My Black Friday Helper

Living so close to the second-largest mall in New York State just makes me want to hide in the house on Black Friday.  It’s hard for me to believe that people think it is fun to wait in line for a $12 popcorn popper.  An astonishing number of people even go on Thanksgiving night!    

After we spent Thanksgiving Day with our cousins in Brooklyn, they came and stayed with us here in Nyack for a couple of nights.  My 5-year-old niece Xeta and I spent much of Black Friday outside in the garden.  She helped me feed the chickens and rake leaves.    

Then she asked what we could plant.   All my flower bulbs and garlic were already in the ground, but it was such a beautiful day and I had such an enthusiastic helper.   The sun was shining and the temperature was in the low 60s.  We didn’t even have jackets on!  It definitely seemed like weather that could still germinate some cool weather crops, so we’re trying some kale, cabbage and lettuce.  I have a row cover that I’ll put over them and hope for a head start on some spring seedlings at the very least. 

One of the other fall projects that Xeta helped me with is building up the beds,  We put compost, chicken litter (wood shavings and chicken manure) and shredded leaves and grass on top of the vegetable beds.  Throughout the winter, the mixture breaks down and in the spring the beds are fertile and ready for planting. 

I can't believe this is my 400th post on this blog.  I started it in 2008 and still have ton of tons of things to write about -- the problem is finding the time.  When I look at my first blog post...oh my lord ....it was so pathetic...  I'm grateful for all the friends I've made through this blog, around the world and locally and hope to continue to write about everything under the sun. 

Leaving the Leaves

Did you know that there's a campaign underway to get us to stop raking up our leaves?  Rather, we're being encouraged to grind them into a finer mulch, or even just leave them where they are.  Ground up leaves that are mulched by a lawnmower are quicker to break down. They do wonders for the soil, adding organic matter, and helping replace what's lost through erosion. When left in garden beds, they protect roots and help retain moisture.

If enough people comply, municipalities will spend less time collecting and processing leaves, which saves them money.  See the video below that features Ann Holmes from the Greenburgh Nature Center in Westchester County.

With more than 50 trees on our property, the leaves piled up fast.  You can see that where the lawn ends, and the tree line begins, the leaves are at least a foot deep.

Here are some things I'm trying with my leaves this year...

The leaves are not being raked out of the beds until spring.  They're being left in place to protect the plants from winter abuse. 

They're just being left on the floor of the wooded areas.

We've created a pile behind the compost bin that we'll use to "feed" the compost throughout the year.  After food scraps or grass clippings are added to the bin, we'll throw in a few handfuls of leaves for good measure. 

The leaves on the lawn are being mowed over and ground up, then collected to be worked into the vegetable beds.

They're also being used in combination with wood shavings as litter in the chicken coops.  I think I'll try to use the ground up ones here in the future.


What do you do with your leaves?

Seed to Salad (and Chickens!)

Second graders at the Valley Cottage Elementary School planted a "Seed to Salad" garden in their school courtyard last month.  Developed by the Ithaca Children's Garden at Cornell and implemented here by enrichment teacher Michele Signorile, the "Seed to Salad" curriculum is designed to allow kids to sow and harvest edible plants by the end of the school year. The seed-sowing endeavor was supplemented by other nutrition education activities that enabled kids to identify and vote for their favorite vegetable, play in an obstacle course that simulated the human body, and learn about worm composting.

The students expect to harvest several kinds of lettuce greens, spinach, radishes, arugula and baby carrots for their salad by the end of June.

Since the "Seed to Salad" program was part of a larger nutrition unit, I brought Leah and Goldi in for a personal visit.

Heard at the scene:

"She looks mad at me."

"How many feathers do they have?"

"Can I eat these weird colored eggs?"

"He's pecking, he's pecking!"

"Let 'em out!"

"How come there aren't chicks in these eggs? "

"She pooped!"

"I know how to hold a chicken."

"Are you gonna eat them?"

"Is one of these a rooster?"

All of the second graders got to pet the chickens and many were amazed that they were so soft.   Some of the kids thought at first that they were a couple and that Leah, with her larger comb and wattle, was a rooster.  After a couple of hours of being stared at and stroked by a hundred little hands, the girls were glad to get home to their quiet backyard.

Recipe for Happy Worms

Nothing is more exciting than 1500 red worms wiggling in the dirt.  Just ask the kids in our afterschool gardening class. Here's their recipe for worm compost:

Ingredients

1500 Red Wiggler worms from a source such as Amazon.

10 gallon plastic bin with a few 1/4" holes drilled in the lid.

