Organic Gardening Blog — Adventures in Organic Gardening

Overwaterers Anonymous

June 12, 2012 by Cathi Leave a Comment

Be careful of overwatering. — Beware overwatering.

My name is Cathi, and I’m an overwaterer.

I’m in recovery though.

Yes, it’s true. Last year, in my first summer of gardening (which was, in my defense, was also the hottest summer on record) I was so eager to love on my garden each and every day that I never missed a day of watering. Starting early in the Spring and lasting well into the Fall I watered every day unless it rained.

So of course, not surprisingly, my town community garden bed is suffering with fungus.

See the fungus-y fungus all through my wonderful tomato plants?

Therefore, based on the research I have done on the subject, I have reformed my ways.

How can you avoid overwatering your vegetable garden?

If your plant is wilting and brown, that means underwatering. If your plant is wilted and yellow, that means you are an overwaterer.

Most vegetable gardens need one inch of water per week. Stick a rain gauge in your garden so you can tell how much rain you’ve had. I recently bought one for $2.99.

Stick your finger in the dirt. Does it feel cold? Then it’s wet. Feel the soil 3 or 4 inches deep to see if you need to water.

There are many other ways to love on your garden that don’t involve overwatering. You can pull weeds. make free organic fertilizer, make a worm box, browse through seed catalogs, thin your plants, or just sit and enjoy your garden.

Worms on the Plane

June 9, 2012 by Cathi Leave a Comment

Transporting Composting Worms on a Plane — Worms on the Plane!

This weekend I flew to Oregon to see my niece and her family, including her new one month old son. Trying to be a good great-aunt, I knew I needed to bring older sister a gift.

What better gift than composting worms? Isn’t that what every little girl wants?

So, I went to home depot and bought a small white bucket. I came home and set up a small worm bin in the little bucket. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get it on the airplane or not, what with security being what it is, but I knew I had to give it a try.

I arrived at the ticket counter with my suitcase, my laptop case and my worm bucket. (What? Doesn’t everyone carry around a worm bucket?). The agent that checked me in asked what was in the bucket. I told him, “Composting worms.”

“You’re not going to be able to fly with those.” He said.

“Well, I’m prepared for that, but can you tell me why?”

“Health concerns.” He said.

Of course, you and I know that that is ridiculous. There are no health concerns surrounding composting worms. They don’t even smell bad!

I didn’t argue with him. He didn’t take my worms, so I just took them and kept going. I went through security with no problem or comment from anyone. The worms seemed none the worse for wear from the x-ray. I tried to stay away from the area directly surrounding my gate just in case the ticket agent had sent some kind of message to the gate warning them of my clandestine worms.

I was the first one to board. I slipped my worm bucket into the overhead bin and sat down, looking innocent. No one said anything to me at all. My worms safely made it to Salem, where they are composting today.

Del City Church of Christ Community Garden

May 21, 2012 by Cathi Leave a Comment

My nephew, Joshua, recently earned the designation of Eagle Scout. I went up to Oklahoma City for the Court of Honor. It was held at Josh’s dad’s church. While I was there, I learned that there was an amazing Community Garden hiding around back. Of course, I couldn’t resist going back and snapping a few shots.

The church uses what comes out of the garden for two primary purposes. The first is Meals on Wheels. They feed many elderly and shut ins every week, and many of the meals have amazing homegrown produce. Second, they use it as an outreach effort. They grow all of this amazing food, then they tell the surrounding neighborhood “come and get it”.

A few notes about the operation of the garden that I noticed:

1) It was set up well. The surface between beds was scraped down and filled with gravel. This keeps the weeds down and makes gardening easier and more of a pleasure. It’s also attractive.

2) The garden had great leadership. A recently retired gentleman spends much of his time overseeing the garden and making sure it stays looking great and producing. The more community gardens I see, the more I am convinced that leadership is vital for a well functioning operation.

Here are the photos:

[Show as slideshow]

Farmers Branch Community Garden

May 20, 2012 by Cathi Leave a Comment

Today I had an opportunity to visit the Farmers Branch (Texas) Community Garden.

I’m always eager to see other community gardens, how they work and how they’re set up. Today when I visited the Farmers Branch garden they were having a work day. People were working on their plots and there was a crew of gardeners working on their elaborate compost operation.

Here are some pictures I took:

School Community Garden Bed Update

May 13, 2012 by Cathi Leave a Comment

You might remember a few weeks ago when I was battling the relentless bermuda grass that continually encroached on this bed. The school paid to have a raised bed built around it. Immediately after the construction was complete I filled a third of the bed with compost / soil and planted bush beans. The remaining two thirds of the bed still had onions that were not yet ready to be harvested.

Last week I harvested the onions.

So, based on the fact that filling the original third of the bed made me quite sore for days and was hard and dirty work, I paid my yard man an extra $40.00 and he and his helper came and whipped it out in less than 30 minutes.

Juan helping me fill my raised bed. — Thank goodness for help.

So then I planted 4 watermelons, 4 pumpkins and 2 bell pepper plants. I eagerly the sprouts.

Doesn’t this look so much better and easier to garden? Try not to pay too much attention to the area between beds. I’m applying for grants and just trying in general to get the school to have that all redone. When the garden was originally done, the paths between beds should have been scraped down and gravel or something put down over landscape cloth. That wasn’t done, so we’re constantly battling grass.

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