Anyway, I thought the inconsistent egg-laying might have something to do with the lack of protein in their diet. Since it rained, Luis and I went down our street and picked up earthworms by the curb. We got a good handful. The worms were going to die anyway, so they might as well die for a good cause right? The chickens loved them. The handful of worms lasted all of 10 seconds. In other news, my roses are doing beautifully. My favorite one though still hasn't sent out any long shoots like it did two years ago. I wonder if I didn't prune it enough. Sad. Anyway, this got me thinking about everything I can do this year in my patio on a budget here in San Diego.
First, vermiculture! I love composting. It's something that makes absolute sense to me. Why should I have to spend money to buy back fertilizer when all it is garbage that I throw away? I have tried composting on and off several times since I learned it in 5th grade (2nd thing besides duck and cover that I took away from elementary school), all with really good results. Whether it smells or not doesn't matter. Even if you ignore it, sooner or later, kitchen scraps will turn into awesome dirt. Seriously, how cool is that? I remember two years ago, my mom and I opened up a garbage can worth of compost (which by the way, does not make a very good container as I had no idea dirt can be so heavy), and it smelled so fresh and earthy. It felt good to dump it all onto our vegetable patches.
Anyway, I spent a good part of yesterday evening googling a DIY worm bin. I was all set to go beg/barter for a few nursery trays, or scavenge at thrift stores for some storage bins, when I remembered that awhile back Luis' friend, Laura, wanted to give me her worms. So I traded a bottle of my homemade vanilla extract for her system, with a bottle of homemade red wine vinegar too. The worms weren't all dead, though I still would've taken it even if it smelled or had no worms. It simply meant I didn't have to buy containers. Anyway, turns out that it still had some worms and a ton of casting. Perfect for my new garden.
On the way home, we picked up some free newspaper to make bedding for the worms. I also scooped up some leaves around the apartment complex. Now they are all set, nice and comfy in their new home and will eat and reproduce. Hopefully.
For the garden, Luis is creating two planters for me out of wood from shipping pallets. That will be a work in progress for the next few days, which hopefully won't turn into weeks.
Meanwhile, I am planning how and what I'm going to plant in the planters. Ultimately, I would like to take advantage of the size of our patio to have summer dinners and not just have bare walls and concrete to stare at.
In the first planter, I wanted to plant shade plants, predominantly, a maidenhair fern (which I'm probably going to harvest some rhizomes from my now four-year old plant back in LA), periwinkle (maybe) and something else. Again, in progress. It'll be a delicate looking planter reminiscent of something out of a forest. Or at least what my imagination thinks of as a forest where A Midnight Summer's Dream took place.
The second and larger one will be a vegetable/herbs planter. Based on the size of the boards of of the pallet, this larger one will be 48"x20"x15". I wanted to plant two cherry/grape tomatoes since they are really productive plants and expensive in stores. My mom plants them and hates them because she can't be bothered to pick the fruits and they grow everywhere. Anyway, they'll be awesome for salads during summer! For herbs, I've decided this year I'm going to rotate my basil since they tend to mature fairly quickly. I'm going to keep planting new ones to keep up the production of usable leaves. Green onions because I never have them when I need them. Sucks having to go to the store just to get something that's 33cents, or being ripped off at two to three times that much at Vons. Same thing with cilantro and parsley. Other herbs: English thyme and Greek oregano. I'm going to grow most of these from seeds this year, see how that turns out. I bought a pot of rosemary because it's a perennial and it seems worth $2.99 for me to get productive sprigs without having to wait too long.
Other plants will be hanging baskets of periwinke (again, not sure), geraniums/pelargoniums (still can't tell the difference between the two), and pothos as well as another crack at a strawberry basket. Tall people beware, I am setting my traps. Mwahaha...
So! Without further ado! The new members of our little family:
The pots all contain seeds of the various herbs, my wisteria seeds from last year, and cuttings of strings of pearl and pothos I took from various other gardens/nurseries.
Next my geranium/pelargonium cuttings, again generously donated by my apartment complex and Home Depot. The one in the back should be pure deep red and the one in front a purple. Both should be sprawling.
It's too dark to take a picture of the vermiculture bins, but I will put up more of the pictures tomorrow.
So that's it! Day 0 of planting. And we are ahead of the game for the most part this year if all goes according to plan!
