Composting

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 20% of all waste going into landfills is made up of yard clippings.  Close to another 20% is kitchen waste.  Reducing your waste and carbon footprint is only one reason to compost.  The result is the best part.  As Joe Lamp'l says in this book, "The Green Gardeners Guide," composting is "turning waste into gardening gold."  The organic matter can be reused in your gardens and provide all the nutrients your plants need, without having to use harmful chemicals.  So not only will it save landfill space, reduce chemicals getting into the water table, but it will also save you money.  You will not need to buy anymore composted soil or the fertilizers.

I have two compost bins on the go.  We just finish filling the second one and so it was time to use up the first bin.  We only started composting late last summer so you can see just how much waste is saved in the process.  My wife Suzanne is into the Raw Food Diet and drinks a lot of juices and "Green Smoothies."  The pulp that is produces in this process is great for composting.  Most of the breaking down process has already taken place, so it really speeds things up.

This is my composting centre, with Cillian getting ready to transfer some soil.

The Picture is not great.  Next to the green wheel barrow on the right is a large black container that I store some larger cutting that need to be broken down a little more before being composted.  On the left is my city issue garden waste can.  I do not ever put it out, instead I use it to store leaves and grass clippings.  Behind it is my first compost bin and next to that is my second that came from the city transfer station.  If you are looking to start composting, most cities have the bins for sale at very reasonable prices.  

The process is simple.  I put kitchen waste into the compost bin and then cover it with a layer of brown and/or green yard waste, like leaves and grass.  I do this until the bin is full and then I start with the next bin.  While I fill the second bin, I maintain the first.  I aerate it every time that I am out there.  This is to insure enough air is getting into the bin, crucial to the process.  If there is not enough moisture you may need to add water, so far I have had no need to but we shall see what the summer brings.

This is what the bin looked like in February, almost ready.

This is what we have a month later. This compost my not be 100% ready to be distributed, but I am not going to start a third bin and the second is full, so its time to take it out.  I opened the bottom door of the bin and pushed the compost out.  

Look at the colour of this soil!

Cillian and I then transfered the new soil into the wheel barrow,

and then distributed it into the rose bed against the house.  Ugly wall, but the sunniest place in my yard.

We applied it pretty think, being careful not to burry the rose stems too much.  Cillian thought the grass could use a little compost top dressing.

Some items that you add may need your help.  Like branches.  Anything branch bigger then a twig I cut up into smaller pieces about an inch long.  I do this with anything smaller in diameter than my thumb, its my, "Rule of Thumb."  Anything bigger than that could either be chipped and used as mulch, or burned and the ash used for potash.  

We use a lot of coconut and I have to break the shell up with a shovel, but they still haven't decomposed enough for the garden so back into the bin they go.

Joe Lamp'l also writes about shredding paper to compost as well as dryer lint.  I haven't done this yet, but I don't think that it is a good idea if you are growing eatable harvest.  I don't have any numbers to back up my theory, but I worry about the inks and dyes that will get into the soil.  Even without a food crop, these chemicals could effect the bacteria in the soil as well as leach into the water table.

Instant Gratification

This garden adventure started with a family trip to see the Metro Vancouver Gardening Society's Annual Spring Flower & Penjing Exhibition held in the Floral Room at VanDusen Botanical Gardens on Feb 15th.  Penjing is Chinese for, "tray plant."  It is a miniature landscape in a tray.  The tree is kept small with pruning and shaped to give the illusion of age.  This show was beautiful and highlighted the hard, patient and dedicated work of some of Vancouver's great ornamental gardeners.  This kind of gardening makes me twitch with impatience!  Their work and dedication to this craft is unbelievable and a joy to see.  Keep your eyes open for up coming events.

Heart Shaped Shrub

Picture By Suzanne

As beautiful as this artful gardening is, and I would like to try it sometime, I do like the instant gratification of bedding plants or in this case, establish spring bulbs.  As we had already made the trip to VanDusen it only made sense to visit the actual garden, something I have yet to do.  Defiantly worth checking out on a regular basis as it is always changing.  I know I'll be going back sooner than later.  On the way out I stopped at that plant shop and picked up three pots of established bulbs.  Iris, Crocuses, and Narcissuses.  You can find these combinations almost anywhere this time of year, from nurseries to small flower shops.  At VanDusen they were $1 cheaper then anywhere else I've seen.

