Heck Yeah Conservation...
& stuff like that...
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How I Arrived at Blogging Conservation
Several things had been bothering me lately, in regards to conservation, recycling, and sustainable practices, when I finally vocalized my concerns and intent to make changes in my life last Saturday. My husband, Joe, and I were driving home to Olympia from the airport after a recent trip to visit family in Maryland. We were silently listening to a discussion on the radio about the BP oil spill off the Gulf Coast. The local broadcaster made a ridiculously idiotic statement to follow up the segment, and we could not contain ourselves. We were overflowing with critique and distain for the woman, and considered calling to tell her to not open her mouth about to topics she does not understand.
Conservation is not new to us; being raised off of the Chesapeake, in fairly liberal school districts, Joe and I have ingrained concern for how human acts effecting the environment. I have been toying with the idea of composting our waste for almost a year now, both animal and food. However, I never took the initiative to learn about gardening and food safety when using your own compost containing animal waste. The process had seemed a little out of reach, either building my own bins, or purchasing containers would be pricey. I was encouraged when I was making my bee-line to the dog food section in Costco; I crossed paths with an elevated black plastic drum specifically for composting…and that bad boy cost less than $100! Renewed excitement!
Other improvements to our yard this year will include new full-sun plants in the south facing beds, and transplanting of the existing shade tolerant plants from the south facing beds to the shady areas of the yard, duh! If it’s going to be in the sun, and require regular watering, it better produce something useable, so we have lavender and blueberry on the wish list. I do not expect to see much water reduction this first summer, as transplants always require a bit of extra care. In the fall we will be removing some needy flowering tubers that will be replaced with hardier fruit bearing options, contemplating raspberries for this purpose.
In the long term, we expect to have to replace our old washer and dryer units, that are probably a few years my senior…and possibly the dishwasher. Research is underway in these areas, but because products and technology are always changing it will not be an immediate focus at this point. Even farther out into the future a tank-less water heater will hopefully be in the budget.
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ongoing composting research
While browsing facebook today on my lunch an update from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources appeared with announcing a burn barrel exchange. After clicking around the DNR blog through link after link, I found that the DNR has teamed up with the Dept of Ecology to offer an exchange of old oil drums used for burning. Residents can look up locations and dates for the exchange. They will be able to bring any number of used burn barrels and receive a compost bin in exchange. What a great deal for the average rural resident!
I also learned some important things about outdoor burning in Washington; in cities and urban growth areas it is illegal to have an open air outdoor burn at all. In the state as a whole a burn barrel is illegal to own and use.
Other external links on the site were fantastic. I found the MasterComposter.com to be pretty amazing. They have a great idea for small scale composting I can do easily separating food scrap compost from animal waste compost. Their ingestion composting idea using black trash barrels with the bottoms cut out is simple and inexpensive. I cannot wait to get started. I plan to keep animal waste away from any food planting beds, by installing them in the ground right in the same area where we have been tossing the waste. Another food scrap composting bin will be located right next to the veggie garden…constantly leaching fantastically rich compost tea right where it belongs!
I won’t need anything this large, but it clearly shows how this will work:
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2012 Garden…go!
Here’s to hoping the Hammen Home Produce is more productive in 2012 than it was in 2011!
Over the weekend the Mr and I got a truck load of Garden Mix from Great Western Supply in Tenino, WA. This mix is 1/3 dirt & 2/3 mushroom compost from Ostrom’s Mushroom Farm, just up the street from us…which I find funny, because we had to drive 20 miles total to get compost that is produced less than a mile from our house…but at least it’s local-ish. By having our good friend’s truck available to us, we saved ourselves a $55 delivery fee…so our nutrient rich soil only put us out $16+gas!!
After unloading a full truck of soil with only one shovel and one hoe (long story about how we break things and haven’t figured out how to fix them) we were content to let the soil sit for another 24 hours. I have been suffering from some muscle spasms in my lower back…sort of unexplained but most likely roller derby related…and I want to try to take it easy, key word being “try”.
The very next day I opted to skip church and go to derby practice…probably not the best choice for my back but it ended up being good in the long run. I had practice, ran some errands, and then tried to make it to church for our annual plant sale…I had put my name and phone number on a plant…but by the time I got to church everyone was leaving and my plant was gone! Sheesh! I had been babying that plant all week, dropping in for watterings twice…and gone from under my nose. Looking a little sad, one of the leaders of the sale offered up a peach tree to me for free…no one wanted it! But of course as I head out to look at it’s condition (because I didn’t remember a peach tree from my watterings…so I know I neglected it) another couple is saying they will take it….Nooooo! I’ve got to admit…my face got more pathetic looking and it might have been intentional…long story…I got that tree…my efforts were not wasted.
I took my free plants, yes plural, as a couple other sad babies remained unwanted…and got them home to soak for the afternoon. Everything perked right up again…then it rained…so they are going in the ground tonight like happy little clams.
I could not stand to let the garden sit, untouched, another day, so after lunch I got my butt out in the dirt and started plotting things out. I went back to regular zucchini, which I have in the sunniest spot this year, alternating with pac choi. We like our choi small, so if it doesn’t thrive we won’t be hurt. Leaf lettuce and arugula are growing to the right of the zucchini. Bush beans are planted behind the zucchini, and our winter growth are in the shadiest part of the plot, brocoverde and collards. I intend to keep our tomatoes and peppers in planters again this year. They did fine last year, just needed more calcium in their feeding regimen. I had a bit of blossom losses before I knew how to fix that…eggshells!
After all that work, I even managed to put my scarecrows in the ground and cover the tastiest of seeds with black plastic to keep our murder of crows out! Can’t wait to get home and see how that worked out…and to take a picture…like I said the rain and kept raining into today…so timing was perfect in every way. I could not be more pleased with our weekend efforts!
The blog title is a total nod to my dad, who introduced conservation to me at a very early age, and who also hates the phrase, "stuff like that." 