the fear that my houseplants would wither in my absence, they seemed to do well without being misted or watered for almost 8 days. I am officially hardening off my vegetable seedlings from the east-facing greenhouse in my kitchen in a shadier spot in my backyard. It's exciting, but a little sad -- my house is nearly empty of plants as I get ready to move them outdoors, and I miss them being in my kitchen! I am keeping a few things indoors, i.e. the flats of spinach I have growing on my kitchen counters.

I've got several projects going at once in my yard -- one of them involved taking two of the cherry tomato seedlings planted in February (they're tall -- maybe 18 inches to two feet!) and planting them in hanging baskets upside down. I'll have to explain that idea at a later date, but let's just say I invented my own version of the "topsy turvy tomato planter" and I'm optimistic that it's going to work out well. I might even try my technique with other plants, maybe strawberries or spinach.

Yesterday while weeding one of my square foot gardens I found a single morel mushroom growing amid the weeds. Steve took several pictures (I hope to post them soon) and then we put a large mason jar over the mushroom to let it grow a bit more before we decide whether we're going to saute it in butter and enjoy or figure out if it's worth learning the complicated process of propagating this delicacy.

I got some fun mother's day goodies, including three books on composting (The Complete Compost Gardening Guide, Worms Eat My Garbage and Let It Rot! The Gardener's Guide to Composting), a really nifty, super cheap hand-crank paper shredder I hope to use to shred newspaper for composting and a wooden mortar and pestle for making hummus and other similar foods by hand. I may write reviews of these things once my gardens are planted, the mulch is spread, and I have more time on my hands.

Now I have tons of catching up to do. My hardwood mulch from Mavroff the Mulch Man in Waukesha was delivered on Monday. 8 cubic yards! That is one big mulch mountain on my driveway. Between that and my unfinished daylily removal project, unplanted gardens and the rain moving in tonight, I really need to get my act together. Back to the gardens!

Experimenting with Green Carpet Cleaning and Dish Washing

2009-05-04T08:04:00.009-05:00

A couple weeks ago I was on a house cleaning spree and decided that the time had come to wash our filthy cream-colored carpets. We rent a Rug Doctor steam cleaner from the grocery store once or twice a year to get all the dirt and grime out of our carpets.

In the past, we always unquestioningly purchased several bottles of Rug Doctor carpet cleaning solution to use with the steam cleaner. But this time around, I got to wondering if there are alternatives to using this expensive, unnatural cleaning solution. Of course, I went straight to Google and started looking. I found several websites that recommended the use of a combination of liquid Castile Soap (i.e. Dr. Bronner's), vinegar and boiling water, among other things.

So after work on Monday night, I swung by Pic 'n' Save and rented the carpet cleaner, this time without buying the accompanying cleaning chemicals. My husband raised an eyebrow, but I convinced him to give my homemade solution a try. I took a plastic pitcher and filled it with a 50/50 mix of water and white vinegar, then added a few squirts of the almond-hemp Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap I had bought a year ago and hardly used. The soap coagulated a little when it came in contact with the vinegar and cold water, but when we poured boiling water from our tea kettle over it and mixed it vigorously with a wooden spoon, it combined again. We used that solution, along with very hot water, in the steam cleaner.

The results? Beautifully clean carpets! My husband's skepticism faded when he tried cleaning a swatch with some leftover Rug Doctor solution and found that it was no cleaner than the carpet cleaned with my homemade solution. I also noticed, after the carpet dried, that it was extra soft. All in all, I'd say the experiment was a success.

I was so excited about this experience that I did more googling and discovered that a similar solution of vinegar, water and castile soap can be used in one's dishwasher. This was great news because I have been disappointed with the results of the eco-friendly dishwashing detergent I've used, which, with our puttery old dishwasher, leaves a grainy white residue on all of our dishes (especially inside our cups and mugs -- yuck!). So today I filled a repurposed 1-litre soda bottle with a mixture of vinegar, water, 3 Tb of peppermint castile soap (the more economical version sold by Trader Joe's) and 2 Tb of lemon juice. I poured it in the detergent dispenser and started a normal load.

As soon as the load finished I opened it up to air dry and was mortified to find a streaky, cream colored mess on most of the dishes. I actually washed the same load again, this time without any soap, and the residue remained! I guess this is the reality of experimentation. You win some, you lose some. Thankfully, when you do lose, you learn. So it's not a total loss.

I pondered this dish washing disaster for a few days. So I splurged and bought a bottle of Seventh Generation's liquid dishwasher soap, which did a nice job cleaning the dishes. However, it's expensive, and again, not very efficient when used with my dishwasher.

I've read mixed things about whether it's more eco-friendly to hand-wash or use a (high efficiency) dishwasher, so for the last year I've flip-flopped back and forth between the two options (well, sort of -- I don't have a high efficiency dishwasher).

Truthfully, with the way I wash dishes it's probably more efficient for me to hand wash them rather than use the dishwasher. I don't like dried food residue on my "clean" dishes, so before I put them in the dishwasher, I rinse them so thoroughly that they're practically clean before I load them in the machine. This is almost as time-consuming as hand-washing; however, when I hand-wash, the "clean" side of my sink is small enough that I have to wash, towel dry and put away and then wash, towel dry and put away more just to do one meal's worth of dishes. This is very slow-going with one person, and I can't always ask another person to tag team with me when I wash dishes.

This made me realize that I basically use the dishwasher as a drying rack -- I rinse, load, run, and then air dry, keeping the dishwasher open and letting the dishes sit until they are mostly dry. So I had an idea: why not hand-wash the dishes and the put them on the dishwasher racks to dry? Leave the dishwasher open until the dishes are dry, and then put them away? Then, when I hand-wash, I don't have to keep stopping when the clean side of the sink is full to towel dry and put away to make room for more dishes.