My first step was to remove each set of plants from their pot and lay them in the garden.

Next I carefully separated the bulbs into smaller groups of two or three, or sometimes singles.

Using my trowel I made a shallow hole in the soil.  This is more like pushing soil instead of digging as the soil is nice and loose from turning in the mulch.  It is easy to see how deep the bulbs where in the pot and that is how deep I made its new home.  Now a place the bulb into the hole, and this is the tricky part, green side up!  wink

Next I push the loose soil gently against the stem making sure the bulb is well covers and the step is not too buried.  Roots will grow freely in loose soil, but it is important not to leave air pockets that could likely lead to rot! 

The most common way to plant bulbs, or most other group of the same plant, is to do so in threes, making a triangle shape.  In fact I have been told this is the only way to plant in groups.  I disagree, I think there is a time and place for everything and every method.  As my garden will be mostly layered in rows from tall to short, I put these bulbs in one long row in the front in an almost randomly patttern, but never placing the same plant next to each other.

Simple as that!  Within a couple of days, I was leaving the house in the late morning and noticed an Iris splitting open.  When I got home that afternoon I had this:

And after it started raining most of the bulbs have bloomed.  But then, disaster!  When I woke up this morning, it had snowed last night, only a skiff but snow none the less.  I'm not too worried about the bulbs, its the back row seeds I worry about.

Lets catch up Part 2

This is a continuation of my first blog, "Lets catch up," designed to get you caught up on what I have done with my main flower garden so far this year.  

First let me say, sorry about my lack of proof reading, I have been catching a lot of flack about it and I promise to do better.

So now talk about gardens north end.  (Just kidding)

All right down to business, enough of this fooling around.  In "Let's catch up Part 1"  I covered the south end of the garden, now on to the north.  I continued my mission of removing the landscape fabric and turning the mulch in with the soil.  This time around I had some plants to contend with.  The Hydrangea we brought with us when we moved, a Ornamental Chinese Maple I pickup up at the Kits Farmers Market, a Potentilla that I rescued, and a Begonia that was given to us as a house plant.  I carefully removed these plants to deduce the risk of damaging their spring buds or roots during the soil turning process, I planned to relocate them anyway.  

With the soil turned and a layer of the leftover mulch spread on top it was time to start replanting.  It is a good idea to draw out a layout of your garden plans before you get started.  I like to use graft paper and a number 2 pencil and start by drawing out the shape and size of your garden to some sort of scale, whatever you have room for and works on your paper.  Next add on the existing elements of your garden, like a tree or gate or whatever.  You don't have to be an artist.  A simple circle that represents the drip line of the tree is sufficient.  Now you will want to take an inventory of the plants that you already have and start placing them on your layout.  Remember if you don't like how things are turning out you can always erase the plant and put it somewhere else.

Once we have your plants on the plot and are happy, its time to start thinking about the things we want to add.  If you know exactly what you want then start plotting.  If you don't and you prefer to wonder through nurseries and farmers markets and pick up whatever makes your green thumb quiver, thats fine to.  But it is a good idea to plot out sizes, shapes, and colours that you want to mix and match first.  Anything can change as you go, but with out some sort of plan your garden can become clumpy and disorganized.  Some may ask it works in nature why not in my yard?  Mother nature has spent thousands of years designing her gardens, treating her soil, and planting seeds.  She has had her share of failures too.  Not to mention that she has the most difficult pest of them all to deal with, us!

My garden design is simple.  As it is long and bordered by a sidewalk on one side and fence on the other there is not much to do with its shape or size, and with all the trees in the backyard limiting the amount of sun to different areas has some say as to what I can plant.  The further north down the garden the longer the sun time is received.  I label that area with the title of "partial sun."  I plan to layer my garden into three rough rows.  The back row against the fence is for taller plants and flowers.  Down the middle is smaller to medium plant and ground cover down the front.  I am planting spring bulbs threw out for a sprinkle of spring colour.

