Tales from the Bucket: Dirt Nap

Dirt Nap

No, that's not the reason I've been silent (fortunately), but the current bokashi-bucket tweak.

Some disciplined container gardeners "rest" mixes between use in order to prevent pathogen transfer, discourage insects, and limit the spread of pot-weeds. I'm not often that disciplined--typically, if I have a container full of potting mix, there are three plants on hand I could put in it! But this hasn't been a typical year.

There's a depth factor for sun-sterilization, and I haven't bothered with anything like proper procedure, but something like fifty days of 100+ heat and sun, following after yet another season of drought, has left a bunch of pots filled with dry mixes but largely devoid of life. Plant, animal, insect, or, just possibly, microbe.

Obviously, can't have that. Not at the house of buckets. -G- The usual procedure for using bokashi in container mixes is simply to layer mature bokashi between inches of soil-based mix, but that assumes a mix that's damp enough to work with. I'm not planning on watering dirt weeks before planting-time! We're under watering restrictions.

Understand, we're talking dry, dry former soil, some of it baked into rocklike chunks and the rest all dust and flyaway clumps. I did try digging a hole, scooping some bokashi in, and filling it back up; but the dirt was so resistant to absorption that it was still all powdery when the crepuscular scavengers came by for dinner... The only saving grace was that it was easy to clean up; just took a broom.

So now I'm doing the initial bucket-fermentation stage with that dry-as-ashes dirt.

Call this an advanced technique, because I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a beginner! There's a decent chance it will fail according to one of my basic criteria: presence of insects, due to eggs or estivating critters. Or even, if you have a deep enough pot that some moisture remained in the bottom, worms. Verne and company are only really welcome outdoors; I can tolerate a closed wormery indoors in some circumstances, but would rather not. And they don't tolerate the pH in a working bucket, so they have to be carefully repotted once hatched or revived.

There's also a more-than-slight chance of starting a hot-composting reaction in the container, not necessarily a problem but certainly something to watch. (I'm mostly thinking about the paper towels soaked in bacon grease, or the glistening fast-food bags, and wondering just how thick the soil layer has to be to exclude the oxygen a fire would need.)

And if you're fermenting things generally not considered compostable in a home setting--that is to say, meats--there's always the need to ensure a quick and thorough fermentation, and that can be a bit more difficult with changing volumes of organics and inorganics. In practice, that means you may have to more actively manage the planter-bucket than you would a more standard bokashi bucket set-up. Not too much work, mainly a matter of juggling additions to be sure you have a few inches of fermentables all at once, with AEM. Still, one more thing to pay attention to, as opposed to the standard "dump, cover, forget" easier-than-trashing method.

But on the positive side, this entire bucket-to-garden technique uses no water beyond the cup or so to mix up sufficient AEM or bokashi bran for a single bucket/planter. There's no draining required (usually). And at the end, if you've been sufficiently generous with your ratios, you have a bucket full of just-moist-enough, oddly pickle-scented soil-and-fertilizer mix ready to be inoculated with worms or dumped into next season's raised beds or containers on top of a layer of leaves and poor soil, and covered to rest again until planting-time.

Only this resting time, the microbes are all awake and chomping. The fall tomato bed's starting to look really nice, and the first bed I constructed with this stuff is growing nice, bushy basil on only two quarts of greywater per plant per week (olla pots, naturally).

Basic procedure:

If you've got a deep container full of dirt, may as well use that. Bag the base in case of seepage or bugs.

*Partially empty or fill container so it's about half filled with dessicated soil.
*Apply EM as in a standard bucket.
*Add fermentables and EM as usual, at least a few inches worth.
*Add one inch dry soil.
*Repeat until out of soil or space.
*Lest rest until a nice thick acetobacter mat connects the whole.

Note that the top layer of soil should be moist at an inch down after about a day, from absorption. If it is not at least damp, add a small bit of moisture. Very small, and not too soon.

Don't forget to keep this covered! It may not look like a standard bokashi bucket, but it's still fermenting in there. I covered one working soil-bucket simply with a plastic bag, figuring the soil would work to exclude oxygen. Came home to an apartment permeated with Eau de Pickle Factory Explosion.

Really a better idea to do this outside, but 1) the heat outside my door would dry the fermentables before the microbes could do their thing, and 2) I'm too lazy to carry my kitchen waster across the threshhold even once a day. Easier to keep the bucket next to the garbage and recycling. Covered. Lesson learned.


So far, I haven't used the resulting white-threaded enriched soil for direct-planting, but I'm planning to; I'll simply stop fermenting with three or four inches of space left in my planter, let the concoction rest, then top with an olla pot and transplant in moistened unfermented potting mix.


This isn't exactly the all-in-one bucket I'm still dreaming of, and seeing as it requires horrible lifeless soil I'd rather not be in a position to ever use this technique again, but...did I mention toil-free basil in August? Hope for the fall garden even when all is dry and sere? And not having to rinse out bokashi buckets when it's 105 is also a plus, I think.

Hey, look: the garden's alive! And so is the blog.

Image from an article titled RIP: Recycle in Peace (Yes, that is an urn-planter!)

image from Animal Diversity Web

This year's hands-free tomato garden was supposed to be rather more ambitious than last year's, but I got discouraged. Early in the spring, I built three small (4'x2') raised beds, filled them with dried leaves and soil and a little wet organic matter, dosed with AEM, covered, and let rest. Two of the three worked well, so I did get to plant some tomatoes--but the third was invaded by fire ants.

The cover wasn't well secured, and I hadn't bothered with weights, so it was my own fault; next time I'll know better. But that was no help for this time! Couldn't re-cover it, with the ants only too willing to defend their home, not that I was sure it would have helped. I don't do chemicals, flame is too risky for our persistently drought-ridden climes, and I didn't want to pour great quantities of water into the bed to try to chase the ants away, so I decided I'd disturb the ants every chance I got and just build another bed for the next tomato planting.

Stirred some odds and ends of half-decomposed material into the infested bed while I was disturbing the unwelcome resident ants, since I don't yet have a proper compost bin at that location. And a while back, my odds and ends included the last crumbles of cheap bagged soil that had sat around in a dampish corner.

A bag one of these Texas Blind Snakes had adopted for a home.

Scared me silly--but I'd already emptied the bag into the bed, and the worm-colored scaly snake had slithered beneath the leaf-mulch, so that was that. Stirring up the ants did not appeal at all that day, or for the next few weeks; didn't bother to water the bed, either, as that would have meant standing too close to it.

But I'm a gardener with only limited space, and the presence of a raised bed full of largely composted matter eventually proved too great a temptation. So I grabbed the longest-handled shovel to poke around...

And discovered what would not have been news to anyone who'd bothered to look up the Texas Blind Snake instead of just squeaking like a small child and running away. Turns out, this wormy-looking snake eats ant and termite larvae. Not a single fire ant came out to attack the shovel, no matter how vigorously I stirred the bed. The materials are not wholly composted, but it's far enough along for my purposes. With or without a worm-snake, though I hope not to see it when I'm planting.

Wearing gauntlets as well as gardening gloves, I think. -G- Not that the worm-impersonating snake would hurt me, but I'm squeamish.

Introducing Nigel

The vermi-family has grown: I have African Nightcrawlers now. Actually, have had for a couple of months, though not many to speak of at first...so I didn't. But now Nigel's a definite presence.

The image above, from localharvest.org, is nothing at all like the material I started from. Local bokashi-and-beyond purveyor Microbial Earth offers an "African Nightcrawlers & humified compost mix"--according to the label, approximately 200 to 300 cocoons packaged with coir and compost for direct-to-garden application.

My vermigardening's mostly containerized, so I potted some herbs with a little of this mix added in, and set up a planter tower after my usual practice but without any actual worms, just the cocoon-and-compost stuff.

Well, in the interest of accuracy I should mention the two or three thread-thin hatchlings I found in the bag. But no breeding populations, you understand.

So at first, I assumed the worms I saw in the new tower were volunteers from the established colonies. But African Night Crawlers (ANC) are larger than the others. Much larger. When, on lifting the tops off two worm-homes, I saw worms in one that were twice as large as those in the other, I knew Nigel had established.

Still not quite as impressive a tangle as that image, but he's expanding quickly enough that I'm planning to divide him this weekend--probably a little soon for that, but he's just so big. It looks like he's cramped for space.

Haven't yet found any in the olla pots, so he may be brighter than Verne (EF). Or maybe it's the size thing again, or age; it tends to be larger, presumably older, iterations of Verne who move comparative mountains to get into the damp, cool clay containers between waterings.

So far, no vermi-battles have been observed. Verne mostly stays in his containers; Cousin Clem (Indian Blue) wanders a bit, but Repulsive (BSFL) has claimed all the good spots, so he retreats to the undersides of saucers. George the earthworm (no idea, possibly more than one species), sniffs around wherever any excess bokashi juice or Repulsive effluent has been diluted and applied, and sometimes finds his way into a recently wetted planter to become the worm equivalent of the crotchety old man in the corner house. "Hey, kids! Stay out of my burrows!" Or so I assume from the occasional vertical airspace in some of the less-tended and more populated units.

Nigel has yet to make his way out into the larger world. Which, you understand, is just fine with me! Worms that large disturb me a bit; I'll be just as happy never to encounter one without advance warning.

Though he's certainly welcome in the garden.

How many buckets would that fill?

From the text on the poster--details and a gallery can be found at GrowNYC--I'm assuming that little if any of this collected material is composted; clean dry and paired suggests reuse, not reclamation. And that's great! But what about filthy, torn, disreputable shreds of former garments?

Let them eat cake couture.

Verne et cie happily munched their way through the post-season potato bags, not quite waiting until the season was over before starting; Repulsive's nearly through the denim I decided was too worn to save for next year's insulation, and it's only been a couple of months; there are still bits of terrycloth in the slow-compost after nearly a year, but only bits, sufficient to add a bit of structure but nothing more. And the fabric bokashi bag (filled with matured ferment and buried at planting time) was only root-tangled threads when I repotted that particular item.

It's hardly news that natural fabrics are compostable in a home setting; the trouble is that so few of us think to do it! So, I'm trying. Dishtowels and cleaning cloths, old clothing and shopping bags, bits of fabric too small to make decent patches...into the mix they shall go.

Cleaned if needed (though I'm not much for chemicals) and tossed in after fermentation, I think. Unless I'm feeling experimental. 'cause, you know, that happens sometimes.

Been reading about the soil industry lately, picked up a new-to-me-term: low value soil-like materials. Paper waste and sand and things. Bulking and structural items, to me, since for nutrients I have bokashi. Seems strange to think of silk or linen as "low value" in any way, but a stained or torn shirt is trash, so, okay.

If we each saved one shirt from the landfill...that'd be a lot of space we didn't use. But I'm selfish, I want a personal benefit. So: if one shirt could replace one gallon of soil in a planter... Yeah, that'd work for me. Soil's expensive, relatively speaking.

Anyone need help cleaning out their closets? -G-

...and the results are in!

Sorry for the lack of posting lately—oddly for me, I haven't had much to say! -G- Since I was low on pot-fillers and plant-foods, I went back to the processes I knew would work and shelved (most of) the experiments awhile, and “Day fourteen: bucket ready for stage two” doesn't make for interesting posts.

But it occurred to me as I was picking lavender for a fruit salad that I had written something about that plant's rooting medium soon after its potting, with no followup. So...

This is one of the plantings where I used bokashi and shredded office paper, with no additional microbial source and an extra-long curing period during cooler weather. I tossed some exhausted dirt in the bottom of the container, filled it most of the way with the paper-bokashi mix, then dug a small nest into the paper and filled that with decent potting soil, into which I planted a typical four-inch nursery start. About an inch of soil to top. No olla pot in this planter, mostly because I didn't have one ready but also because I wasn't sure the paper would hold one stable. (A later test confirmed that assumption, though it is possible to use the side of the planter as a partial support.)

Call this a very slightly qualified success I cannot currently replicate. It's a little messier than I prefer my container gardening, especially without crockery in the bottom of the planter—a step I gave up on for good when I realized that it might prevent worms from colonizing my plantings. But the muddy deposits around the base of the planter are attractive to wandering worms, many of whom then find their way into the planter, and a larger-than-normal drip tray will retain that nutrient-rich material until it can be tossed back on top or harvested for another planting.

As well as the mess, this method looks like it might require a mid-season addition of potting mix. This isn't an insurmountable problem, but I prefer to avoid mucking about with roots between repottings. The bokashi and paper seem to be decomposing both faster and more completely than I'd anticipated, and there isn't enough soil in the planter to support the plant alone. Next time, I'll add a bit of sand or some other non-nutritive material. Natural fabrics, maybe; they decompose more slowly than paper, and plants root well in them.

Now for the good parts:

No root-burn! Most of the bokashi mixes have to be cured after mixing with potting media, which is fine for more organized gardeners but a trial for me; this material was close enough to neutral pH to be safe for immediate use, and while there was likely a bit of heating, it wasn't enough to register on my low-tech tests, no more an issue than Texas sunlight if the planter was watered adequately for the plant. (A second test suggests that you really don't want to let it dry out even halfway within the first week, though I found no troubles thereafter. I'd try it again, but I'm out of “hoarded” bokashi. For now.)

No long-term odor. There was a faint but present unpleasantness upon emptying the hoarded bokashi, as there often is when emptying a bokashi bucket left to sit awhile—which is why I always do that outside—but it wasn't noticeable an hour after the planting was finished. A soil cover or some other barrier is definitely necessary lest the material attract pests, but with that one small remediation, this seems like it could be used in any outdoor setting.