I tried this technique and it worked great! Now my dishes are clean, I'm not using electricity to run the dishwasher, I'm saving time on hand-washing, and not feeling guilty about having a dishwasher that I don't use. I'm not sure if this is a permanent solution, but for now it's working well for us.

The Fruit of My Labor -- Well, Almost

2009-04-30T17:52:00.009-05:00

This evening, after doing some routine compost maintenance, I decided to take one of my big cherry tomatoes planted in February and transplant it into a large 2 gallon planter. I filled the planter with potting soil, seed starter, not-quite-finished vermicompost and a handful of crushed, dried egg shells. Then I planted the seedling and mulched with the remaining sphagnum peat moss I have. I watered it with compost tea and put it beside the mini greenhouse in the kitchen.

It's a beauty! I'm very proud that I was able to take some of last summer's cherry tomatoes, collect and ferment and dry the seeds, save them in an envelop all winter, plant them in February and nurture them to the point that I now have a fresh new plant growing in my kitchen. The beauty of this is that until last year I had never successfully grown any vegetables other than one or two dried up jalapenos that yielded a few inedible peppers. It just goes to show that with a little determination, even amateurs like myself can garden successfully.

Luna Moths and White Birch Seeds

2009-04-29T13:00:00.007-05:00

Sadly, my last living Luna moth is near death. All the others are gone, having petered out indoors or flown away. We released the beautiful #5 two days ago -- he happily flew off, never to be seen again. Now I'm left with three dead moths, one clinging to life, and two trays full of tiny eggs.

I'm not sure if all the eggs are fertile. I never saw #4 mate, so I separted the eggs of #3 and #4 as best I could, simply to find out if #4 did the deed in the middle of the night, or if she simply dumped her unfertilized eggs. Either way, she is now desperately laying the last of her eggs with whatever remaining energy she has. I've been dreaming about Luna moths for about two years, so at this point I kind of feel a little girl with nothing to do on the rainy Sunday after her birthday. Blah.

It's not really over, though: the big question now is whether the eggs will hatch, and, if they do, whether we'll be able to find leaves for them to eat this early in the spring. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have White Birch, Sweet Gum and/or Black Walnut tree leaves before we have Luna moth caterpillars. I have a Black Walnut and my neighbor has a White Birch, but I have no idea what a Sweet Gum looks like. Guess I'll have to spend some time at Google Image Search to do an ID.

In the meantime, I manged to clip some seeds from my neighbor's White Birch. I read online that white birch seeds can be germinated under light; while the process described in the aforelinked .pdf is elaborate and complicated, I'm hoping that my oversimplified method of letting the seeds dry out under plant lights and then sowing indoors will work. This experiment, if successful, will involve an attempt to grow white birch in containers, outdoors in the summer and indoors in the winter. I would prune to control height and possibly use the leaves as a food source for future generations of Luna moths, mostly to supplement outdoor tree leaf harvesting.

Plant Recovery

2009-04-26T22:29:00.004-05:00

Despite the unhappy events of Friday afternoon, my tomato, cabbage, watermelon, cilantro, jalapeno and chamomile sprouts are recovering in the indoor greenhouse. They survived the crash!

Baby Strawberries

2009-04-26T15:23:00.004-05:00

I just transplanted my four adorable strawberry sprouts (from seeds I'd purchased on a whim from Target's "One Spot") into 4" pots. For now I'm going to keep them under my kitchen grow lights to see how well they do there. I may end up planting two outdoors and keeping two inside.

Here's a photo, provided by my own personal photographer, Steve. The strawberry in the picture is actually about 1 cm. tall!

New Spinach

2009-04-26T14:35:00.004-05:00

Today my new flat of Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach under the kitchen grow lights sprouted! I also decided to start over with the original flat of Melody Hybrid. I "harvested" the leaves last week thinking that pinching them all back hard would encourage growth, but I think these plants are spent -- there's been no new growth in days and the remaining stumpy, leafless stems look pale and weak.

I did make use of the leaves -- I enjoyed a couple of sandwiches with fresh spinach and made a pita pizza with spinach and feta. This time around I'm going to see what I can do to make sure the new flat of spinach yields more. I'm adding a second flat with drainage holes to the original flat without holes and mulch with the very fine sphagnum peat moss, instead of the less-fine variety I had been using a few months back. I'm also going to water more regularly with compost tea. Still going to use Melody Hybrid in this particular flat. It'll be interesting to compare the growth of two indoor spinach flats, each with a different variety of spinach.

Mango Sprout

2009-04-26T08:04:00.005-05:00

Last night I checked on my mango seed and found a thick, pale green sprout coming out of the seed's side. I planted the mango core on March 13 and did see one sprout a few weeks ago, which prompted me to take the seed out of the plastic bag in which I was hoping it would germinate and half-bury it in a planter filled with potting soil and dusted with a sphagnum peat mulch. Doing that seemed to cause the sprout to disappear rather than grow, so I thought I had killed it. The other day I examined the seed and it looked to be withering, like being buried in moist soil and peat moss for over a month had finally caused it to start rotting (There's no odor, mind you -- just a shrunken sort of look about the seed).

I was quite surprised when I found a sprout, although perhaps this semi-rotten state is precisely what is necessary to encourage germination. Either way, I'm just glad there's growth and I'm excited to see what happens next.

Here's a photo of the little sprout, taken by Steve with his Nikon D50:

Correction

2009-04-25T22:31:00.006-05:00

I apologize for misleading anyone who read the previous post about Mad City Chickens: the aforementioned video at Wisconsin Public Television is not the full-length film, but rather an interview with the filmmakers. I can't find the film online (even searched at Netflix and found nothing), but I did happen upon this fun deleted scene as well as a film trailer, both at youtube.com. The 'Mad City Chickens' DVD can be purchased from Tarazod Films for $21.95.

