Brooklynn and Amber came to help me inspect the tomatoes!...
Brooklynn and Amber came to help me inspect the tomatoes! 🍅 They are great help😂. Getting ready to put a big green house out in the yard….maybe multiple😅 we shall see. #HappyPlants #PlantsMakePeopleHappy #PlantAddict #NewGrowth #PropagationStation #PlantTherapy #GrowLights #NewPlantMom #OrchidLovers #MonsteraMonday #PlantCorner #BeforeAndAfter
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@Bmd have you ever looked into permaculture or food forests? The basic idea of it (and its kind of hard to define) is to garden based off of what tends to grow natively in your area so you use less resources, or also like a way to set up regenerating systems. And, the way you set up things is quite efficient; neediest or most tended, or most water using plants (like herbs, tomatoes) closest to your door, less tended plants, trees, farther away. I’ve probably bungled up the explanation but it’s a great rabbit hole to fall into 😄
I love @DreamMachine’s permaculture and food forest ideas! 🥰 There are so many cool ideas and great resources available!
We’ve been in our house just over 20 years and the best advice we received about our yard was to dream big AND do the work in phases so you don’t burn out on it 😅
For the last several years we’ve picked one big project that we can complete in the SPRING, before it gets too hot. What a revelation! It’s been so much more fun (and affordable) 😁
Year 1: Overseeded the backyard with clover
Year 2: Converted our parking strip to a pollinator garden and installed a brick path.
Year 3: Overseeded the front yard with clover and improved our berry and tomato set ups.
We’re plotting raised vegetable beds for next year (my daughter and I also just preordered 200 tulip bulbs to plant this fall) 🤭🌷
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for you! Keep us updated please 🙌
We’ve been in our house just over 20 years and the best advice we received about our yard was to dream big AND do the work in phases so you don’t burn out on it 😅
For the last several years we’ve picked one big project that we can complete in the SPRING, before it gets too hot. What a revelation! It’s been so much more fun (and affordable) 😁
Year 1: Overseeded the backyard with clover
Year 2: Converted our parking strip to a pollinator garden and installed a brick path.
Year 3: Overseeded the front yard with clover and improved our berry and tomato set ups.
We’re plotting raised vegetable beds for next year (my daughter and I also just preordered 200 tulip bulbs to plant this fall) 🤭🌷
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for you! Keep us updated please 🙌
@DreamMachine I have done a little dabble into this- and I love the idea. I can totally see it being done, especially with a forest edge ecosystem. However, I don’t necessarily want to convert the yard to a garden. I don’t want to plant trees or anything like that. Can this all be done in separate greenhouses?
@debbiedo ahhh Deb I love this!!! Your yard is most certainly INCREDIBLE. I would love to see pics if you don’t mind. Like I said to Nadia, I don’t necessarily want to convert the space to a garden. I’m curious if I can do something similar , on a smaller scale- in separate greenhouses?! I’m gonna get my butt to research ASAP.
@Bmd you can start as small and simple or as large as you want! 😄 I’m not quite sure what you mean either, but you don’t have to go in an make huge changes and plant trees or whatnot.
Here are some small things that I did around my property over the years, and definitely not all at once!
-Researched non-invasive climbing vines to cover our ugly chain link fence (ended up with Boston Ivy, and Virginia Creeper, and evergreen Clematis for my area)
-Started a compost pile
-Planted native perennial flowers and shrubs
-Made raised garden beds
-Planted a native elderberry and Oregon Grape
-Planted comfrey near the compost pile (the plant matter is great for compost, but comfrey can spread really fast and take over areas. So I planted it close to the compost so I can rip it out and toss it on the piles easily)
-Set up giant rain barrels hooked up to our gutters, and my husband installed spigots in them. Installed a hose for the ones closest to the veg garden
Also Deb @debbiedo your home looks AMAZING!! 🤩😱🥰
Here are some small things that I did around my property over the years, and definitely not all at once!
-Researched non-invasive climbing vines to cover our ugly chain link fence (ended up with Boston Ivy, and Virginia Creeper, and evergreen Clematis for my area)
-Started a compost pile
-Planted native perennial flowers and shrubs
-Made raised garden beds
-Planted a native elderberry and Oregon Grape
-Planted comfrey near the compost pile (the plant matter is great for compost, but comfrey can spread really fast and take over areas. So I planted it close to the compost so I can rip it out and toss it on the piles easily)
-Set up giant rain barrels hooked up to our gutters, and my husband installed spigots in them. Installed a hose for the ones closest to the veg garden
Also Deb @debbiedo your home looks AMAZING!! 🤩😱🥰
@DreamMachine Thanks Nadia 😘 I’ve got my husband on board to convert the sunny side of our front yard into a raised bed veggie garden next year…yippeeeeee!!! 🤭 PLEASE SHARE PICS OF YOUR PROPERTY! I’m ready for more inspo! 🙌
@debbiedo I love what you did to your space. It’s incredible 👏 @DreamMachine
By smaller scale, I mean doing something similar to permaculture in reguard to growing native crops- but not tearing up the entire backyard.