No additional fertilizer needed. Bokashi's a nice sub-surface slow-release plant food; 'nuff said.

No trash. Convert kitchen waste and junk mail into produce? Sounds great to me. And this method used only “trash” and an EM source, plus a small quantity of soil for the potting, most of that re-used. Cheap and responsible, my favorite kind of technique.

The lavender was one of two plants I potted in this mix, the other being a blood-veined sorrel that's quite stunted in appearance just now. A casual observer might decide it was was overnourished and therefore feels no need to grow—look closely and you'd see signs of my too-frequent harvesting. What can I say? I grow things so I can eat them.

The garden plan having been scuttled by last fall's too-dramatic events, I joined a CSA this year to augment my produce production. Vegetables are packed in shredded paper for transport, so I thought I'd try the same slow-cure method...but it turns out that doesn't work in warmer weather here. No bokashi hoarding in Texas heat!

Maybe in an air-conditioned office?

Definitely worth further trials.

--Until the next,

DSF

[image source: http://dittodoesit.com/2011/02/academy-awards-envelopes-designer/]

Home Grown Tomato

(photo by a Cabinet Gardener)

One of the things I love about gardening: the plants keep growing even while you're dealing with other things. A while back, I posted about the Cabinet Garden, a low-cost, low-tech, low-maintenance assembly I set up some miles away from my main site. This tomato was picked today--December Fifth!--from that garden. It isn't the prettiest tomato ever, and there are only a few still on the vines, but this is my first year trying for a separate fall crop for tomatoes, and I have to say I'm hooked!

Nearly a month ago, at the year's first frost-warning, I cut some fruit-heavy vines to invert and hang, an old salvage technique that's supposed to result in better flavor than picking the tomatoes and force-ripening with sunlight or in a bag with an apple. But the harvest-window for those is apparently quite short, the fruit going quickly from ripe to only-usable-for-seeds. Or maybe in place of sun-dried? Today's tomato and its pink-cheeked still-ripening brethren are the tomatoes I left in place, as they weren't large enough to salvage. But I covered the plants, that night and again during our recent freezes, and the plants have not yet succumbed.

Tomatoes in December. Without supplemental lighting, heat, hand-pollination, grafting, or any of the rest of the interventions.

Two words:

Wow.

And,

Yum!

After the bucket: Good bug, bag bug?

Even on Hallowe'en, I'm not inclined to frighten anyone too badly, so no appropriate insect photo today. Besides, I like Dr. Seuss!

This fall season, I’ve been busy with non-gardening things—hence the dearth of posts—but the garden’s been ticking along with minimal care, as it’s designed to do. Bokashi is still the right solution for my situation, in large part because it, too, needs only occasional attention: If you’re not adding new organics, the household bucket can stay closed up and ignored for a couple of weeks (always assuming a deep enough reservoir or sufficient absorbent material). And as an added benefit, forgetting to take out the trash before you leave on a business trip no longer results in a stinky welcome home. -G-



Likewise, my post-bucket techniques are fairly hands-off, except for the small-batch hot compost, and that will simply convert to a slower process if you forget the hands-on part. But this week, I had a ton of garden work to do, to get ready for the advent of relatively cold weather. So I checked on some of my post-bucket setups--



--and wasn’t really surprised, though I was disappointed, to discover that only the one with the critters in it was ready. My tolerance for outdoor macro-digesters just isn’t all that high, though it’s far greater than for the indoor [zero] level. Some things, I cannot abide at all. Others I can reluctantly allow to live so long as they don’t directly bother me. Still others have me crying for the Flit!



Verne the composting worm is always welcome. (Hey, I shelled out good money for him. Several generations ago.) His cousin Clem, better known as the Indian Blue worm, is also welcome whenever he chooses to appear, though if he wanders off again, that’s okay, too; I know he’ll be back when there’s food to tempt him. George the earthworm is ever a surprise, but hardly an unwelcome one; I’ve read that earthworms don’t do well in compost bins, but apparently he’s as illiterate the rest, happily breeding in the mismatched yard waste compost cans and hatching out wherever that compost is applied.



It’s the other detritus-clearers that I have issues with. Sowbugs and so on may eat seeds and sometimes sprouts, so if they’re in the compost, I have to solarize or dry it before use. [This may not be as much of a concern for non-container gardeners, but that does me no good!] BSFL eat large quantities of the organic matter, which results in lesser volumes of finished compost for me to use. And piles of woody matter, even contained piles, attract insects the typical urban dweller really doesn’t want to see:



Cockroaches.

Also ants, mites, springtails, etc. But, really, compared to those skittering things, do the rest seem so bad? Even Repulsive might be less disturbing than roaches…



Nah.



My untowered vermidirt experiment worked just about like I’d expected it to: though I added no worms to my material, worms were present, as were BSFL, sowbugs, woodlice, and geckos with their spots stretched out from weight gain -G-. The very top layer beneath the weight was still visibly uncomposted; beneath that, an upper layer finished enough to use as mulch, and some eggshells and twigs remaining even in the lower, completed layer. Also a couple of snails clinging to the side next to the weight (not a waterproof cover, just something to keep the possums and coons out), two or three earwigs, and as many of those nasty six-legged things it pains me even to think about or type.



Oddly, one of the outdoor roach species doesn’t disturb me at all--I’ve only ever seen it outdoors, it doesn’t look much like the disgusting indoor ones, it’s extremely photophobic, and it’s common where old wood’s undisturbed, so I see it mostly running away from me when I’m cleaning up future garden space. By far the preferred view, but not welcome in a planter! Particularly considering that "away" means either deeper into the material or into another planter nearby (space constraints mean that many of my planters touch).

The other one is worse, so undeniably a cockroach that I’m likely to run screaming, or at least go find something else to do.



But the ten gallon planter with all that disgustingly thriving life held eight gallons of finished compost plus a bit of nutritive mulch, at a time when my plants need compost and mulching. This method can be used in any container and takes advantage of whatever species may be present. All it needs is a layer of soil and a weight on top, a container with solid sides and bottom drainage, and a place to rest out of the way. It can be stacked, but need not be. Placement is equally flexible: sun or shade, on soil or grass or even concrete so long as it’s within a foot or so of life. It’s a slow-compost process with hot-compost speeds, thanks to bokashi. Not as fast as managed hot compost with bokashi, but comparable to the usual figures for hot compost. Less than three months for this split harvest.



Imagine the ad pitch: Any size, any volume, any container, anywhere (outside). Slow-compost ease, hot-compost speed. Sounds great! But the fine print on this one might be too great a barrier for me. Roaches and grubs and earwigs, oh my!?



If it makes the plants happy...maybe. But I think I’m happier with my towers, even if they do take more infrastructure.


DSF

What's worse than vacation pictures?

