Composting in the Garden

When I moved here one of my first creations was a large 3 bin compost set up at the back of the yard. One is current year dumping, the next is current year decomposing, and the third is the one being used in the gardens in the current year. I can easily fill the dumping one several times over during the year, and do. Each year I rotate over by one.

Then one year a friend offered me the lumber from her raised beds because they were going to be living in another state for a few years. I happily said yes and added 3 large 6' x 6' raised beds to my gardens. I can grow a lot in those beds. But there is one problem. I cannot easily reach the center of those beds to weed and harvest. I can't really easily reach them to plant either. So for a year or two, I just heavily mulched the centers and prayed the weeds would be light.

Then another friend brought me three of those black composters. The square ones. I had been looking at keyhole gardens so I decided to try a variation. I put one of those composters in the center of one of the big garden beds. And I put another one in the center of one of my normal garden beds (3' x 7'). And I've fallen in love.

For those garden beds, I no longer have to add compost. All the nutrients that come through when it rains and as things break down go directly into my garden soil. I am no longer feeding all of that to the honeysuckle and privet along the back property line. And so far, the plants have absolutely no problem with this.

Now if I want to, I can remove and rotate the compost bins. But I've decided on another path instead. I'm going to put the plastic composters in the center of my existing 6' x 6' garden beds. When I build the new 6' x 6' garden bed, I'll build a compost spot in the the center use fence posts and chicken wire. That one will go all the way down to the ground.

For each of my 3' x 7' garden beds, I will put in smaller homemade compost spots along the center or back edge. I'm thinking back edge because I don't want to block sunshine but I may just bisect them down the center. Because of the way my gardens face, bisecting the center would only shade either side partially for a short period of daytime.

Either way I go, I no longer have to worry about moving compost to the garden beds. Nature will do that for me as things decompose. Both the weather and the worms that like my garden beds will help disperse the nutrients where I want them. These things are already happening in the beds I experimented with.

When you add in the heavy mulching I do in each bed, I get the best of both worlds. Very little weeding that is easy to do and continually fed nutrients that don't require me continually moving compost or making things like compost tea. And then the worms add their own brand of nutrients as well.

Is there a way for this to lose? And when I move the garden beds, because sometimes I do, when I put them in their new locations I'll add the composter segment going all the way to the ground rather than on top. Same for when I put in completely new garden beds, because there are some plans for some in the works.

Oh, and in case you haven't figured it out, I try really hard to set up things in the garden so that it makes life a little easier for me in the long run. I'm not getting younger and I'd like to be able to garden for as long as I can.

Tea Bag Squeezer Tongs

 I got these so many years ago. I was told that they were for squeezing tea bags before pulling them out. And I occasionally use them for that. But they have proven so useful for so many other things that tea bags are one of the more infrequent uses for them. 

I went to find them for you, and couldn't. That was surprising to me. What I found was completely not useful in the way I've been using them. I finally tracked down two versions. The first one, with all the weird silicon snail things, is what I have. (https://amzn.to/2PzwhxW) This second one is now on my order list, because just this morning I was wishing for a version with longer handles. (https://amzn.to/3a4FesU) The shape of the strainer is actually part of the usefulness.

I use the two I have for quite a few things. Today it was pulling olives and holding them while I cut them. I also used them to pull artichoke hearts for chopping. And pickles from the pickle jar.  I use them for pretty much anything that is in a liquid where I need the solid item out of the liquid and it's too small for a strainer. Or I need to keep the liquid. Or I'm not emptying the jar. 

The reason I want a longer handled set? I have a half gallon jar of refrigerator pickles that I want to be able to reach the bottom of. I also have some quart jars of zucchini/yellow squash cubes in juice that are a dehydrator experiment. The larger ones won't work for things like cutting olives. But they will let me reach the bottom of the large jar of them.

Regardless, these have proven to be pretty useful despite my original doubts as to their usefulness. And if you think of new uses, please let me know.

Disposable Compost Bins

I garden. And I compost. You'd be surprised just how little trash makes it out to the street most weeks, especially when you added canning my own stuff on top of that. And my compost bins are sometimes so full that I worry I won't have enough room for more. But life happens, and compost composts, and quickly enough there's more room.

But one of my continual issues is having a small bin in the house for composting. You know, one of those counter top ones for when the amount is small. Somehow, it never gets emptied before it gets gross. And I don't want to clean that in my sink. And I don't want to toss a container that cost me money.

About a year ago I looked into compostable bags that could be put in the small bins. Bags that would contain all the gross and take it all out to the pile. Except the only bags that were meant for home composting were insanely expensive for something I was going to throw on the compost pile. And there are a lot of complaints, and I do mean a lot, about the bags starting to disintegrate as soon as something wet got put in them. Most of my compost materials are tea bags and veggie/fruit scraps. So yeah, not happening.

So I tossed the problem to the back brain and let it go.  A few months later the back brain tossed back the solution. Wipes containers, coffee containers, juice jugs, vinegar bottles, etc. All of them can easily be used as compost containers, either as is or with a simple hole cut.  All of these items are destined for the garbage or recycling pile anyways. So now they get a second, third, maybe even fourth life before they head there. And if they are super gross when I empty them - they just move on the the garbage or recycling, if a quick garden hose rinse can't resolve it. And sometimes, even if it can.

So far this idea has worked and helped keep me composting things that I might otherwise be tempted to just toss in the garbage for convenience.

Salad Topping or Soup Base or Bouillon

Greens. They are something that is not really part of our diet except as salads. Many people aren't aware of the variety of greens that can be eaten as salad. Or cooked. I can't tell you about cooking greens. I haven't done it, although it is on the list for experimenting. I can tell you that using a variety of lettuces, corn salad, kale, beet greens, spinach, and pretty much any other greens makes for a good salad that I rarely use salad dressing on. And my son never uses salad dressing.

But on the flip side is when we don't get around to eating all of them fresh. And some lettuces go bad faster than others. So I tried an experiment with the dehydrator. Any basic leftover greens are sliced up and dried. It turns out that dried greens provide tasty salad crumbles. That was a surprise but it works.  Even simple boring iceberg lettuce has flavor when it's dried.  But my current mix has lettuce of multiple types, kale, beet greens, and cucumbers.  (And poor iceberg lettuce is not in that mix.)

For cucumbers, I dice them in 1/4" or smaller cubes. For greens of any type I use these herb scissors. (https://amzn.to/2P8oV4A) If you try to dry whole leaf it can take days. When shredded with the scissors, they are typically done in 12 hours or less.  From there, I just add them to the gallon jug I keep the mix in.

This can be done with pretty much any vegetables you have left in your kitchen that need to be used. But I use only greens for this one mix. Lately I've also been adding a handful of the greens mix to roasts, stews, etc. They actually rehydrate surprising well for that purpose. And they add an amazing deep level of flavor. And nutrients. If you are used to the scent of onions making you hungry for a meal, the scent of greens on top of that adds a whole new depth to that craving.

And sometime in the next few months, I'll be experiment with making my own loose bouillon. I think the greens mix will be a part of that as well, except that I'll probably powder them for that mix.