As I mentioned in my last blog I planted seeds along the back row and eagerly await their arrival.  The Potentilla I rescued still needs some TLC.  Last year it did pretty good but only bloomed and grew foliage on about 3/4 of its branches.  Last fall I cut away the dead sections and now I planted the bald area against a fence post.

At the next post north I planted the Hydrangea.  When I pulled it out from its previous home I notice the one of the low growing shoots had been partially pushed into the soil and was taking root.  For now I left this baby attached to its mother and replanted it as well.  I will elaborate on this propagation process in a later blog

The Chinese Maple I replanted in the middle row about halfway between the north end and the Potentilla, giving it plenty of room to do its thing.  I will not plant anything around it for about three feet, although it is just a baby tree and has many years ahead of so I could have put in some bulbs or bedding plants around it.

Down the centre row I placed the Begonia, a Astilbe Chinensis from last years farmers market, and another plant who's name I can't remember and I have lost the tag for.  Its I little pink flower about 16 - 18'' inches tall.  It bloomed straight threw the fall until it snowed.  Its leaves are very thin and long and still green from the winter.  Late summer, early fall last year I divided this plant so now there is two of them.  I also planted  Gaultheria Shallon "Salal," that I picked up from David Hunters Garden Centre.   These I planted about 16" apart and will move them apart as needed.  

Japanese Spurge 

For ground cover I picked up a few different varieties to experiment with.  I got Japanese Spurge, Blue Periwinkle, Wintergreen, and Bugleweed and planted them 12" apart as I plan to let them grow into each other, letting the different foliage, berries, and flowers intertwine and compliment each other.  I only hope that the can find away to coexist.

I have decided to make the south end of the garden Cillian's garden.  My 2 year old son is always eager to help out and I can find jobs for him there.  We can get into that in a later blog.  Here is a picture to keep you interested.

Cillian and his Friend Nickolas gardening up a storm

Well that pretty much catches us up on the main garden.  Stayed tuned for my next blog called Instant Gratification," when I will get into more detail about planting some of my spring bulbs.

First Iris to Bloom

Seedling

My son Cillian at The Royal Botanical Gardens, Oct 2008

I have very little experience with growing from seeds, so I am trying a couple different things.  I picked up some seeds from the gift store at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton Ontario.(www.rbg.ca)  That collection of seeds is made up of Red Corn Poppy, Shasta Daisy, Lavatera 'Mallow,' and Forget-me-nots, all taller plants of 30" plus.  I randomly scattered those seeds along the back row of my side garden on the weekend of February 8.  I know this is a risky move as another frost could potentially wipe those seeds out, but I couldn't wait any longer to get them going.  If they do tough it through, I look forward to seeing how the mixture comes together.  I'll keep you informed.

That same weekend I made my first ever visit to David Hunter Garden Center in Vancouver at Broadway and Arbutus, www.davidhuntergardencenters.com, where I picked up packages of Lupins, Nemophila and two different types of Impatiens.  These seeds I started indoors and will move outside later.  I used two egg cartons for the first batch, planting two or three seeds in each egg cup.  I used a sharpie to labeled which seeds are in which cup.  I also planted a group of the Lupins in a 4 inch pot in a grid formation of about 3/4 of an inch apart.  I placed all three in the kitchen's south facing window. 

The egg cartons I used where of the cardboard variety which I worried may not withstand the effects of watering, but I didn't intend to overwater so I didn't think it would be a problem.  That turned out not to be a problem at all, the problem is that cardboard is soaking up all the water from the soil then drying out in the sun.  I will give these one more week before either transplanting them, or trying a different watering approach.

Lupin Sprouts Feb 16, 2009

The 4 inch pot is a different story.  In one week there are four Lupins sprouting there little green heads out of the soil and reaching for the sunlight.  These I will let grow until they are around 3 inches high.  I will then transplant them into individual pots where they will continue to wait in the window until they are ready to go outside.

The ultimate goal for all of these seedlings is to collect the seeds they will produce in the fall and start the process all over again.  Yesterday afternoon I also found two seed heads on a rose bush so I will attempt to harvest those seeds and get them growing as well.

Lets Catch up!

As I plan to share my experiences as a Gardener in the great Vancouver area, we should do a little catching up first.  

I suppose I will write two section in each blog.  The first will be about my business as a Gardener, Turned Leaf Gardens Ltd.  And the other will be about my personal gardening.

First the business.  The business has a bigger picture goal then just gardening.  It is to create sustainability in the urban garden.  First there will be no fuel powered equipment used.  I will be using reel mowers, hand trimmers and manual edgers just for a start.  I will design gardens to use all available resources like maximizing natural rainfall water and not do as little external watering as possible.  I'll give more details as I do the work.

Today I finished the last of the business registration process, except for opening the bank account.  I also have my first maintenance contract although its not much of a stretch, as it is for my landlord, looking after the lawns at my home.  Up until now he has had a different company looking after it.  They didn't do much in the way of actual maintenance.  They cut, trim and edge.  Nothing more.  I won't do much more but I imagine we should see the lawn do better as I will be grasscycling, mulching, most of the time.

Tomorrow I meet with my first install client.  I think it is a small job at their home and a install at a rental property that I hope will become a maintenance contract.  More to follow.

And now for my personal garden.  Heres the back story.

We moved into this house in Kits mid Sept 2008.  We brought with use a Rosemary Plant and a Hydrangea.  The south facing backyard has a lane way and a fence running down both sides.  There is a large cedar tree in the South East corner, a thick Laurel hedge and Cherry border the alley way on the south and two more tall trees, a cedar and hemlock, share the west.  A long garden runs along the east fence.  Before we moved in the Landlord had the garden made up of weeds, hacked to the ground, covered with landscaping Fabric and 4 inches of mulch.  Both Mulch and the fabric should let plenty of moisture into the soil but this mixture seems to create a dam.  The soil turned grey by mid summer 2008.  I had added plenty of plants and they all lived but didn't seem to do much as far as growth.  I experimented with a four foot section, removing the fabric and turning the soil and mulch together, leaving enough mulch to still cover the top.  The annuals that I had planted in this section finally grew, almost over night.

I added two other gardens that I will write about in future blogs.

That is the past in a nut shell.  I will share the first part of what I have done so far this year.  

I started at the south end of the garden.  I removed the mulch and then the fabric from the car port to a small Plum Tree.  I then turned the soil to loosen and air it out.  Well doing this I keep my eyes open for Blue Bell.  Many of these invasive little bulbs had found their way through or around the fabric last season, and more survived under the fabric and even now where sprouting in early February.  Sneaky little guys.  I do like them, so I won't be to disappoint when the ones that I missed pop through in another few weeks.

I then added half the mulch and turned the soil again, then covered the garden with the rest.  I removed last years annuals and deposited them into the compost.  I had to replace my typewriter.  Last year my wife, Suzanne, found a picture of a typewriter in a garden.  I thought it looked interesting and we had a typewriter sitting in the basement, so out it went.  I found that the soil could retain much water and the plants I put into the typewriter dried up easy.  So this year and made a mount of the new soil/mulch mix and placed the typewriter on top to try and hold the moisture in.  Their is a green and white leaf ground cover, who's name I can't remember, growing threw the keys and the Blue Bell that grew out the top last year, not only survived the lack of water, but this year, it is two Blue Bells sprouting out the top.  

At this point I opened up the cold area under my house to check on the mixed daffodils bulbs I got from my mother-in-law last fall.  They didn't make it into the ground so I left them out in the cold.  They all appeared to be fine and sprouting, so I planted them around the typewriter and around the base of the Plum Tree.  I used the tried and tested method of plant them where they fall.

That sums up that weekend.  I will continue another day.  I will probably only blog once a week, but I will do it more often until we are caught up.