How about bad compost-ana shots? No, I don't mean failed compost--just bad photos. Since it seems I can't keep even a really good camera alive for more than two years, nor take a single good photo in that time, I went with the cheapest little keyfob camera I could find.

Hey, if I can't see Repulsive through the tiny little coke-glass viewfinder, maybe I won't wince. As much.






This is what my tower-made vermicompost typically looks like. Unfiltered, not wet, solid enough to cake but not heavy. No worms, as they've moved up to the next planter, but though I never see any cocoons, they must be there, since baby worms hatch in the bags if I package this stuff up.





This is vermi-mud. Those folks who water their wormeries are probably familiar with this; in my case, it's the result of heavy fall rains backing up a reservoir and then some. It's been drained and drying for nearly a week now...






This is what the BSFL folks have started to call "grub pudding." I tried to get a picture that shows the little craters and all the tiny grubs still sluggishly moving, but if I didn't succeed, I don't think I'll mourn long. That blur in the lower left corner is a grub squirming toward me! Yecch. (-G-)

Grub pudding may look a lot like soggy vermicompost, but they are not the same.

The pictured pudding is finished--the grubs still present will die if I don't do anything, as there isn't sufficient nourishment remaining for them to mature, and it's too warm and too wet in that container for them to go dormant. The grubs can't process this material any further. But that isn't to say this is a finished compost.

A general-purpose dictionary might; but in a gardener's lexicon, compost is safe to use in nearly all situations and beneficial ditto. Oh, there are exceptions, plants that need to be starved and so on, but say compost to the average gardener and the matching concept is of a homogeneous, stable, variably textured but typically humus-like material rich in plant-accessible nutrients, that can be applied as top- or side-dressing, used as mulch or mixed into the soil, with no safety concerns and few contraindications.

Grub pudding is not stable; adding it to plantings will usually result in nutrient sequestration, seldom (if ever!) a desired outcome. Nor is it likely to improve soil tilth, another of compost's benefits. Grub poo is too fine to hold air, though water it can do. Then there's the nourishment concern; ignoring the sequestration issue, there are some plant-accessible nutrients, but how many and of what sort can be difficult to determine. In large part, it depends on what you fed the grubs; also, on what non-food techniques you employ. And as if that's not discouraging enough, there may be undesirable bacteria in finished grub pudding, also depending on what you fed the grubs, and how large the colony*.






Speaking of feeding. This is worm-food waiting to be fed. UCG from a coffeeshop, dried leaves from a chem-free neighbor, and AIM. Poor photo even in context, I know, but the leaves are pale thanks to mycelial bloom, beginning to break down.






This is a bokashi bag that should have been planted about a month ago. Don't know how much you can tell from this picture, but the bag is still identifiably a bag, while the materials within are well on their way to homogeneous etc. And, unlike grub pudding, nutrient sequestration doesn't seem to be an issue--I'm guessing the bokashi juice supplies nourishment to the plant for that first span.






And finally, a recipe I'm going to have to try again: one part each bokashi, dried leaves, and coco coir, fed to worms. This isn't a finished vermicast product, but a lightweight potting mix with a lively microbial profile and incredible results in my just-barely-started seedling mix tests. Not quite ready to use, as there are still identifiable bits, but that's my determining factor. Takes about a month, comparable to hot-composting, but with at least some of the benefits of vermicompost, and not so rich it can't be used straight (which finished vermicompost cannot be, as a seeding medium). This batch looks about a week away from harvest-time.

And I just couldn't resist the image with one Verne-bit too stubborn to leave. Sun had largely set, anyway, so not much light to bother him, and I don't think worms are photo-phobic in the other sense.

There really was a reason for this post, but I forget. Maybe I need a vacation...

DSF



*I don't worry about undesirable microbes, since Repulsive receives generous doses of EM. Nor is that additional processing a problem. These days, my grubbery is the top of a tower, with a wormery planter just beneath; all I have to do is harvest now and then. It's not perfect--fewer adult BSF find the unit than are necessary for a really vigorous population. if the goal is just to dispose of food, it works, but I have an experiment I've been planning for winter, and I may resort to bait bags once before the weather turns, to ensure a large enough colony.

Leaping Lizards!

Okay, so the Mediterranean House Gecko didn't jump--but I did. Opened the temporarily rampless grubbery and found one of these guys clinging to the side and chowing down, presumably on the baby grubs as I don't think his mouth is large enough for big ones. I was braced for the sight of disgustingly squirming banded grubs, but not in a starring role as breakfast! Yecch.

Note to self: duct tape. Since apparently plugs are not sufficient protection against intruders, though they do keep the grubs from wandering. (Of course, I could just go install that ramp, but where's the fun in that? -G-)

Queasily,
DSF


[image and species ID linked from California Herps.com]

Loquats!

Loquats!

One afternoon during loquat season, I sat out back with my prep scenario: decent music, cat for company, bag of just-picked loquats I'd hit with the hose by way of washing, big bowl of acidulated water, knife, and an empty planter for the culls and pith and stems and seeds. When I was finished, that planter was nearly full, mostly of seeds but with the odd bit of more easily compostable matter. Seemed kind of silly to carry the planter out to the apartment compost bin, and it would have overflowed a worm-tower tray, so I tossed some worms into the planter instead. Added an inch or so of soil to keep out bugs, and stuck it on top of the current pre-composting worm-food unit.

A few months later, I had a young thicket of loquats outgrowing their birthplace. A coworker mentioned a need for some saplings, so I harvested a handful for her, then more for another woman who saw me delivering the first set. That didn't go nearly enough toward thinning the planter, so I sat down the other day with a bunch of homemade container mix and seedling pots. An embarassment of riches—I ended up with three dozen individually potted loquat saplings, plus several clumps too intertwined to separate into singletons. Keeping them watered is something of a challenge! They take up much more room this way, and I don't have a single place suitable to put them all even temporarily. Some friends with land have offered to take many of them off my hands, as they don't like their privacy fence and would be happier with plants to obscure it. I just have to figure out how to keep them watered in situ. Lots of organic matter would help, but I'm running short again. Suppose I could buy some compost from the local organic garden center, but I was really trying not to do that. Of course, I didn't have three dozen trees in mind when I was figuring how much I'd need this year.

Note to self: the answer to that question is always "more." 'Nuff said.

The Cabinet Garden

Garden cabinet image from Luxury Housing Trends, which has managed to put ideas into my head though not (yet) any new holes in my wallet

Some friends offered me a bit of space in which to garden, with very clear guidelines: their space, but my project; do not ask them to do anything with it; tomatoes. I started small, using a repurposed old wooden kitchen cabinet with the doors off to frame a side-by-side-by-side test where failure would be nothing worse than dead plants--no off-odors, no insects, nothing weird. Used mostly scrounged materials, plus bokashi and composts made in Bucketville (not enough of those, as I was trying for equal volumes and ran short of one). And because their place isn't exactly next door, I set it up to require no more than weekly attention.

