Making our own compost

I want to spend every spare minute I have in the garden right now. The light is beautiful and it's not too hot. Yet.

I always get distracted from what I'm supposed to be doing. This morning was no different. I took my camera down and took a few pictures.

1. Our first snow peas are ready.

2. My little experiment with nasturtiums. We used to grow nasturtiums in England to eat, but right now I want them as a companion plant. Aphids love nasturtiums, so the plan is they'll love my cabbages and broccoli a little less. The thing is I can't get hold of nasturtium seeds through my plant man, so I went for a little walk and took some cuttings. They sat in water in the kitchen for a couple of weeks until I noticed some roots. Luca and I are after plenty of brilliant orange flowers so I stuck them in the poorest soil I could find near the brassica beds (nasturtiums don't like rich soil; you get more flowers if you hold back on the fertiliser and compost). Fingers crossed.

3. I'd actually forgotten I planted cauliflower. I got quite a surprise when I poked through some leaves and found this creamy white head.

4. A bed all ready for this season's crop of tomatoes and basil. It had sunk down a fair bit through the winter, so I followed the same no-dig garden method and topped with alternating layers of carbon (hay, cardboard) and nitrogen (mushroom compost, veggie scraps, lawn clippings).

5. Our first homegrown broccoli. Lovely but not quite the tight heads I was hoping for. Or does that not matter? And does anyone know why it's all going to flower so quickly?

6. Tomato seedlings in.

Then I got stuck into the one thing I've been looking forward to for weeks. Filling a compost bin to make soil. Number one compost bin is already full and takes the odd bucket of scraps from the kitchen but it's time to start another one.

Making compost is more than throwing in kitchen scraps at the bottom of an empty bin with the occasional bit of cardboard and grass (just because they can go in) and hoping for magic one day. We composted this way for years and abracadabra all we got was slime. With broken egg shell.

I've learnt there's a little bit of science. Much like no-dig gardening.  

I'm not exactly sure why I love filling a compost bin. Is it because I like adding a bit of this and a bit of that, put a lid on and leave the rest to nature? Is it because I find it incredibly satisfying to put household waste (newspapers, office paper, vegetable peelings, ahem urine*) to really good use? Is it the thrill of making something else other than food from scratch and saving a bit more money?

Probably all of the above.

The boys shredded paper. I filled buckets with water and a dash of molasses (blackstrap molasses does wonders for the micro-organisms, which help break everything down, and gets all the worms rushing in).

We filled the bin with different layers of carbon and nitrogen including some roadside alpaca poo and store-bought chicken manure, and finished it with a layer of molasses-soaked hay.

It'll sink down in a few days leaving us room to add our scraps.

Then abracadabra we'll have homemade compost. Very soon.

Congratulations to Libby who wins Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion.





* Graeme often 'waters' the garden when he gets in from work. You know, when it's dark and no one can see. He walks through the door and announces he's given the beds a good dose of nitrogen. He'll be doing the same to the compost bins as long as I remind him. Seriously, if you garden, urine is a valuable resource.

Thursday Garden Journal

Lots of questions this week. This is the answer to one of them today. A perfect reminder of why I started this blog. It's a journal. A special journal that frees it all up, gets it all out and lifts me when I'm feeling a bit bleak.

I just look at that dandelion globe and I'm amazed how much it actually does lift me.

(I'm starting to think a bit more about my photos. Graeme's always giving me tips, but why is it we don't listen to the ones closest to us? I had Jodi's 'rule of thirds' in mind when I took this picture. 'That's what I've been telling you'... Sorry honey. I'll try and listen to you more.)

I love it. Regardless of whether I've nailed the thirds thing. Have I?

Tonight, I made pizza. I picked watercress, spinach, oak leaf lettuce and cos for a salad. This is where it all comes from.

Mandarins. Some rotting. Some rock hard.

Hydrangea. Tormenting.

 Celery. Fingers crossed.

A side-of-the-road basket. Beetroot seedlings.

Luca's peas and snowpeas. String and bamboo.

Strawberry flowers. Cobweb.

Mint for me. Chilli for Graeme.

Leeks slowly fattening up. Two wheelbarrows. I say not enough. 

Someone says two wheelbarrows too much. 




The good stuff

I'm still in survival mode.

And after reading what sounds like very good advice on parenting toddlers (actually, parenting full stop), I'm thinking I should try harder. Ditch the lazy 'battle-it-through' and adopt a more understanding approach. Except that I'm very tired.

So I'm not very patient at the moment. Which isn't so great for understanding a child's perspective. It looks like I'm back where I started.

Working out what is going on, deciding on different strategies and putting them into practice... well, it's draining just thinking about it.

But it's what I will do. Eventually. I'm not one for leaving things to sort themselves out (although I should sometimes). I over-think and I analyse to death. So I'll work it out. Even if by that stage he's a teenager.

In the meantime, we're just pottering.

Quietly, I always hope. But very noisily, in reality.

While I pottered the other day layering vegetable scraps and newspaper shreds in the compost, Luca asked to pick some kale.

Truth is my heart sank. Not because he wanted to pick kale, but because Kian was hovering. Kian copies, like any sibling does. But he does everything more wildly.

I had visions of Luca picking a few leaves, then Kian pulling out all the kale from their roots. Thinking that was tremendous fun, he'd move onto the spinach and lettuce and within a minute, it would look like a whipper-snippered mess.

It was nothing like that, of course.

Luca snipped. Kian watched.

A bit of kale. A bit of spinach.

This is the best bit: I suggested making a juice out of it. And we did.

A juice of kale, spinach, banana, frozen berries, lemon, bee pollen and maca powder.