Mad City Chickens

2009-04-25T12:21:00.009-05:00

I was crushed to have missed the screening of Tarazod Films "Mad City Chickens" at Lakefront Brewery the other night because I had a meeting to attend on behalf of the Tosa Farmers Market. Today, however, I happily stumbled upon a version of the film that can be viewed online at Wisconsin Public Television's Director's Cut.

I've been interested in backyard chicken rearing for over a year now and have been eagerly following the progress of groups like Shorewood Chickens, figuring that if folks in a suburb like Shorewood can compell their city to change an ordinance banning chickens, perhaps Wauwatosa can do the same. Strapped as I am for spare time, however, I don't really have the ability to organize a movement of our own in Tosa -- yet. So I'm watching and waiting to see what happens in places like Shorewood and Milwaukee proper.

In the meantime, a friend of mine and I thought it might helpful to start a "fan page" at Facebook called "Tosa Chickens" to gauge interest in this concept. If you support backyard chickens and live in Tosa, please become a "fan" of Tosa Chickens on Facebook.

Plant Crash

2009-04-24T16:23:00.012-05:00

Today I experienced a heart-wrenching plant tragedy at the Blue Bungalow. Remember how I decided to experiment with hardening off my seedlings earlier today? Well, let's just say this experiment was very, very educational -- in a bad way. I learned to never put a cheap, flimsy mini-greenhouse anywhere near where children play -- or ride their bikes.

I was working on my daylily removal project (a laborious process in the hot sun because the lilies are really clinging to the clay-rich soil) when I heard a yelp and crash. I found my 7-year-old's bike covered with plant flats, peat pots and dirt. The greenhouse frame was disjointed and leaning. My seedlings were scattered. Several were destroyed.

I pouted. I teared up. I swore a little, almost threw up my hands and went inside to sulk. I've spent months nurturing these seedlings, misting them once or twice every day, turning them for better access to sunlight each morning. I've carefully transplanted them when necessary. They are my little plant babies. I was very proud of them -- how lush and green they looked, and how I had helped them to get there.

I once heard Oprah say that when something bad happens to you, you get about 30 minutes to feel sorry for myself and then you get to work. I wanted to sit and feel sorry for myself, but I knew I had my own work to do. So I picked up what I could off the ground, put everything in the fallen flats and brought them into my kitchen, where I spent at least an hour repotting, clipping off broken leaves, watering and nurturing. This was a painful and depressing project, but I did console myself with the thought that this tragedy forced me to repot little cherry tomatoes I transplanted into play-doh containers a while back. They are pretty tall now and looked cramped in the tiny plastic cups.

When finished, I put the remaining plants into the flats and returned them to the east-facing greenhouse in my kitchen. No more hardening off for now. Then I used my remaining energy to sweep up the dirty mess in my kitchen.

All in all I think I lost about 1/10 of my plants. Assuming the seedlings I saved survive the double trauma of their first hot day outdoors AND being attacked by a bike, I should still have enough for my gardens with leftovers to share. So I guess it could have been worse.

Now I need to go hug my daughter -- she felt terrible about what she did, and although I was mad at the situation I know that accidents happen. Poor girl!

The Fifth Luna

2009-04-24T13:56:00.005-05:00

Today our fifth and final Luna moth eclosed from his cocoon. Yes, it's a male, which is great news because our other living male (#2) snuck out of the terrarium in the middle of the night and is probably resting up high somewhere inside my house. I expect him to start flying around this evening, as did #1 when he left home a few days ago. Our new guy looks just like the others, with one notable difference -- his burgudy markings are darker, and his legs are *very* hairy, almost resembling wolf spider legs. I admit that I was a little spooked when this one crawled on me, because of those dark, thick-looking legs (I'm a bit of an arachnophobe). #5 is now building up his strength on the side of the terrarium. Perhaps we'll have a love match with #4 this evening.

#3 seems to be done laying her eggs. She looks weak -- for a moment I thought she was dead, but then she moved her legs when I touched her. It's clear that her life is drawing to a close, but she may hang on for another day or two.

As #5 was our last cocoon, I will now wait patiently for the eggs to hatch in a week or two. Just hope we have some full leaves on our black walnut and white birch trees so the little ones have something to eat!

Salad Table Sprouts, Hardening Off

2009-04-24T10:58:00.005-05:00

The Mesclun lettuce seeds I planted in one of the cells of my new salad table sprouted!

Also, I plan to experiment with hardening off today. It's warm and breezy and slightly cloudy, so I'm going to move some of the plants in my indoor mini-greenhouse to the outdoor mini-greenhouse on the south-facing side of my house. I'm not sure if I'm going to leave them there from now on or bring them inside at night. I imagine the greenhouse cover will keep them from going into shock from cold nighttime temps and/or extreme weather (as long as the light greenhouse doesn't blow over!). We'll see how the weather goes over the next few days. I'm eager to harden off my seedlings, as I'll be traveling in early May and I'm afraid that they'll dry up while I'm gone if I leave them inside. What to do???

Another project for this beautiful day: finishing removal of the "ditch lilies" on the southern side of my house, grading away from the foundation with a mix of dead leaves, compost, and vemiculite, and then planting my patch of herbs, onions, chives, garlic and shallots on top.

And I still need to order my hardwood mulch for this year!

Moth Egg Update

2009-04-23T20:00:00.001-05:00

Last night the mating Lunas finally separated and Luna #3 began laying eggs all over the terrarium. She spent much of today quietly moving from place to place to lay small clusters of dry brown eggs (each the size of a small seed) on the terrarium screening and frame. I assume that this behavior would, in nature, increase the likelihood that at least some of her offspring survive. If an egg-eating predator were to find all the eggs in one place, a moth's entire chance for its genetic code to continue would be gone in one gulp.