Which to me means raised bed with slow-release nutrients mixed in + olla pots + covers. One quart olla per tomato plant seems to be the practical minimum, and when the days are routinely 100+, twice a week watering is a really good idea, but until the triple-digits hit I'd been averaging ten days between waterings and the plants were still producing fruits. Not, mind, as many as I'd have liked, but I've never yet had enough tomatoes, and considering the cheap soil base and inadequate organics volumes, I'd call it promising enough to be worth extending the test.

As, apparently, do my friends, who have given me permission to put in a few other plants. Including some fall tomatoes, naturally, with which I shall be planting bokashi bags made for the purpose, with ratios of 4:1 and 8:1. The 8:1 test produced earlier and more tomatoes than the compost or vermicompost with or without worms, you see; I'd like to know how much wiggle-room there is in that recipe, and whether different ratios produce results different enough to be worth noting, but mostly, I just want more tomatoes, so this time, every plant gets an olla and a bag.

...now if only I had a few more cabinets...

Grubbing Around

Image from Hooks & Lattice, with which company I have no affiliation--but there's an anniversary coming up... (hint, hint)

Weird week here in Bucketville. Among other things, I had multiple requests for BSFL! Not all this week's requests were for grubberies, some folks just wanted grubs: To try out as feed for a particularly fussy pet reptile, for a fishing trip, and to replenish an industrial-sized retail unit from which I'm guessing there's been some over-enthusiastic harvesting, plus a pet waste disposal unit and a bird-feed "farm" (that's two separate things, at different locations, even).

So I spent Saturday morning playing chauffer to Repulsive's offspring, after a session of harvesting the disgusting things. Seemed like a good time to retire the various and sundry experiments, since 1) I've settled on a permanent design, and 2) it's a lot easier to secure a single unit against raccoon and possum incursions. Since the standard adapted bokashi-bucket design works, though it's no longer my preferred model, I just handed that one over to the folks who wanted a bird-feeder hatchery. The coir-liner test works very well, too, but I used scrounged materials for the first model, and the result was far too large for my space or needs. Rather than deal with the nightmare of separating hatchlings and feeding grubs from the exploded coir mat, I passed that on, plus such harvested grubs as I had left once all the other requests were filled, to the folks with the Bio-Pod. Hey, they asked for grubs, they didn't specify mode of delivery!

But I liked the results of the coir so much that I actually went out and (gasp!) spent money buying a smaller coir basket liner for the grubbery's permanent installation. Not just a mat to go on the bottom, a natural alternative to the synthetic mesh I've seen in Bio-Pods, but a large enough single piece of matting to cover the bottom and sides, all the way up to the single row of small holes I've had to admit are necessary for practicality.

Apparently, laziness beats squeamishness in the end--I used to set out bait bags for the layers because I couldn't handle the thought of grubs using air- or laying-holes to escape a feeding unit; but bait bags have to be emptied and refilled, not to mention protected from the cursed four-foots, and I got tired of it. Other grubbery models have pipes to let layers into the bucket, but that was way too much for me. So I watched the adults awhile, to see where they preferred to lay. Which seems to be into tiny holes with free space behind them and damp protected space just below, plus the food source, naturally. Explains why I never had much luck with cardboard laying disks: I left them too accessible. Sigh.

The only problem with the coir liner--unless one has a sudden need to harvest immature grubs in significant quantity--is that the material expands more than you might expect, reducing the bucket's effective volume. But I'd rather have a slightly larger container with no escapees than a smaller one that requires warning labels. And this is about as close to hands-free as I'm likely to get; the necessary maintenance during a working season has been reduced to feeding the grubbery, and exchanging a full catchment bottle for an empty one and hanging the birdfeeder. No draining reservoirs, no grubbing about with eggs or feeding populations, no need to remediate for moisture or carbon levels. Assuming the occasional addition of EM in some form, there's no off-odors. And almost no chance of grubs on the lid when you open it, though I can't say no risk ever of seeing the things. (Drat! And it was so close to perfect. -G-)

Probably ought to buy a new camera so I can post pictures of things. Ah, well. Repulsive's permanent home consists of:

1) A small lidded bucket with holes in the bottom and around the bottom inch of the sides, plus a single row of small holes beneath the rim.
2) A coir bucket liner reaching up to the row of holes.
3) A collection ramp, in this case half-inch tubing and threading to fasten into a soda bottle, with the part of the tube inside the bucket cut in half to create a U shaped ramp the maturing grubs can climb.
4) A largish planter filled with cheap dirt or soil-based potting mix (at least as much soil as the bucket would hold, though in a large enough planter you could mix some carbon after that requirement is met), into which the bucket is set at least three inches deep and as far down as desired so long as there's no chance of the upper row of holes being buried or completely blocked.
5) Optional but recommended, a two-inch layer of good potting mix and some plants. It looks better, but more importantly, it helps keep the predators away. Between the grubs and the worms that will move in even if you don't add any, it's a protein-rich feast--and birds, raccoons, possums, toads, and lizards have all found Repulsive in some of his less-protected iterations.

Considering what I choose to feed Repulsive, I'm going with decoratives rather than edible plants around his tower. It's not my usual preference, but I do have a few, gifts or volunteers or flowers to keep the landfolks happy, and some of those should be tolerant enough of salts and acidity to work here. (Salts from the foods; acidity more from the EM I add than anything.) If I were less squeamish, I suppose some edibles might be possible. Red orache springs to mind, but it's certainly not the only likely crop. Guess maybe I could try it. There's no requirement that I actually eat what I grow, right? Well, maybe.

And maybe there's another experiment to try: coir liner on the sides but not the bottom of the bucket. Which would allow the worms greater access to what the soldier fly folks have taken to calling "grub pudding," while still giving the mama layers their preferred egg-despoting space.

Just what I needed, more grubbing around. They do sell coir by the roll...

DSF

I really hope Verne can’t count

Firefly
Year’s first firefly sighting on the porch Tuesday night. Not so happy the following morning, as that night was also the year’s first major possum raid. I’d harvested a bucket early Tuesday [next post], about three and a half gallons of dark, moist compost-rich soil—or maybe soil-rich compost, considering the starting ratios. Whatever you care to call it, it was still too damp to pot with, so I set the filled planters of the stuff out to air awhile.

I didn’t mix in any vermicompost or scatter cocoons or anything, but Verne’s pretty much claimed the porch for his own, so I wasn’t at all surprised to find a respectable mini-wriggle in the planter I checked for readiness in the evening. What I should have done then was to stack and weight those planters until the weekend, when I can sheet-dry the compost. What I did was shrug and move on. Smiling at the firefly.

Sigh. Still, not like Verne’s been decimated, or that the possum wouldn't have found me sooner or later anyway.

