little kansas garden

2009-04-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes baby kittens are not loved by other cats in the house:

Our compost is getting huge! We took everything out and stirred it up, adding more hay and made a compost stew!

Here is Nic hard at work while I document our amazing accomplishment:
We found awesome little guys who are helping us break down the food matter:
a cute slug that was underneath it all:
Also we went ahead and started some flowers just for fun. Nic got mad at me because I dumped out a flower that I didn't know was planted in one of our pots, so I salvaged it in the cambel's soup can upfront there.
These are my favorite:
We also would like to start growing tea plants, but need to research that. I bought an Apple Mint tea plant at the hardware store. It smells really good but I don't think it's quite ready to be brewed into tea yet. We're starting to get a little worried about having the compost in the back because of mosquitos in the summer. We already found hundreds of maggots in our hay, so we moved it and covered it up. If anyone has a solution to killing mosquitos please let me know, because our backyard has standing water and tons of foliage for them to breed, it sucks.

Well have a nice day!

-K

spring has sprung

2009-04-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, we got a new furry little friend! Nola!!

Next, our indoor herbs are doing great! They shooting up like crazy. Most of them are maturing really well too, like this cilantro:

and the dill is going wild:

they really like the spot we have them in:
Also my friend Thayer gave me these Ancho pepper seedlings which I'm really excited about! they should be developed by the end of the summer. I can't wait to cook with them!

The only plant that is struggling is our little basil, but we have some in another pot that's doing better.

Our compost is starting to break down into really good "hummus" and so far I'd say we've got a good pot or two of really rich soil in there now. Hopefully in the next month or so we'll have a whole lot of soil.

The last thing I wanted to mention is this product Terracycle. I think it's the best thing for your plants. It's made of worm poop and if you spray it on the soil/leaves of your plants it fertilizes them really well. It's recycled containers too. We use it on our house plants. You can read about it here. They sell it at home depot.

Hopefully everyone's gardens are doing great with all this rain!

<3 K

2009-03-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

we've got some new things going on. our compost is growing and growing everyday, but it's taking a while to break down because of the weather. it snowed a few days ago so our compost got cold. we've been turning it everyday.

while I was out of town, our herbs started to sprout!!!!!! yay!! these are some little lavender spouts:

this is how we have it set up now because of our house cat lilly, who enjoys kicking the dirt around and using it as a litter box :(
these is are little kale sprouts:
here is basil and parsley:
we also have some Colorado wildflowers that have sprouted. our cilantro is having a hard time, but we're trying to get it going. that's our update for now, hopefully sooner than later we'll have some of our transportable garden boxes made and planted. thanks!!

sunny day

2009-03-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

today we decided to get our compost really going. we bought some hay (and this is what happens when you don't have a truck.:

we also bought some manure... mixed it all up with some food waste.... now we have about 5 inches in our compost cage. it has been really helpful to rent composting books from the public library. nic and i are learning things like you can add laundry lent and small fibers to the heap. shrimp shells are very good for it, and also urine.

anyways, we decided to plant some herbs for inside germination while we wait for the compost to stew. we planted dill, parsley, basil, kale, cilantro and lavender. we're also trying some colorado wildflowers.

we've got them covered up inside now, with a make-shift cage around them so the cat stays out. it felt good to be outside with my hands in dirt all day! unfortunately my car is full of hay and i need to go take care of that!

2009-03-07T16:01:00.000-08:00

we got our compost cage set up!!

if anyone wants to save their food waste and throw it in our compost, that would be awesome. things like fruit, veggies, egg shells, and even coffee filters and paper towells if you use a natural or organic brand. no bread though. just let me know!

hello

2009-02-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

testing testing one two three we are going to make a garden.

watch.