I have been very carefully collecting these eggs in a repurposed plastic chinese food container with a clear lid. I poked some air holes in the lid with a knife and have been holding the plastic bowl under the egg clusters and gently scraping them with my fingernail off the screening and into the container. I haven't counted, but I have at least a few dozen.

Today my mated pair (#s 2 & 3) look fatiqued -- they've fulfilled the purpose of their adult lives and seem ready to keel over. #4 has hardly moved and still looks pretty fresh. I wonder if #2 has enough juice left in him to take on a new mate.

#5 has yet to eclose. I know it contains a living creature -- when I pick up the cocoon I can feel the moth squirming inside. Hopefully it will come out sometime soon.

Earth Day Moth Eggs?

2009-04-22T19:20:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was an exciting day at the Blue Bungalow Microfarm. We gained two female moths, witnessed the slow death of one, watched a mating dance begin.

It all started around noon. We were preparing to have our lunch when my 4-year-old pointed out that one of our three uneclosed moths was emerging from its cocoon. We were able to watch as the whole process occurred, this one much faster than the first two moths. #3 had a smooth entry into the adult world, coming out in just a minute or two.

I knew right away that it was a female because of her antennae -- they were longer and thinner than the bushy antennae of the males. As she pumped her wings with life, I also observed that she had a bulge in her abdomen the males didn't have. And I noticed that the female seemed more mellow -- she came out and crawled slowly up the screening until she reached the top of the terrarium, where she sat about six inches from the male (#2). When #1 came out, he was a little machine, charging around everywhere even when his wings were tiny stubs. #2 had that leg-loss trauma but was still more active than #3.

Later that afternoon I walked into my office and gasped when I saw that another moth had eclosed without us knowing. She was sitting on the terrarium screening pumping her wings. I could not believe I finally had a mix of males (well, one male, really -- #1 was barely alive) and TWO females. That meant mating would proceed promptly, right? When I raised Silkworm Moths last year, they emerged from their cocoons and were mating like fiends before their wings were full.

Not so with the Lunas. The three beautiful adult moths sat at the top of the aquarium for *hours* without moving even slightly.

Finally, around 8:30 p.m., some action: one of the females (#3, I believe) started courting the male -- aggressively. She inched toward him, sticking her hind quarters out in a way that made me wonder if she was emitting a hormone to "call" him. The poor dying moth at the bottom of the cage went crazy but could barely crawl to her, let alone fly. And "sticky legs" (#2, the one with the missing appendage) didn't seem that interested.

That is, until he began responding. For the next two hours or so they flew around each other. Then they would rest for a while. It was disappointing that they didn't latch on to each other right away, but not having gone through this complex mating dance before, I still had hope that they would do the deed at some point.

Sure enough, I woke up this morning and found them peacefully "connected" by their hind quarters, which, to the squeamish, might sound, well, gross, but is actually kind of lovely.

The thing is, they have been in this lovely embrace ALL DAY, and truthfully, I'm getting a little impatient. I have no idea when and if they will become unattached and when and where the female will start laying her eggs. I've heard that females like to crawl into paper bags to lay their eggs, so I have two on the bottom of the terrarium and today I even pinned a third bag up high inside the terrarium so she has options. I don't know if she's going to dump the sticky black-brown eggs all over the screening or be more discreet. I'm worried we'll lose the eggs if we're not careful, as I already found two or three stray eggs attached to the screening and lost them in the process of trying to brush them into a container. The tiny things popped away easily and fell to the floor, where they disappeared completely.

So I wait, and wait, and wait -- to find out if I'll be able to collect fertilized eggs, to see how long #1 will hold on for dear life before he passes into the Other World, and to learn whether #2 will attempt to mate with the other female (#4) soon.

Pomegranate

2009-04-22T14:20:00.011-05:00

On this lovely Earth Day, I was happy to finally receive by mail the dwarf pomegranate tree I'd ordered from Gurneys a while back. The tiny root ball was covered with dirt and wrapped in plastic inside a cardboard box. I planted it in a smallish pot -- the "tree" is only about 8 inches tall at this point. I put it on the plant table in my large south-facing dining room window.

Immediately after planting it dropped several of its leaves. I hope it doesn't go into shock the way my dwarf fig from Gurneys did; my fig is now a tiny stem with a green tip and hasn't grown a single leaf since I planted it over a month ago. It's still alive, though, so I'm hoping it'll recover from transplant shock and eventually pop some new leaves. That's what happened with the dwarf orange tree I bought from Gurneys last summer; it was small and dormant for months until, in the dead of winter, it suddenly started growing a new head of leaves. Now it's looking great.

I decided at the last minute to prune a small amount of top growth off the baby pomegranate, hoping that this might stimulate new leaf growth. This was an experimental gesture which may end up blowing in my face if it causes the pom to go further into transplant shock. Still, I thought it might help. We shall see.

You may be wondering what I plan to do with these potted indoor fruit trees. I will move them to sunny outdoor locations after the frost, let them stay outside all summer so that they can get sun, rain, insect exposure (for pollination), and fresh air. Then I'll move them back in before the fall frost. Hopefully in a few years they'll start bearing fruit.

Plants for Air Quality (and More Spinach)

2009-04-21T21:52:00.004-05:00

Right now we're working on a minor "basement improvement project" that has, over the last several months, involved turning our 90-year-old dungeon of a basement into useable space. This winter we started our project by reducing clutter, knocking down some dilapidated interior walls and framing, and vaccumming the dust, cobwebs and chipped paint with the Tosa Health Department's Hepa Vac. Then we painted the concrete block walls with white drylock. Applying drylock took us months of on and off work -- drylock is heavy stuff, which made painting the concrete (difficult even with the lightest of paints) slow going. Anyway, when we finally finished the drylock, we painted the walls with a bungalow color scheme, cleaned and patched the concrete floor and added a few area rugs. We're not quite done, but the space is shaping up to be a decent place for band practice, play, and arts and crafts.