DSF

After the Bucket: Brown Bag Bokashi #2

--image from PaperMart.com, in case anyone should need to buy a gross of the things--

This year, some friends have loaned me garden space. Still don't have any holes in the ground, but I do have some lovely raised beds! Experiments therein must be relatively likely to succeed, and absolutely guaranteed not to fail spectacularly: dead plants would be a regrettable but an acceptable outcome; dumpster-stench and insect incursions, on the other hand...

So brown bag bokashi #2 was born. Unlike #1, there's no dirt placed in the bag; also unlike the first, this method uses a moisture-retaining cover. The cover speeds the process a great deal; didn't notice any heating, but I rather suspect that's observational failure (don't have a recording thermometer, what can I say). This is nowhere near sufficiently vetted to risk prized roses or rare herbs, but for basic garden veg, it's being rolled out to bucketville's satellites as fast as I can manage. So far, it looks like each package of lightweight, nourishing rooting medium/plant food/soil amendment can take the place of an equal volume of potting mix, so long as there's at least two inches of soil for the start to root into, plus an inch of something--cheap dirt, fill, shredded newspaper, bark mixed with gravel--at the bottom. And it's a whole lot cheaper than even cheap dirt for me! Friends, freecycle, and my local grocery get me the bags; my dollar-store roll of twine will last a year; and the bokashi I have already.



Ingredients: Eight parts random sweepings (the first one was mostly oak pollen, given my area, with the usual bits of dirt and dried leaves I count on to add all those extra microbes) + one part cured bokashi, in a paper grocery bag.

Preparation: Dump the damp bokashi and dry sweepings into the paper grocery bag, roll the top down, and tie it up with hemp or some other natural-material (compostable/decomposable) twine. Stick the assembled package into a plastic grocery bag, the handles tied to make a moisture-conserving, mostly protective casing that is not wholly airtight.

Rest: about a week. (If you're feeling nervous, run a quick pH test on the wettest part of the bag.)

Use: Dump the paper package, now soggy and faintly scented of vinegar, into a planter prepared with drainage and about an inch of really cheap dirt. Fill in the remaining space with a decent container mix, including at least two inches for the plant to root into, and plant olla pots and starts as desired.

Verdict: success! The squash start I used for my first test didn't curl up and die, drop its leaves, develop spots or off-colors, or show any of the other signs of stress. It's a touch smaller than the optimized control but not at all stunted, and began to blossom a few days before its larger cousin, though not so soon as to cause concern. Altogether a compact, healthy specimen. Repeat tests have not been underway for all that long, but early results are comparable.

As with all my paper and cardboard techniques, this may not be the greenest of all possible options, but it's suitable for some situations. In this case, it allows a scalable, portable, soil-free harnessing of bokashi for those folks who, like me, may have no recourse but to purchase soil, or who simply prefer to garden without it. Assuming the bokashi is thoroughly cured before bagging, there's no reason at all one couldn't use a coir-based potting mix around the bag instead of soil, even in an indoor planting.



DSF

Someone please remind me to update this after the growing season, so I can report on long-term results!

A drop in the bucket bottle

As I posted recently, I bought a two-gallon pump sprayer to make bokashi juice application easier this year. And the first thing I did (after rinsing out the bottle) was to hook a 1/8 cup plastic measuring spoon to the collar, with a note to myself written on it in permanent marker. It says, simply, 1x.

1/8 cup. That's how much bokashi juice goes into two gallons of water here at the house of buckets. It sometimes seem like too little, but it's right--the ratio's usually given as 1:100, but that ratio changes depending on the authority and intended usage. Specifically, for "pot plants" or container plantings, many of the retail sites recommend using only half as much as for trees and outdoor gardens. Outdoor container plants aren't addressed. By, so far as I can tell, anyone.

Argh. -G-

Naturally, I prefer a mix that's safe for what I'm doing, and bokashi juice is probably a supplement more than a primary food-source for my plants these days, so I'm erring on the side of caution. Don't want to burn any roots or wrigglers!

[image from Ace Hardware, as is the sprayer pictured.]

There’s a hole in my bucket wallet

Blew the garden budget again, though not by so much as you might suppose; aside from a pack of tomato seedlings I couldn’t resist, all this year’s new stuff has been or will be started from seed, much of it bought locally. Or produced and collected here on-site, like the shepherd’s purse, hyacinth vine, and amaranth. New purchases included a few different sorts of tomatoes—not that I expect them all to thrive, but so I can be sure of having any, and to try the different leaves—a couple of edible curiosities (eggplants shaped like miniature pumpkins? I couldn’t resist!), and a bunch of things the standard American grocery-shopper has never heard of, plus one or two sometimes considered weeds.

Sadly, I don’t think this is the year I’ll be growing enough produce to skip the greengrocers entirely (small spaces=smallish yields, though bokashi’s helping), so I’ve chosen as usual to focus on things I can’t get there or that I can’t afford to get there.

A few durable goods went into the virtual shopping cart, including a pressure sprayer to make bokashi juice application easier. Plus, I bought a few more bags of dirt—given the quality, I don’t think it merits the label soil—though not for immediate use. I am planning to refill the planter tower and let the feral worm colony play awhile, and to set up a test in temporary vermicomposting if I can talk a particular friend into loaning me the space. Also picked up, from the same retailer and brand as the dirt, some “humus” (those quotes denoting doubt) for a few different tests.

Can’t quite bring myself to admit the total here; more than I meant to spend, but less than the season cost of a single share in a CSA in this area. And unlike with the CSA, there’s no risk I’ll end up with a box full of things I don’t eat.

It could have been much worse. High-quality chem-free compost typically makes up a fair percentage of my total cost; so far this year, I’ve bought not so much as a single quart. Between bokashi and Verne (and George), there’s been no need—though that may change once the raised beds are in. Too, I usually end up buying eighty or so quarts of potting soil every spring, to replace the worst of the potted stuff and top off the permanent planters, and until this year have always bought the best I can afford, since I know how important it is. But thanks to last fall’s cheap-as-dirt test, that hasn’t been necessary either.

So wherefore the post-shopping-spree regret? Well, there were a lot of seeds. And though the local drought is officially over, that’s more likely a temporary condition than not, so I’m determined to fit out all my containers with some form of irrigation, preferably primary though I’ll take supplementary if that’s all I can get. Which in many cases equals additional cost, for clay pots to plant with the transplants, or hoses to connect to an external reservoir, or more nested-bucket sets and wicks and hollow pipes and things to make SIPs.

On the other side of the balance sheet, Verne has more than proved himself worth the one-time investment. I don’t think I’ll ever bother with an indoor wormery again, and neither are worms my choice for a primary landfill-diversion scenario, but outdoors, he’s doing his part to maintain soil health in the towers and planters, keeping me from having to replace soil as often (or at all? Too soon to say), and since he’s enthusiastic about his business, there’s no need for me to buy any vermicompost or vermicompost tea this season, either. Or, obviously, worms.