Shredded newspaper

Water

Food scraps

Dirt

1)    Put shredded newspaper in bin to cover bottom. 

2)   Get it damp but not soaking - about 2 cups of water is good.

3)  Put in some food scraps like, banana peels, apple cores, melon rind, coffee grounds, old squash, weeds you pull up from your beds (just make sure they’re not producing seeds!) What will the worms like best?

4)  Add a few handfuls of dirt.

5)   Examine your worms to make sure they’re alive and wriggling.         

Be sure to exclaim over their grossness, their slimyness, and the possiblity that they will poop on you.

6)  Put all 1500 worms in the bin!  (this is the fun part!)

7)  Gently cover worms with materials already in the bin.

8) Put them in a place where they won’t freeze. 

9) Check back in a week.  Is there some “black gold” compost in the bottom of the bin?  Use it as fertilizer for your garden beds. 

     10)  Or, make "poop tea," by tying worm compost or manure in gauze and floating it in a bucket of water.    After a few days, use the brew to water your plants. 

 

Got worms?? 

A Big Bloomin' Mess

Once again, I missed Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  Not because I had no blooms!  It’s just that the blooms are being upstaged by the trees, the clear blue sky and that insanely beautiful golden light that hits the hills at dusk.  The blooms just aren’t the biggest attraction now.

Still, we got  French marigolds (Tagetes patula),

Canna (canna x generalis) "Cleopatra",

Nasturtium (tropaeolum)

Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)

Roses (Hybrid tea - unknown cultivar)

Even a geranium (pelargonium) and petunia (petunia x hybrida) about to bloom.

Some herbs, cabbages and kale still poking along. 

Still harvesting the odd "watermelon" radish.  

Did I mention the leaves from the 40+ trees that are now blanketing the property?   We’re doing it a little different this year.  Instead of raking them up and packing them in 20-odd compostable bags for the town to pick up, I’m gonna blow them into the back of my “woods,” where I’m hoping they compost themselves, help keep the weeds down, and give the bugs a place to hide from the chickens. Maybe I’ll even shred them with the lawnmower and mulch my beds with them.  

But really.  Why move leaves around when I can play fetch with Miss. B??  Can you say "procrastination"....

Have you dealt with your leaves yet?

Backyard Poultry Workshop

“This is THE WORST time of the year for taking care of chickens!” Barbara Taylor and Mark Laino warned us at a Backyard Poultry Workshop they hosted on a recent Saturday at Midsummer Farm in Warwick. “If you can get through this time, when it’s cold and muddy, the rest of the year will be a breeze.”

Chickens, it seems, can be happy with few amenities. “Don’t overthink your coop.” was another piece of advice. With a few nesting boxes, some roosting space (7 inches per bird recommended), some ventilation, food, water and an enclosed – and protected-- place to run, we’ve got the basics taken care of. Their farm specializes in organically raised heritage breeds that adapt well to cold weather.

Barbara explained that chickens lay eggs until the days start to get shorter in the fall, and resume around Easter time (I never knew the connection between Easter and egg-laying before now!) Although some recommend using artificial light during the winter months to encourage more laying, it may shorten the number of years a chicken is fertile in the long run.

Chickens who feel like their coops are being taken over by nosy, noisy humans will make a b-line for the house.  These gals are ready to move in.

I love the colors of these Cubans.

Mark is holding Ming-La, king of the farm, everyone’s favorite Chinese rooster.

I intentionally bought a small “ark” coop so that I wouldn’t be tempted to overextend myself with a large flock, but after seeing these beautiful birds, I’m kinda wishing I’d made room for more….

Do you have a favorite breed of chicken?



Other posts of interest:
The Joy of Chickens – guest post from LazyMom

Pruning Procrastination Produces Petal Problem

We really need to have our flowering cherry tree (prunus serrulata) pruned. It's taking over the front yard! Usually during the first week of May we get a pretty proliferation of pink petals...

Since it rained all last week, the petals are especially sticky and mushy. They've been tracked in and they're all over the house.

My office looks out into the front yard, and all day I see petals drifting down. It's calming. The kids like to shake the tree and pretend it's pink snow.

I usually rake up the petals and compost them.

If you're local, and want some petals for your compost, I'm happy to share!

And if you're a procrastinator, about pruning or anything else, you don't want to miss this blog.