To improve the air quality in our basement and to make the space more inviting, I thought it would be nice to grow some plants in the light from the basement windows on the south side of the property. I bought some coffee plants (not sure if they'll like the cold down there, but it's worth a shot) and a dwarf bananna plant, as well as an English Ivy and a Fern. I'm thinking that the latter two might be the best options for this space, as the air is moist and cool -- kinda like their native environs in the northern regions.

As part of this project, I am going to experiment with propagating Dracaena for the basement. I was googling the other day and found this neat forum on propagating Dracaena. I have a big old spindly Dracaena plant just waiting to be pruned (it's a Dracaena marginata, I think). My basement air quality project offers the perfect excuse for experimenting with the techniques described on this forum.

So this afternoon, I pruned several of the lengthiest canes back, removed the leafy tops, and then cut the canes down to short pieces (approx. 3 to 5 inches long). I half-buried 15 of these pieces lengthwise in a flat filled with top soil and seed starter and then sprinkled them with sphagnun peat moss. I watered the canes and put the flat on the bottom shelf of my east-facing greenhouse.

On a different note, at the end of today's indoor gardening session I also started a new flat of Burpee's savoy leaf "Bloomsdale Long-Standing Spinach" seeds to grow atop one of two new mini plant tables my father-in-law built to use with my under-cabinet grow lights in the kitchen. My other indoor flat of Hybrid Melody spinach was slow growing until I removed some of the leaves a week or two ago, which seemed to stimulate growth. I'm hoping I can stay on top of this new flat, pinch it back sooner, and fertlize more regularly with compost tea.

Here's a pic of one of my counter-top mini plant tables:

Rediscovering Luna #1

2009-04-20T20:45:00.004-05:00

He's not dead, and the dog did NOT have a mothy midnight snack early this morning. Luna #1 alive and well! The girls were watching TV a bit ago when they started shouting, "We found the other luna moth!" as the moth flew around in our living room. Thankfully, the girls had received butterfly nets for their birthdays last week, so we grabbed them and managed to catch the moth and return him to the terrarium.

This is when we discovered how he made his escape: as soon as we replaced him inside his "home," he flew straight to the bottom of the terrarium and wriggled his way out of the bottom edges of the screening secured only with one tie on each side of the square bottom. We caught him again and put him back. This time Steve and I tucked the loose edges of the screening under the wooden frame, hoping this would prevent the moth from escaping a third time. Amazingly, he did make an attempt, beating his now-frayed wings frantically around the bottom perimeter of the terrarium looking for an exit route. How does he remember where to go? His brain must be the size of a grain of rice, as I learned from this article.

I wondered if Luna #1 would take notice of Luna #2 when they were together in the terrarium, but they seem completely unaware of each other. The new male moth is quite calm. He flew for the first time about 30 minutes ago only to rest on in a new corner of the cage. The older moth is frantic, flapping his wings noisily about. He probably knows his days are numbered (adults only live for a week or so). I'm sure he's desperate to find a mate. I'd release him outdoors, but it's too cold up here in Southeast Wisconsin, and he'll never find a mate around here this time of year. Our Lunas eclose only once a year, in mid-June. He's better off in the terrarium waiting for his future mates to eclose. Hope we get a female or two soon!

Removing the Five-Gallon Vermicompost Bin

2009-04-20T11:13:00.007-05:00

After much deliberation, I have decided to eliminate one of my two kitchen vermicompost bins.

I came to this conclusion based on the following lines of reason:

I don't think a five-gallon plastic bucket, even with holes poked in the sides and drainage rocks at the bottom, is the best place in which to grow vermicompost, given the tightness of the space and lack of airflow;

I am beginning to think that, while I'm still a novice, I can easily get away with the rubbermaid bin and the outdoor bin. Do I really need *three* compost bins for a 1/4 acre "farm"?

I don't believe this bucket can stop smelling like orange diarrhea fast enough.

So I took about half of the contents of the five-gallon bucket and as many worms as I could save and put them in the rubbermaid bin, aerated it a bit, sprinkled sphagnum peat moss on top and replaced the lid. I'll take the remaining conents in the five-gallon bucket and dump them in my outdoor compost bin as soon as it stops raining.

Another thought: we drink so much coffee here at the Blue Bungalow that I am going to have to be much more careful about managing the nitrogen-carbon balance in all of my bins (especially the indoor bin). And I am never, ever again going to add a bag of moldy oranges to a small plastic compost bin inside my house.

Luna #2

2009-04-20T09:59:00.006-05:00

Still haven't located Luna #1 (my daughter suggested this morning that our golden retriever might have eaten him in the middle of the night -- ugh). In the meantime, we have a new moth! This one started breaking through its leaf-wrapped cocoon at 9:48 this morning; it rested for a few minutes and then was almost totally out by 10:20 a.m.

I thought we were in the clear at that point until I realized that it hadn't fully emerged. It seemed to be struggling to be free of the cocoon, so I picked it up and noticed that one of its forelegs was stuck to the cocoon. I tried to very gently pry it loose, but was afraid I'd end up injuring the moth. So I ended up breaking apart the cocoon from the opposite end of the hole from which the moth eclosed, hoping to free the leg that way. I was able to get the moth loose, but at the expense of that leg, which remained with the cocoon. Poor thing! I hope it survives this ordeal. It is now resting inside the terrarium.

I have been wondering over the last few days whether the males or females are the first to emerge; just came across the answer to this question at the University of Florida Extension site: "Adult eclosion (emergence from pupa) typically occurs in the morning with males usually beginning emergence several days before females. Morning emergence allows time for expansion and drying of the wings prior to the evening flight period. Also, during the first day after emergence, the moth voids the reddish-colored, liquid meconium which is composed of the breakdown waste products of the old larval tissues." (Incidentally, as I was trying to help free Luna #2 I got a squirt of tan meconium right on my hand. Ack.)