The bokashi’s worth the cost, too. Naturally –G–. Though EM-1 and molasses (and bran, for the standard recipe) are repeated costs, it’s cheaper to buy them than finished composts, fertilizers, and “instant” plant foods. Not to mention the non-monetary benefits.

One of these seasons, I’ll stick to my budget. Really. Maybe if I just start with a higher number…? Oh, that sounds like a bad idea!

DSF

[image from Botanical Interests, which is the right company, though mine were purchased from a local retailer]

Pardon me, can you spare some trash?

It's a temporary situation, but still extremely odd: I have a garbage shortage! Haven't been hauling my workplace organics home, as I'm just not that dedicated to the cause, so bokashi is from household stuff only. Add in a couple of meals out, plus a single-use press cup for those mornings when I'm running late (which would be all of them -G-) that means the grounds go with me, and the in-house organic's down to half a gallon or so per week. And then add in the fruit flies, I think from some too-cheap-to-pass-by citrus, and the situation becomes dire indeed.

The infested organics went into a salvage bucket--a planter, really, for the necessary bottom drainage, with a thick layer of soil, then lots of extra EM bokashi "bran" and the all-too-living bokashi, topped with three inches of soil and a weight, and stuck under the deck to rest for at least the next couple of months. Probably longer than necessary to get rid of the short-lived flying pests, but I'd rather not take chances.

Half a gallon of bokashi isn't enough to feed the en-towered iterations of Verne, let alone begin to replace the amendments I've been using in the spring gardening, and there are new garden spaces this year, so I'll need more still. Barring raiding the neighbors bins (eww!), whatever am I to do?

1) Change the menu for Verne's next meal. UCG and dried leaves, spritzed with AEM, should keep the wriggle happy--and it doesn't have to be at my standard 1:1 ratio, either. The reason I've been feeding bokashi to worms is to convert the fermented "waste" to something more useful given my particular needs, but that's not the only way to acquire that useful substance!

2) Substitute weeds for kitchen waste. Yes, that's what I did with the failed 100 degree bucket, but with temperatures not yet in the 70s, failure is unlikely. If I want a bucket of wettish fermented vegetable matter, cleavers past their use-by date and random thistles should do for a base.

3) Use the cured bokashi as a compost accelerator. That is, mix a larger volume of dried leaves and fresh garden waste, or some other combination of greens and browns, in the approved giant pile or bin, and stir in my few scant cups of ferment to kick-start the heating reaction. It's a little soon in the year to try the black plastic planter routine, but I do have all the supplies, and again, the 1:1 ratio I use for bokashi and dried leaves is a convenient guide, not a rule--if the goal is compost, perhaps 10:10:1 green/brown/fermented might do as well. Or 8:15:1, even.

4) Hit the coffeeshops. UCG is a lovely "green," despite its undeniably brown color, and is as well the only non-carbon source I've yet found to use as a carrier for microbes. Too, coffeeshops are used to gardeners asking for their UCG, so it's a little less odd than asking the neighborhood cafe if they wouldn't mind setting aside their food waste for me. Though, really, if this goes on...


DSF

[empty yellow bucket image from Doc's Frugal World, since the link seems to have vanished from the earlier post.]

It's In the Bag

Saturday morning's garden chore was a good deal messier than I'd expected--in part from lack of practice and weather conditions, but also lack of forethought. Next time will be better, and there will certainly be a next time. This was notable largely for being my first garden bag.

Since posting my intent to try this, I've acquired two small testing spaces to plant them in, one I'll be administering, and one that will adopted by someone else after I've started it. Haven't decided yet whether I'll be trying the same mix and technique in both or not, but it was time to decant a curing bucket and I had all the necessary supplies, so I figured I might as well mix up a bag and worry about the details later.

Problem the first: declaring a top. The paper leaf and lawn bags are designed to stand on their narrow bottom for ease of filling, but to use as a garden, you would logically set it on its side. If I wanted a thick soil layer in the top of the bag once it was placed, I'd have to take care how the bag was filled, stored, and transported. After a few minutes of fiddling, I decided it wasn’t going to happen that day; for this bag, I’d do limited soil mixed in with the leaves and bokashi, and add more soil at planting-time. Which meant there was no need to declare a top immediately. (Phew!)

Problem the second: "dried" leaves. Our drought has officially been declared at an end--temporarily, if you ask me, but that's irrelevant. What matters is that, while it wasn't actually raining Saturday, the sky'd been doing what my grandparents would call "spritzing" off and on the past few days. Some of my leaves were damp enough to make kitchen gloves a better option than the ones made for the garden. Not sure how much excess moisture that added, but paper's breathable enough that it won't go anaerobic; my major concern was that the soggy, relatively heavy, acidic leaf-mats, together with the wettish bokashi, might damage the bag’s integrity too much for me to able to neatly move it later. Guess we'll see.

Problem the third: vermiguilt 2010. A garden bag needs soil; I decided this particular bag needed to start with about a gallon of what some gardeners call "living soil," soil with microbes and perhaps some macro-digesters, plus organic foods for same in all stages of decomposition, and the odd inorganic for bulk and drainage. Procuring this was simple: The planter stack is now shorter by one layer, its contents gone into the bag. Worms and all. While more caring and reasonable vermi-people might be willing to separate out the worms from the food/bedding/humus/soil/whatever, I am not. In the first place, I'm lazy. In the second, garlic-scented worms? Okay, so they're not so repellent as BSFL, I still have no desire to handle the things. And in the third, it's not like they're scarce around here, not these days. Verne's done so very much colonizing I recently accused him of having gone feral. (Was he ever domesticated? Sorry, not on point.) He wriggles is way into any welcoming environment, and there's at least a chance the smarter ones might manage to survive the bag, if they're careful, maybe. Then again, maybe not. Fresh-cured bokashi is acidic, plus there's an almost inevitable heating reaction when mixing cured bokashi and dried leaves. Not sure about wet dried leaves, but if moisture content's the only retarding factor, the reaction should occur once sufficient evaporation has taken place. The bag's not tight-packed, so the reaction will fizzle--nowhere near enough dirt in there to add significantly to the pressure--but will it end in time to keep the worms from cooking? No idea, hence the guilt. But whether or not this particular set of Verne-aggregates thrives, I'm confident more will want to move in once the contents have cooked awhile.

Which brings me to problem the fourth: storage. Ideally, a garden bag might be assembled in place, wedged into a bed-box and left to cure. But that's not yet possible for me, as the raised-bed dimensions have not been marked out in either testing space, nor the edging materials acquired. Leaf and lawn bags are too identifiable to leave them in plain sight, since helpful neighbors might cart them down to street-level to be hauled away, or other greedy gardeners take them to add to their own compost piles. I had thought to just stick this bag beneath the porch, but that’s perhaps not the best option with our imminent inclement weather--better it be under a tarp and on something that will shed water, I think. And, um, maybe a wee bit insulated for the worms’ and microbes’ health? The curse of the groundhog is upon us here in Austin, you know...

