A New Rotating Composter

After years of DIY and hand-me-down composters, we've splurged and purchased a rotating composter.

The idea was inspired by Tom, an Oklahoma friend who posted a photo of his on Facebook. When I commented on it, he told me it came from Tractor Supply. I ignorantly said that Tractor Supply outlets were hard to find in urban L.A. He proved me wrong!

Now, I had been poking through Amazon's offerings with appalling results. I found one that cost $300 and reviewers reported that it took hours to assemble. Not for me!

The Good Ideas Compost Wizard Jr. was about half the cost, easy to bring home and took no more assembly than dropping it into place and cutting the bands holding its two parts together for transportation.

American-made, it has a seven-cubic foot capacity divided into two chambers. With curbside service at the Santa Clarita store, we had a rotating composter in about an hour.

An unexpected consequence of the coronavirus pandemic has been that when you can't go to a restaurant, you eat at home. And when you eat at home, you create garbage to feed the compost pile.

We've never been regular about tossing our compost. (We also never seem to get enough brown things mixed in . . . ) So our compost takes a long time to become dirt. The Wizard Jr. claims to make a finished batch of compost in two weeks.

We'll see about that. I'm certain it will be faster than what we've been doing. Now, it's easy to routinely give the composter a roll every time I drop a new batch of garbage in.

Comments

Hand-Knit Trellis Now Ready for Climbing Foot-Long Beans

Just as the "June" gloom is starting to burn off, I finished my knitted trellis for the garden. It completely surrounds one of our bamboo tripods, with space at the bottom for tending the romaine lettuces growing within the tripod. It's knit out of nylon twine on US 35 needles. While the nylon has no stretch (the way a wool yarn does), the huge gauge has loads of give. The piece was knit flat with ties attached along one edge. It is tied to the tripod along one leg. One some early samples for a knitted plant trellis, I experimented with lace patterns. They look lovely, but I realized two things. One, once the plants grow up the trellis any knitting pattern is lost. Secondly, the plants and leaves need space to grow in and out of. I used a pattern for a shawl: k1, yo, k2tog and then repeat. I got lost a number of times: the yarn-overs drifted over other stitches on occasion. As this was a speed project that won't be visible ones the beans grow over it, I didn

Know Your Soil For Best Garden Results

I've always taken soil for granted. It was there. You put seeds into it. You put water on it. Plants grow and produce flowers, fruit or vegetables. Gayle Weinstein, author of Xeriscape Handbook; A How-To Guide to Natural, Resource-Wise Gardening , takes a different view: “Soil . . . acts as a highway between life and death, land and atmosphere, plants and animals.” It stores water, air and nutrients and makes it possible for an exchange of elements and chemical reactions to occur, she adds. She describes soil as being animal, vegetable and mineral combined. Here are six tests Gayle recommends for getting to know your soil. Grab a shovel and a quart jar. Dig up two cups of dry soil two-to-six inches deep from the areas you want to test. Gather a glass of water, dish washing detergent and paper towels. A soil pH kit, a meter or litmus paper will be needed for the final test.

Determinate vs indeterminate: why does it matter?

When Karen and I planted our 2020 garden, we made the one mistake you never want to make with tomatoes: we didn't check whether the plants we bought were determinant or indeterminate. Our assumption that the cherry tomato plants would be small (small tomatoes means small plant, right?) and the romas would be big, was 180 degrees wrong. The Great Green Goddess of Gardening was on our side, however. Karen has been able to stake up the indeterminate cherry tomatoes -- and the determinate romas have plenty of string fencing to grow on. I've been asked to write more about the differences between indeterminate and determinant tomato plants. Since I clearly needed to review, I'm glad to do so. In simple terms, determinate plants are like bushes or shrubs; indeterminate plants are like trees. Determinate plants are genetically set to grow to a certain size and stop. Indeterminate plants will keep producing stems, leaves and fruit as long as they get enough water, light and warmth.

The Fink Farm Dirt

Search This Blog