I have absolutely no idea what the bee pollen and maca powder do. I just know it's good stuff.

Thanks to Nicola Chatham, I'm not only growing all of these glorious leaves on a patch of concrete by my washing line, but because she introduced me to Jessica Ainscough, aka the Wellness Warrior, I'm making juices I probably never would have made.

They drank the lot.

Kian, my fussy little eater, who throws food across the table, who kicks his plate in disgust...

Consumed. And. Enjoyed. Raw. Greenery.

It was a lovely moment.





Alpaca poo and thyme in a bath

The garden has come a long way since we built the first two beds in October. And so have I.

I came across Nicola Chatham late last year. We had already built and planted our beds using the no-dig gardening method. I discovered that being in the garden, for Luca, really fills him up, and it was so easy being with him.

And although we did have some success with greens and a beautiful tomato glut, plus great fun with our worm farm, I was still very lost. And I found the whole process very frustrating, because I was thinking of gardening purely in terms of results. In fact, I'd have been quite happy for someone else to do it all, so that all I'd have to do is pick what I want for dinner.

But that's not what gardening is about. Besides, I wouldn't have anything to teach the boys. Gardening is work in progress. It's a journey. And honestly, I only learned this a matter of days ago when I got lost out there and realised just how much it has to teach me.

A big part of this transformation is down to Nicola's Abundant Veggie Patch System*.

Nicola Chatham

I love how Nicola doesn't promise self-sufficiency.

She got me with that word. Abundance. Such a great word. We all want abundance.

I learnt all about permaculture basics, and found the concept of zoning fascinating. I've since moved my greens to the right zone!

I learnt how to do a sunshine study on the house and work out the best location for a veggie patch. How to design a bed and get the dimensions right. Where to get materials and do everything on a budget.

This is what I've found wonderful about the course. There are so many lessons weaved into it.

Suddenly, I started looking out for people dumping their rubbish on the side of the road. I found several great buckets and a baby bath to use as a planter, and I picked up a compost bin and plastic pots at garage sales nearby.

One place we decided to build a bed was on a slab of concrete. We used tarp to line it, drove out into the country to collect a load of bricks (thank you Freecycle), then Luca and Graeme spent one afternoon chipping away the mortar and lined them up.

Voila!

Through the course, I learnt that you can make your own soil, and crucially for me that it was all about carbon and nitrogen.

I don't know about anybody else on the course, but I loved the whole layering of the carbon (such as newspaper, brown grass cuttings, hay) and nitrogen (such as chicken pellets/horse poo, green leaves, fresh grass cuttings). Yes, I've heard mention of nitrogen before and people say to dig in manure, but until now all the advice has been a bit wishy washy.

Anyway, I found bags of horse poo by the roadside for 50c a bag, collected newspaper, all our grass cuttings, pruned trees and bushes in our garden for the green foliage (remember, nitrogen!), and bought other bits and pieces such as hay, mushroom compost and molasses.

Once you've put all the layers in and wait for a week or so, you can start planting straight away.

Layering the garden bed

Soaking the hay in water and molasses

Meanwhile, we got a few little surprises from the beautiful mushroom compost that we bought from Kim Margin...

We also made our own compost using the same recipe. The boys got shredding indoors, then soaked it in buckets, layering it with chicken pellets, horse poo, mushroom compost, hay, greenery, and vegetable scraps from the kitchen. 

A second bed by the garage next to our chilli plants 
and blueberry bush (well, bush by name, not by nature;
it's a stick in some soil at the moment with a fancy tag),
ready for some brassicas to go in. 

Still lots of room for more plants in the 'concrete' bed. 

Strawberries went into pots on Mother's Day, and we cleared some room for them to sit in the sun all day.

The kale is loving it here. Drilled a few holes in the bath and in went 

mint, thyme and tarragon. Also in pots: 

oregano, more tarragon (I can never have enough),

Vietnamese mint (thanks Nicola!), rocket,

basil, parsley and coriander.

Spinach, chamomile and spring onions on the left. Our old bed (right) isn't being neglected. 

Luca and I have just planted broccoli, cabbage and cauli, plus peas, marigolds and wild rocket.

Even as I sit here, I can see the leeks that still need to be planted (a fiddly job that keeps getting left to another day), the carrots, lettuce and watercress. I'll wait for Luca, because it's his garden too now.

Picking up alpaca poo in the Yarramalong Valley (sorry can't resist one of Graeme's jokes here: what is Kian saying when he's straining? al-pac-a-poo.... Geddit? C'mon, not even a little laugh? I'm still giggling at that one weeks later)...

Anyway, where was I? Yes, we're doing lots of things for the garden at the moment, and I'm glad to say I haven't visited a garden centre or DIY chain once. Driving out to farms for poo (why do I like poo more than manure?), borrowing a wheelbarrow from a friend to load bricks, shredding the paper, screeching the car to a halt with the boys in the back for a big black container....

I'm writing this down so it cements it for me. Gardening is as much about the doing, as it is about the harvesting. So while I have moments where I would love to have Jamie Oliver's gardener chap from Jamie At Home carrying bunches and baskets of organic goodness into my kitchen (doesn't everyone have that dream?), I'd probably be missing out on a whole load of life lessons.

This is still the very beginning of my gardening journey, but I feel I'm on the right track now. It was the perfect course for me to get me on the path of creating abundance. (So thank you Nicola*).

Because the goal that I've set myself is to have a kitchen garden I can be proud of within a year. All I have to do is learn to enjoy the getting there. 

* Nicola has a rather lovely free newsletter called Sprout that you can sign up to on her website. That's how it all started for me funnily enough. I got to know her that way and when her course came up, I had to do it.