I assume that this is another male, given the early eclosure and bushy antennae. I hope the leg-loss wasn't too great of a setback. Despite this small tragedy, its wings seem to be lengthening nicely. So far, so good.

Moth Mystery

2009-04-20T07:10:00.004-05:00

I woke up this morning and found that my one eclosed Luna moth is missing! I thought it had died, or that perhaps it had crawled to some dark corner inside the terrarium to hide. So I looked all over the inside of the netting and couldn't find a trace of it. Now I'm worried that it's flying around my house. Eek! I'll keep looking.

The Compost Chronicles: Worm Bin Crisis

2009-04-19T16:02:00.018-05:00

I have two vermicomposters in my house: one is a large converted rubbermade bin in the back-door vestibule and one is a 5-gallon bucket with a lid converted, rather hastily, into a vermicomposter; I keep the latter in the cabinet next to my garbage can. I also use a 5 quart ice cream bucket as a "transitional bin" to keep my compost materials (coffee grounds, vegetable scraps); I put kitchen scraps in the ice cream bucket and then once a week I dump that bucket into one of the vemicomposters or, if both containers contain too much material, into my backyard compost bin.

I admit that, given the small size of the 5-gallon vermicomposter and the ease with which it becomes too full, I've let it sit (read: neglected it) for the last couple of weeks, thinking it would be good to let the contents decompose in peace before touching it again. The last time I filled it with waste, I'd added an old bag of moldy oranges; since this was a pretty big load for the small bin, I covered the oranges with shredded newspaper and left it alone.

Oops. Today I opened it up to retrieve some compost (I'm making compost tea with cheese cloth, twine, compost and a sun-tea pitcher, but I'll have to save that for another post) and it was nasty -- juicy, jet black, and putrid smelling. Think dirty diaper after baby has consumed mass quantities of blueberries. Although the worms are still slithering around happily, I'm upset about this, as I just read in the book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living that this kind of smelly scene is an indication that the compost is too wet and nitrogen-rich, which can cause the compost to become anaerobic, creating alcohol. This is good if you're a home brewer, but bad if you're trying to grow healthy compost.

In my uneducated attempt to remedy this situation, I took a long spoon and stirred up the stuff to aerate the bin's contents, then added shredded newspaper (I manually "shredded" a whole issue of the Shepherd Express with scissors to accomplish this). I also added the contents of a planter with a seeds that didn't sprout, some ripped-up paper egg cartons (to absorb some of the liquid) and a few handfuls of seed starter mix and sphagnum peat moss. I wanted to add dead leaves from my yard, but it's raining, and the last thing I want to do is add more liquid to this compost sludge. When I replaced it in the cabinet, I left the lid loose, to keep the air flowing.

So then I went to my rubbermaid vermicomposter to see if I could obtain a big spoonful of finished compost to make compost tea. This bin was disturbingly close to becoming anaerobic, as it was a little too moist and the compost was a little too black. I did manage to dig deep and find some semi-finished compost, but the bin needed some aerating, so I stirred it up and, when finished, sprinkled a generous amount of sphagnun peat moss (with a little seed start mix thrown in) to the top to cover up the smelly unfinished compost.

The silver lining in this dark compost cloud is that I've learned two valuable composting lessons. I need to aerate my vermicomposters more often and I need to avoid overloading them with nitrogen-rich materials. Instead of just letting them sit with an inch of shredded newspaper atop for days or even weeks at a time, I will probably have to check the bins daily, stir them up, and maybe add some more carbon-rich matter (the dry, brown stuff). Live and learn!

Paschal Plants

2009-04-19T15:24:00.005-05:00

Mesclun lettuce seeds in front porch pots (planted April 9) sprouted today, on Eastern Orthodox Easter (Christos Anesti!)

We're working on our ongoing basement improvement project tonight, and I'm thinking of trying to propagate some of my tropical plants so I have something to grow near the basement windows, if for nothing more than to improve the air quality down there.

Looks like I'm giving up on my Calfornia Wonder Peppers, Poblano Chili Peppers and most of the Greek Pepperoncini. It's been weeks now and I've only seen two pepperoncini sprouts, which I just transplanted into larger pots and placed in the east-facing greenhouse. Oh well.

Still only have one adult Luna moth, although two of the remaining four cocoons have been wiggling on and off for the last couple days. I was hoping to have some Paschal moths, but no such luck. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Luna #1

2009-04-16T21:56:00.003-05:00

One of my five Luna moths eclosed today!

This morning, while working in my office, I heard a light flicking sound inside the butterfly terrarium a few feet away. It was fairly repetitious, so I figured something was happening with one of the luna moths. Sure enough, one of the cocoons was active; it wasn't long before a tuft of creamy, furry "scales" started poking out just a little bit from a hole in one end of the cocoon.

After a couple minutes wrestling around inside the cocoon, the moth stopped moving. The girls and I picked it up to take a closer look. I tried to take some photos with my husband's complicated SLR camera but couldn't figure it out (even in auto mode I was only able to take one blurry pic, nothing worth sharing). I put the cocoon down and a minute or two later it became active again. At that point, it only took a couple of minutes for the moth to push itself out of the cocoon. The body was furry and white and limp, but soon it stretched to become a full-size abdomen. The bushy antennae (which indicate, I think, that it's a male) perked up right away. The little guy was very busy from the get go, crawling all over the place. It couldn't fly, of course -- its wings were too tiny and shriveled to be of any use at that point. So I put him in the terrarium and he climbed the screening all the way to the top of the cage, where he rested on the wooden frame for a couple hours, pumping up his wings.