Might not have been the best time to start this bag. But, hey, I'll learn something from the experience! Even negative results can be helpful, and about the worst that'll happen here is that I'll have to rebag the bag.

DSF

--image from the brilliantly named GardenSnob

Rigged to Succeed

Last fall, I bought the cheapest potting soil available to see how much of an improvement bokashi could make. Some of that soil, layered with bokashi, was put to as immediate a use as feasible; a few gallons of it I set aside to rest until spring.

The placement of those resting planters may have presented an unfair advantage. Though I wasn’t intending to cheat! It’s just that I have so little space (especially since I started measuring my life by the bucket -G-), and the matched set of five filled one-gallon planters seemed so very suited to stacking, so I stacked the things. And where else would a stack of planters go but next to the worm towers?

The first of my seed orders arrived last week, and there was a break in the weather today—must be time for sowing! Or at least mixing a seedling soil. Wandered out to bucketville intent upon collecting a bit of vermicompost (not pure vermicast, as that’s too strong for seedlings), maybe a bit of composted bokashi, and some potting soil. Figured I might add some Spanish moss for airflow, sand for certain crops, all the usual, but first the basic dirt-and-nutrients.

Verne, Sexton, and the third planter tower I keep pretending is only temporary and have thus not named were all overdue for feeding and ready for a harvest, so I collected some finished vermicompost (and such vermicast as had precipitated down into the reservoir layer). Reaching for planters gets to be kind of automatic by the time you’ve deconstructed three towers, so I’m not sure the difference in design really registered, though I did note the absence of a plant at the tower-top. A clay saucer?

Oh, right, I thought, this is the spring soil test. Well, it’s not really spring, but last-frost’s not too far off, let’s see what we’ve got. So I tipped the saucer off and hauled the top planter down to take a look. What I saw was yet more red wigglers living up to their name. Not, mind, so many as in the established worm towers, but probably enough to start a new wormery with. And I saw the same in every planter in the stack. Without the trivets and internal bracing I installed in the tower wormeries, too—apparently, composting worms are far less sensitive to pressure than I’d assumed. The soil was fairly wet, but responded easily to gentle forking, the ideal cake-crumb texture so often cited and so rarely seen, at least by me. Some volume reduction had occurred, as the bokashi broke down and the worms ate and the storm-waters flushed loose bits away, but I figure I’ve got about four gallons of incredible soil ready for the planting.

Can’t say just now how it compares to high-quality retail soil, as I haven’t got any of that. I did plan to buy some, but...why? My last batch of in-house mix from the Natural Gardener didn’t look as healthy as this! Feels like I’d just be throwing money away.

Not buying any worms this year, either. But I might be forced to invest in a few more seeds...

It never ends, does it?

Happy spring is about to spring,

DSF

The Add-A-Bag Garden?

We're enduring a small spate of seasonal weather here in Austin, so I can't do anything about this idea right now except record it--but I've just found my next post-bucket experiment, and I can't wait! Hardly revolutionary, nothing more than a small tweak, really, but if it works...

1) Choose a compostable bag* suitably sized for a determined garden space.

If you're a small-space gardener, that may well be a doubled grocery bag; folks with room for larger raised beds could use leaf and lawn bags or those canvas sacks used for coffee beans and other staples. Not sure about compostable plastics, but it might be worth a try.

2) Combine well-cured bokashi, dried leaves or shredded paper, and soil or a soil-based potting mix in the bag. Close and set in place. (If using a grocery bag, roll top down, then wrap bag with twine and tie, and placed with the rolled side down.) No need to clear the ground first, though if your greenery is especially vigorous, a layer of cardboard or several newspapers might not be a bad idea.

3) Secure and let sit the requisite two weeks? (There's a testable variable! But, sure, why not. Allows for starting some seedlings or a trip to the nursery.) Then,

4) Using a spade or shears, cut V-shaped holes into the top of the bag. Into each hole, insert a spadeful of best-quality potting mix and a transplant. Olla pot(s), if using, should be placed now, too. The garden bag having been planted, it should be treated as appropriate for the region and conditions. And finally,

5) Repeat when your next bucket's cured.

It's the Add-a-Bead model of gardening: Find a spot, plunk down a bag, go on your merry way. Come back in a fortnight to plant the bag-in-place and set another beside it. Continue until all the world's a garden. ...yeah, okay, maybe not. But every time I help build a raised bed, I'm surprised at how much dirt it takes. This way, you could start with such soil as you had and acquire more as the situation permits.


Will this work? No reason why not, though there are several variables to be tested. Is it worth collecting paper bags if you're not a slightly obsessed bokashi-er? I think so, though, again, this is as yet only a rainy-dayweek's dream.

Like planter-finishing, this does require messing around with the cured bokashi, though only once. (Oh, joy: another test! Using disposable liners here.) Still, it's not like dumping a bucket into a bag of leaves is all that difficult. Bags do mean less time-in-sight than with planter-finishing, and using the bag as a planter means less mucking about with soils, too. It's altogether a neat--pun intended--solution to the eternal question of post-bucket protocols.

With free or repurposed bags, plus dried leaves and shredded paper, this can greatly reduce the expense of creating a raised bed, and allow for that cost, as well as the physical labor, to be spread out over time. Not to mention keeping that carbon-source out of the landfill where it does no one any good at all. (Hey, it's phone book season again! Home delivery of entirely useless but easily compostable pages. Yippee?)

How much dirt to add? Well, ideally there'd be at least three inches of soil on what will be the top of the bag when it's placed--once you've got that, then for the rest, I'd probably start with my usual one cup per half-gallon of bokashi, plus an additional half-gallon of dried leaves or quart of shredded paper. I've found that to work quite well in producing slow composts and worm-food. More dirt won't hurt a thing, it's just the most expensive ingredient in that mix, so I tend to ration it. Put it up top, where it'll do the most good, and let the organics break down below. Though there are limits; I seem to recall the lasagne garden people citing six inches as the maximum between soil layers, and while this wouldn't be a pure compost layer, that's not an unreasonable place to start.

Not that it's an issue with grocery bags, but there's always the chance someone will fall for my reverse fence-painting line. "Hey, you know what'd be fun? I could come install a raised-bed garden on your property?" -G-

And, oh!, think of what a demonstration garden this might make. If it works, it's simple enough for kindergarten classes. Step right up and take a look at The Clean Your Plate Garden. So easy, even five-year-olds can do it! How's that for a pitch?

DSF


*No, the photo's not of a compostable bag. That's a "construction debris bag," as featured in a story a couple of years back on TreeHugger and GroovyGreen. And if I can get my hands on something in that line, or a more common landscape cloth bag, I'll certainly extend the test.