I don’t want an open garden. I don’t want flowers growing everywhere, I don’t want tress or fruit trees planted. The only thing I would do is a big green house. So I guess I’m saying is it possible to make an environment of a food forest inside of the green house rather than planting on property.
By smaller scale, I mean doing something similar to permaculture in reguard to growing native crops- but not tearing up the entire backyard.
I don’t want an open garden. I don’t want flowers growing everywhere, I don’t want tress or fruit trees planted. The only thing I would do is a big green house. So I guess I’m saying is it possible to make an environment of a food forest inside of the green house rather than planting on property.
@debbiedo @Bmd I don’t really have the best pictures right now! Here are a few of the garden, and then one of my side yard, where I keep my compost piles and leaf mulch. One of my trees, an American Hornbeam, is an early leaf dropper, so I’m very excited to rake up all that free mulch 🥳 You might see the chicken wire bin in the background, that’s empty, that’s where all my leaves go so I can use them for my compost whenever I want. Then my Boston Ivy is doing a great job turning my chain link fence into a gorgeous green barrier 😁
@DreamMachine I saved your pictures until lunchtime so that I could peruse them at leisure 😁🎉🙌🔍 I LOVE all your flowers and I’m so excited as my beds start to fill in. And your ivy is looking great! 🤩 Our grapevine and hardy kiwi are our crazy viners, in case you’re looking for more fence climbers 🌱 Finally, I’m SO ENVIOUS of your side yard… I want to know everything about your compost routine (you know I like all the details 😂🤓)
@debbiedo Ok, first of all Debbie, thank you SO much for asking, because that was the kick in the pants I needed to get at least that compost area raked. (And no feeling bad, ☝️ the motivation to clean up was sparked by the overwhelming urge to explain my composting methods 🤣)
2nd of all…DETAILS you say? 😏👏 Buckle up!
So I really couldn’t have picked a better place for compost, the tree that it’s under protects it from harsh sun and drying out in the summer, and also from the non stop rain at other times of the year. It’s a few steps from my back porch door, which leads to my kitchen. Making it easier to go here, instead of out front to my city compost bin.
Ok, full shot now, I hope you can see leaves in the chicken wire bin. When I bring out fresh kitchen scraps to dump on my pile, I always scoop some out some dried leaves to put on top (so I’m adding greens and browns at the same time). This helps both the compost to cook well, and deters animals and pests by not having fresh kitchen scraps open to the air and tempting them! If I’m starting a new pile I can open the bin and scoop freely from it.
I have three sections for compost, and they are divided by the concrete blocks. (The first bay has something wooden in it…I should probably get that outta there) Eventually I would love to have my three bays made out of wooden palates with lids, but this is how I started them. You don’t need fancy-shmancy anything for composting. You don’t even need three bays. You could have only one pile and get along just fine. The most important thing though, is that your material touches the bare earth. That’s how the good bacteria and microbes get into your pile to make it compost! The spinny/wheely raised compost machine things are nice and all…but you’d have to add dirt from your garden to get the microbes into it! Right now I only have one active compost pile in the last bay. I was lazy this spring and wasn’t actively hunting down good carbon sources like I normally am 🤷♀️😄🥱 (My husbands boss used to give us their used rabbit bedding which was straw mixed with rabbit poop. Pretty much the GOLDEN STANDARD of fantastic things to add to your pile. Besides comfrey or yarrow) But if I did have 3 piles going, I would dump fresh kitchen scraps and yard debris only onto the first bay and pull ready to use compost from the third bay. I turn them regularly, then when it had cooked enough in the first bay I would transfer it to the second bay, and transfer what was in the second bay to the third bay, which is usually my finished compost pile. Right now I’ve just been turning the pile back and forth from 2nd to 3rd bay. “Turning it” or restacking the pile helps the beneficial microbes get to all parts of the pile, and gets oxygen in there so it doesn’t go anaerobic (lacking oxygen and getting SMELLY and blech).
