Yay! Last night we had the first real, homegrown, organic salad out of our own sustainable little garden! No lettuce that has been trucked 1500 miles, no pesticides, nothing. It was two different kinds of lettuce, kale, beet greens and spinach. It was fantastic. I was so proud of it I was just beaming. I know it's a lot of work to go through for a salad, but boy was it worth it.
I started Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver the other day, and I am hooked. I'm so impressed; the premise of the book is that the are living on an old farm in Virginia somewhere, and they decide that for one year they are only going to eat things made locally; with in their state or as close to home as possible. It's a pretty daunting task, especially when you have two kids to deal with. I'm fascinated. As much as I love the idea though, I don't know if I could convince Marc to do that. He's all in favor of whatever I want to do; but like he said, it's not his dream, and he doesn't want to be forced to help me with some monumental task. Sustainable farming is a physically demanding full time job. I understand that, and I respect it. I love him too much not to respect his wishes. But anyway, it just makes me feel good about what I'm doing; I feel like I'm contributing, and I have to believe that one person can make a difference. If we don't have that, there's no hope for anybody.
On a side note, I am back to the same problem I had last year with the self watering containers being festering cesspools of mosquito larvae. I think I'm going to try the guppy thing again, only more of them this year. Last year I only had 6 per box, and I don't think all of them made it all season. Maybe more of them will keep the mosquitioes in check. They were pretty vicious out there yesterday. I haven't had any luck with the oil method, (putting a tablespoon full of oil in the water is supposed to disrupt the surface tension enough that they can't breed in the water somehow) it didn't seem to have any effect and it made a mess. Obviously, no mosquito dunks since it's a food source, but there's got to be something else I can try. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
I am also ready to toss in the towel with my worm bin. It is a stinky mess, and I don't know what to do about it. I added more paper, but it's still gross. I was going to mix it in, but then I read that I'm not supposed to disturb the worms too much. I added some peat moss, to absorb excess moisture. It's just not working, and I don't know what to do. The worms are doing well, there are lots of them, but I'm not seeing any castings per se. It doesn't look anything like the worm bins I am seeing in pictures online. It's just gross. I was thinking that if I had a proper "bin" it might do better, but I don't know if I'm willing to gamble another $100 to find out it's the same thing. I think I'm going to drill more drainage holes, and put it up on blocks off the ground to increase the air circulation. That might help. OK, helpful suggestions, now is the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment