Sunday, February 27, 2011

Bed Building Mistake #1


IMG_4054
Originally uploaded by okfuskee
So I forgot to mention - the first bed I built came out a little whopper-jawed. I built the sides - 4 by 4's and 3 by 2s and then brought all the pieces out to the yard separately. I did this since there were lots of things growing already including the sacred tomatoes. So the plan was to assemble the thing in situ (hooray for Latin!) . Anyway - big mistake. It was incredibly hard to drill screw that baby together and I pulled all kinds of muscles contorting myself to get good drill angles. First and last one I did that way.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Name

Ryan asked me to explain the name. Well first let me admit it is a bad name. But it came to me, and made me giggle. Essentially consisting of two made up words, it is bound to avoid conventional online searches. But it fit my mood.

I was playing around with "Pike" because my garden/farm is right near the Columbia Pike in South Arlington, Virginia. I love the Pike, so I wanted it in the name. The Pike is diverse, busy, ramshackle, weird, and alive. You can see everything on the Pike. Signs in Spanish and Amharic, and if you go out far enough, Korean. Great ethnic restaurants - Salvadorean, Ethiopian, and Thai, Thai, Thai. Odd little shops selling bikes, magic candles, and ethiopian spices. Many people in Arlington seem to hate the Pike - too diverse, supposedly difficult traffic, messy, etc. The neighbourhood is changing slowly, but I still love it.

So I wanted Pike in the name. Then I thought I would modify it for laughs...I was playing with different things - thought Pike-ular as in modular, spectacular, etc. In my mind I felt like I was reaching for something else, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. So the first name was actually pikeular which is what is in the URL I think. But then it hit me that I was really reaching for peculiar which fits the garden better. This is not an ordinary garden - a few flowers and shrubs providing eye interest to a useless lawn. No - we dug up everything. No lawn remains. No space is wasted. So then I went with Pike-uliar as in odd and by the Pike.

As for "gardenings" - well I have no idea. I suppose I could have just used "Garden," but I guess I wanted to verb it in an unusual way, so I did. Gardenings reminds me of meanderings and I like that word. It seemed to fit the garden which does not always proceed on the shortest path to each destination. It is the 4th year and we are just bumbling along discovering things haphazardly but making progress most years.

So that's the name story.

Solving the Great Coffee Ground Drought of 2011


Coffee Grounds
Originally uploaded by okfuskee
Everything I have heard or read suggests coffee grounds are a great thing for compost. Worms love it. It adds nitrate. Heats up the compost. Etc. I used to get coffee grounds from Common Grounds/Murky Coffee but they are gone now and the new place, North Side Social, doesn't seem to do it anymore. I asked another local place if they thought about putting grounds out for gardeners, they said no. I should pursue that a little more I suppose, but then I thought....what about work? I know a couple people who make a bit o coffee, so I asked them if they'd share and tadaa...my little blue pitcher now requires emptying twice a week. Not sure exactly how much I am getting - a pound or two a week it seems like. The compost is quite happily munching on grounds and paper filters now.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Compost...It's What's for Dinner


Deeeeee-licious!
Originally uploaded by okfuskee
Well technically, it's what wasn't quite dinner.

Here's the compost in the Soil Machine 2000 - I made up that 2000 thing to make it sound better. I have been adding ground up leaves and/or dirt with each load of kitchen scraps. It seems to be proceeding well, despite the fact that it is winter. I noticed some worms hopped a ride into the bin on the last shovelful. They will either freeze and add to the mix...or they will help the process. Win/Win...for me...not necessarily for the worms. For them it's a Win/Die.