I do hot composting, where I have the perfect ratio of brown dried stuff (carbon sources) to fresh stuff (green nitrogen sources) that the microbes love it, they get to work composting for me, and it heats up to quite hot! (The ideal ratio is either 2:1 or 3:1, so 2 or 3 parts carbon to every 1 part of nitrogen. Rabbit poop is pure nitrogen, and that used bedding we got was already a complete 2/3:1 ratio 😱😮💨🤩, but it’s not “hot” like cow or chicken manure, which it’s NECESSARY to age it (compost it) before you put it on your plants, otherwise you’ll burn your tomatoes. Rabbit poop can be added to your garden AS IT IS) In your compost pile Nitrogen breaks down really fast, and gets really hot, but if it was all nitrogen it would burn up in a second and then all your microbes would go away and find something else to do with their lives. Carbon breaks down slowly, if your pile was all carbon it would be pretty cold and could take years before you have useable compost. So you need to have enough nitrogen so that it stays hot, but enough carbon so it doesn’t burn out too soon. You need to do hot composting to have any hope of being able to put weeds with seeds in your compost. If the weed seeds don’t get cooked adequately, then you’re just spreading around more weeds every time you use your compost 😆 (ask me how I know this 🙄😬🫠) But also, I never put diseased plants on my pile or plants that got taken over by things like powdery mildew, for example. Those spores can live through lots of things, even the heat that I can get mine to. That kind of icky stuff goes in the city compost where I know it will be destroyed. But I can’t risk that for my own home garden.
To start a hot compost pile, you do need a large amount of what you’re composting ready to go, fresh green stuff, and dry brown stuff so you can build up your pile in layers. Hopefully enough material so that you can make a 4’x4’x4’ pile. (Or was it 3’x3’x3’? 🤔 ) Or you can build it up slowly, layer by layer, but that will just take longer. Then, in an ideal world, you would turn your compost pile once a week. If you did that, you could have fresh beautiful healthy compost, ready to go, in 3-8 weeks. And NOTHING is better than adding pure freshly made compost from your own pesticide-free garden back onto your garden. It’s got minerals and nutrients in it, from plants that you grew before, it has the microbes that live right where you do, and literally feeds you, the soil, and your plants, it acts like a slow release fertilizer, fixes nitrogen, improves your soil composition, and is a home for tiny bugs and fungi that help protect your plants from pests, illness and diseases. The plants you grow in your own compost will be healthier, stronger, and more resistant to pests and disease than compost bought from Home Depot. (Not knocking that though, if that’s the only thing you can get, it’s better than nothing, so please do!)
And here’s my favorite pitchfork, it’s a Dewalt with a fiber glass handle. I’m not a tall person, and I was using my 6’2” husband’s large and heavy pitchfork, until it broke, and then he got me one that was much smaller and lighter that was the perfect size for me. 🤗 Match your size to your tools for a much easier time of it!
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 😅 And let me know if I missed anything! (I sure hope not but wouldn’t put it past me 🤣)
Oh right, that’s a bale of straw that I use for carbon when needed too!
Ooh and thank you for the kiwi vine tip!! 😊
2nd of all…DETAILS you say? 😏👏 Buckle up!
So I really couldn’t have picked a better place for compost, the tree that it’s under protects it from harsh sun and drying out in the summer, and also from the non stop rain at other times of the year. It’s a few steps from my back porch door, which leads to my kitchen. Making it easier to go here, instead of out front to my city compost bin.
Ok, full shot now, I hope you can see leaves in the chicken wire bin. When I bring out fresh kitchen scraps to dump on my pile, I always scoop some out some dried leaves to put on top (so I’m adding greens and browns at the same time). This helps both the compost to cook well, and deters animals and pests by not having fresh kitchen scraps open to the air and tempting them! If I’m starting a new pile I can open the bin and scoop freely from it.
I have three sections for compost, and they are divided by the concrete blocks. (The first bay has something wooden in it…I should probably get that outta there) Eventually I would love to have my three bays made out of wooden palates with lids, but this is how I started them. You don’t need fancy-shmancy anything for composting. You don’t even need three bays. You could have only one pile and get along just fine. The most important thing though, is that your material touches the bare earth. That’s how the good bacteria and microbes get into your pile to make it compost! The spinny/wheely raised compost machine things are nice and all…but you’d have to add dirt from your garden to get the microbes into it! Right now I only have one active compost pile in the last bay. I was lazy this spring and wasn’t actively hunting down good carbon sources like I normally am 🤷♀️😄🥱 (My husbands boss used to give us their used rabbit bedding which was straw mixed with rabbit poop. Pretty much the GOLDEN STANDARD of fantastic things to add to your pile. Besides comfrey or yarrow) But if I did have 3 piles going, I would dump fresh kitchen scraps and yard debris only onto the first bay and pull ready to use compost from the third bay. I turn them regularly, then when it had cooked enough in the first bay I would transfer it to the second bay, and transfer what was in the second bay to the third bay, which is usually my finished compost pile. Right now I’ve just been turning the pile back and forth from 2nd to 3rd bay. “Turning it” or restacking the pile helps the beneficial microbes get to all parts of the pile, and gets oxygen in there so it doesn’t go anaerobic (lacking oxygen and getting SMELLY and blech).