The girls and I left the house for an excursion to the park, and when we came home the Luna had a beautiful 3 1/2 inch wingspan. The wings are crisp and bright, a pale green color lined with burgundy and with two eyes on the wings. The eyes and tail-like hind wings kind of resemble the face of an elephant. The moth is very calm, sitting perfectly still inside the terrarium (undoubtly waiting to mate with one of other moths). It's really quite a sight -- beautiful, serene. When it flies, its shivering wings make it look like a tiny angel.

Here's another pic of the moth inside the butterfly terrarium my in-laws created for me:

There is one more pic (and plenty of other photos that have nothing to do with moths) at my husband Steve's flickr site. Enjoy!

Hazelnut Trees

2009-04-16T12:04:00.002-05:00

The two American Hazelnut trees I purchased from Gurneys arrived in a large cardboard package in bareroot form last night -- found the box on my porch this morning. I soaked their roots for about an hour in distilled water and then planted them in the backyard. Hope my wood-loving golden retriever doesn't dig them up and eat them!

Butterfly Terrarium and Salad Table

2009-04-13T10:34:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of picking up two products developed by my talented mother and father-in-law: a 6' tall, screened "butterfly terrarium" to house my Luna moths, still resting in their cocoons, and a "salad table." My mother-in-law fashioned the screening for the terrarium, and my father-in-law did woodwork for both projects.

The terrarium is in my office, near a north-facing window. I hope to grow some kind of plant inside and raise future generations of luna moths within the screening.

I placed the salad "table" (which actually looks more like a drawer with screening on the bottom) onto the rusty metal frame of an antique soapstone utility sink we removed from our basement last summer. It's sitting on a largely unused patch of concrete next to my house. I lined the bottom of the three cells of the table with dead leaves, then topped with potting soil and seed starter. Mixed in some coffee grounds and worm castings, then planted one of the cells with lettuce mesclun seeds. Will plant the other two cells later -- want to stagger the harvest. Mulched, as per usual, with peat moss.

Here's a link to a page with photos of my father-in-law Stan's other wood projects. My home is filled with mission-style furniture he crafted in his home wood shop.

Various Transplants

2009-04-10T10:33:00.003-05:00

Transplanted Coriander, Jalapenos, Cabbage, Chamomile and two bush beans from my third grader's class project (sprouted in water) into larger pots (some peat, some plastic) filled with potting soil and mulched with sphagnum peat. Placed in east-facing green house.

Mesclun Lettuce

2009-04-09T10:29:00.002-05:00

Removed wilting black seeded simpson planted in Feb. from outdoor planters (just couldn't make it work) and planted Botanical Interests' "lettuce mesclun" (Lactuca sativa) and black seeded simpson seeds into two large, glazed ceramic planters on front porch. Mulched lightly with sphagnum peat moss. Also added some coffee grounds to the soil of both planters.

Various Transplants

2009-04-07T10:26:00.002-05:00

Small sprout coming out of mango seed; transplanted into large pot (using drainage rocks, then potting soil, then sphagnum peat moss as mulch). Watered with compost tea.

Transplanted five watermelon sprouts from egg carton cells into 4" pots and placed in east-facing greenhouse. The remaining six seeds appear to be duds.

Transplanted 16 beefsteak tomato seedlings into 3" peat pots, placed in east-facing greenhouse.

Transplanted nine spinach sprouts (Melody hybrid, planted Mar. 28) into various small pots, placed in east-facing greenhouse, but put two in repurposed edamame soybean containers on southern window sills.

Strawberry Seeds

2009-03-30T10:24:00.002-05:00

Planted Alpine Strawberry seeds (Fragaria Vescans) purchased from Target One Spot (Buzzy Seed Co.) in a shallow, glazed ceramic dish half-filled with potting soil and topped with seed starter mix. Placed without mulching in south-facing greenhouse. Will most likely grow indoors.

Tomato Sprouts

2009-03-29T10:22:00.002-05:00

Beefsteak tomato seeds sprouted today in south-facing greenhouse.

Repurposing Project

2009-03-28T10:20:00.002-05:00

Many people think being ecologically responsible means recycling. While recycling is certainly important, even more important is repurposing. Repurposing basically means giving new life to the items in your house that you might have otherwise discarded into the trash or recycling bin.

Repurposing often involves creative, out-of-the-box thinking. For example, we're fixing up our basement right now and have gobs of old fiberglass insulation stuffed between the floor joists that make up the basement "ceiling." We've wanted to remove it for a while now but have agonized over the thought of throwing all that nasty stuff into a dumpster. Then my husband had an idea: why not take that fiberglass and use it to insulate our tiny mowhawk of an attic? The small space above our bungalow's second floor is under-insulated, and for months now we've tried to figure out the best way to insulate our attic so we can retain a bit more heat in the winter. Repurposing our old basement insulation solves two problems at once: the problem of waste disposal and the problem of attic heat loss. Seems like the best kind of win-win situation to me.

Anyway, I noticed a couple weeks ago that I had a growing stack of empty Play-Doh containers. The yellow plastic cups sat on my kitchen counter for a few days waiting to be dealt with; that's when the idea struck me to use the little cups as seedling planters.

Last year was my first summer getting my feet wet with vegetable gardening, and although I didn't get much, I had a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes. I managed to save some of the seeds, and a few weeks ago I planted them with the intention of growing some indoors. My idea is to eventually plant them in hanging baskets in a couple windows and then let them flow over the sides of the baskets.

The seedlings were growing nicely in the biodegradable egg carton in which I'd planted several seeds on Feb. 16. But Saturday, March 28 I noticed their leaves looking a little discolored. So I knew the time had come for a transplant into a larger container.

I started by washing remaining bits of dried Play-Doh from the yellow cups. Then I used an Awl to poke four holes in the bottom of each.

