Don't throw those egg shells away!

Use them in the garden, or just feed them to whatever plants you have around. Crushed egg shells add valuable nutrients to soil. Egg shells that are not crushed will break down very slowly.

• Put them in the bottom of plant pots instead of stones. Egg shells are much lighter than stones and they are a great source of of nutrition.
• Place egg shells in a circle on top of the ground surface around tender plant stems such as peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage to deter slugs and cutworms.
• Place egg shells in the soil near tomatoes. Calcium is very useful to tomatoes because the extra calcium will help prevent blossom end rot.
  

more tomatoes!

cucumbers getting bigger

lettuce on the left, radishes on the right

First tomato!

ESCAPE!!!!

I've had a similar situation to the woman in the video below, although not quite so dramatic. It seems my worms want to wander, and I've had some issues keeping them in their bin. The lid of the rubbermaid container they're in doesn't fit securely, leaving a small gap that the worms can crawl through. They have no problem worming their way through the gap when I have the lights turned off. The first couple days I had them, kept finding worms crawling across the floor. After trying to think of ways to seal the gap, I finally realized the simple solution, and turned the lid upside down on top of the container. This forms a solid surface to surface connection, and keeps the worms contained. Problem solved.

Compost Startup Helps Restaurants Cut Costs
by Avishay Artsy, NPR

Food Recycling Law A Hit In San Francisco
by David Gorn, NPR

My Vermicomposting worms arrived!

Worms? you ask. . . . yes I'm a weirdo (if you weren't already aware of that), and I now have pet worms. Why? Well, beside the fact that I'm a weirdo, the worms will eat most of my kitchen scraps. . . things like apple cores and and bits of vegetables that I don't eat. After they eat it, they poop. The poop is nutrient rich fertilizer that can be used in houseplants, as well as my patio garden outside. I don't think any of it will make it out into the patio garden this year though. The worms don't eat and poop fast enough. Oh, and the technical term for worm poop is "castings"



I tried getting my worms from a source near where I live . . . close enough that they were only about a fifteen minute drive away. Unfortunately, they didn't have their act together, and after several attempts to purchase worms from them, I gave up and ordered some from another supplier on the other side of town.

Want to know more about vermicomposting . . . check out the links below:

• http://www.redwormcomposting.com/getting-started/


• http://www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html


• http://journeytoforever.org/compost_worm.html

Here's an overall view of what I have growing out on my patio. On the far left you can see the hanging upside down tomato plant. In the tan rubbermaid container is the normal tomato plant. The gray rubbermaid container on the left has cucumbers growing in it. The one on the right has Black Seeded Simpson lettuce that needs picked, as well as seeds started for some romaine lettuce. The dark color pot has the zucchini plant, and the terra cotta colored pot has cilantro. The paint bucket is the pepper plant, and the smaller green pot behind it is mint. In the window boxes at the bottom of the picture, I planted seeds for lettuce, carrots, and radishes yesterday. You can see that some of the containers are now up on clay brick things. These were freecycled, although not through the network.