Next, I filled each container with a 50/50 mixture of seed starter and potting soil and added 1/2 tsp. of crushed egg shells to each cup (when I cook with eggs, I wash, dry and crush the shells; I've read it's good to add egg shells the soil of many plants, including tomatoes, as the calcium in the shells can help prevent certain leaf diseases).

I carefully transplanted each of my seedlings from the biodegradable egg carton to the larger Play-Doh containers.

Finally, I covered the soil around each transplanted seedling with finely chopped sphagnum peat moss. I placed the Play-Doh lids at the bottom of each cup to catch water drainage. Then I watered and misted them and put all except for two in one of my mini green houses. The remaining two cups were placed under growlights in the kitchen.

My seedlings seem much happier now that they have more room to stretch their roots! Some of them did lose the yellowing lower leaves, which tells me I should have transplanted these little guys about a week ago.

On a related note, I repurposed a flat biodegradable eggroll tray from Trader Joe's to start about 15 spinach seeds, which I also intend to grow indoors. After rinsing the tray lightly, I layered it with potting soil, then seed starter, then laid the seeds on top of soil. I covered the seeds with a very light dusting of well chopped sphagnum peat moss (mostly the particles at the bottom of the bag). Then I spritzed with my mister and and put the tray in my southern "seed starting" greenhouse.

Incidentally, I have two greenhouses I bought for about $30 each from Harbor Freight on Greenfield Avenue in West Allis. They aren't the sturdiest of structures, but for the price, I'm pretty happy with them. They're great for starting seeds in a warm, moist environment. I put one in front of my eastern-facing sliding glass door and one in my southern dining room window. Haven't decided yet whether I'm going to keep them indoors year round or move them outside just before the last frost date to harden off my seeds.

If you're looking for repurposing projects, try googling the keywords "repurposing ideas" and you'll find all sorts of information. Have fun!

Raising Luna Moths

2009-03-26T10:04:00.001-05:00

The nine Actias luna cocoons I ordered from Bill Oehkle in Canada arrived in my mailbox today, packed in a small cardboard box. They seem to be active within their cocoons! I put them in an old 2.5 gallon aquarium for now. Should emerge in 7 to 14 days. I am hoping to raise my own five cocoons indoors. Four will go off to two friends in the neighborhood. I hope to have them mate, save the eggs, and raise a new brood. If I can, I'll eventually release some into the wild (after the city sprays for Gypsy moths in May/June). I know it's a lofty goal, but I'd love to replenish the silk moth population in Milwaukee County!

In case you've never seen a Luna moth, here's a picture from Bill's site:

Cabbage Sprouts

2009-03-22T10:19:00.002-05:00

Cabbage seeds sprouted!

Chamomile Sprouts

2009-03-22T10:13:00.002-05:00

Chamomile seeds sprouted!

Starting Seeds Indoors!

2009-03-21T09:54:00.002-05:00

Spring is here!!!

Well, kind of.

Still, despite the "sprinter" weather we have in southeast Wisconsin, the time has come to start some of my seeds for this year's outdoor harvest.

Planted:

Sugar baby watermelon

Early golden acre cabbage

German chamomile

Poblano peppers

Pepperoncini

California wonder peppers

Jalapenos

Beefsteak tomatoes (saved seeds from West Allis farmers market purchase)

Coriander

Planted seeds in recycled pulp (paper) egg cartons filled with a mix of seed starter mix and potting soil. Mulched with peat moss. Put in greenhouses (added second): some in south-facing greenhouse and some in east-facing greenhouse.

Spinach and lettuce are growing but looked pale and wilty, probably from overmisting and heat inside green house. Brought them outside for afternoon in full sun (it's approx. 55 – 60degrees outside) for about two hours. The spinach looked much happier afterward. Not so sure about the lettuce.

Mango Seed

2009-03-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

I'm always looking for new things to try growing. So when I noticed a forgotten mango ripening to the point of rotting in my fruit basket, I decided to do a little googling, see if I could find out if one can grow mangos from the seed obtained from grocery store fruits. I certainly don't have the tall ceilings and sunlight to grow a fruiting mango tree (from what I've read, they get pretty tall) but I still thought it would be fun to see what I could come up with.

So I cut open the soft mango, composted the peelings and squishy, overripe fruit and removed the inner core. Then I rinsed the core, using a knife to remove the extra strands of mango that clung to the hard white seed. I nicked the seed with the knife and placed the seed in a plastic bag with moist seed starter and peat moss. Then I put the bag on bottom shelf inside my mini green house, rolling down the sides of the bag for ventilation.

If you'd like a mango tree "recipe," google the keywords "growing mango seed" and you'll find plenty of information on the subject.

Indoor Spinach and Lettuce

2009-03-06T08:00:00.002-06:00

Selected approx. six spinach and six lettuce seedlings and transplanted them to two flats filled with potting soil mixed with dried, crushed egg shells. Added about five red wigglers from my vermicomposter to each flat. There's no drainage in these flats, which could prove to be a problem. Mulched flats with peat moss and placed inside newly assembled One Stop Gardens 4 tier mini green house. The green house is facing east in front of the large sliding glass doors in the kitchen. Hope to grow spinach and lettuce indoors, if possible.

A note about the red wigglers: from what I've read online, there's conflicting info about whether intentionally or unintentionally adding worms from one's vermicomposter to potted plants is beneficial to the plants and to the worms (here's one such discussion). I'm curious about this, so I'm going to do some of my own experimenting.

Cherry Tomato Sprouts

2009-02-28T08:00:00.002-06:00

Thinned cherry tomato seedlings and separted them into individual paper egg carton cells in a fresh mix of potting soil, seed starter and dried, crushed egg shells. Mulched with peat moss and placed in south-facing dining room window on plant table.