I do hot composting, where I have the perfect ratio of brown dried stuff (carbon sources) to fresh stuff (green nitrogen sources) that the microbes love it, they get to work composting for me, and it heats up to quite hot! (The ideal ratio is either 2:1 or 3:1, so 2 or 3 parts carbon to every 1 part of nitrogen. Rabbit poop is pure nitrogen, and that used bedding we got was already a complete 2/3:1 ratio 😱😮💨🤩, but it’s not “hot” like cow or chicken manure, which it’s NECESSARY to age it (compost it) before you put it on your plants, otherwise you’ll burn your tomatoes. Rabbit poop can be added to your garden AS IT IS) In your compost pile Nitrogen breaks down really fast, and gets really hot, but if it was all nitrogen it would burn up in a second and then all your microbes would go away and find something else to do with their lives. Carbon breaks down slowly, if your pile was all carbon it would be pretty cold and could take years before you have useable compost. So you need to have enough nitrogen so that it stays hot, but enough carbon so it doesn’t burn out too soon. You need to do hot composting to have any hope of being able to put weeds with seeds in your compost. If the weed seeds don’t get cooked adequately, then you’re just spreading around more weeds every time you use your compost 😆 (ask me how I know this 🙄😬🫠) But also, I never put diseased plants on my pile or plants that got taken over by things like powdery mildew, for example. Those spores can live through lots of things, even the heat that I can get mine to. That kind of icky stuff goes in the city compost where I know it will be destroyed. But I can’t risk that for my own home garden.
To start a hot compost pile, you do need a large amount of what you’re composting ready to go, fresh green stuff, and dry brown stuff so you can build up your pile in layers. Hopefully enough material so that you can make a 4’x4’x4’ pile. (Or was it 3’x3’x3’? 🤔 ) Or you can build it up slowly, layer by layer, but that will just take longer. Then, in an ideal world, you would turn your compost pile once a week. If you did that, you could have fresh beautiful healthy compost, ready to go, in 3-8 weeks. And NOTHING is better than adding pure freshly made compost from your own pesticide-free garden back onto your garden. It’s got minerals and nutrients in it, from plants that you grew before, it has the microbes that live right where you do, and literally feeds you, the soil, and your plants, it acts like a slow release fertilizer, fixes nitrogen, improves your soil composition, and is a home for tiny bugs and fungi that help protect your plants from pests, illness and diseases. The plants you grow in your own compost will be healthier, stronger, and more resistant to pests and disease than compost bought from Home Depot. (Not knocking that though, if that’s the only thing you can get, it’s better than nothing, so please do!)
And here’s my favorite pitchfork, it’s a Dewalt with a fiber glass handle. I’m not a tall person, and I was using my 6’2” husband’s large and heavy pitchfork, until it broke, and then he got me one that was much smaller and lighter that was the perfect size for me. 🤗 Match your size to your tools for a much easier time of it!
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 😅 And let me know if I missed anything! (I sure hope not but wouldn’t put it past me 🤣)
Oh right, that’s a bale of straw that I use for carbon when needed too!
Ooh and thank you for the kiwi vine tip!! 😊
@DreamMachine OMG Nadia!!! Thank you SOOOOOO much for taking the time to share all these details 🤯🥹❤️
I have so many questions BUT… before I completely hijack @Bmd Brandon’s post, I’m going to ask the most obnoxious favor of you: Would you please copy and paste your response here so I can find it later? 😬
https://greg.app/question/1com2f/how-do-you-compost-ive-gone-down-the-composting-wormhole-on-the-interweb-see-what-i-did-there-and-i
I have so many questions BUT… before I completely hijack @Bmd Brandon’s post, I’m going to ask the most obnoxious favor of you: Would you please copy and paste your response here so I can find it later? 😬
https://greg.app/question/1com2f/how-do-you-compost-ive-gone-down-the-composting-wormhole-on-the-interweb-see-what-i-did-there-and-i
@DreamMachine You’ve definitely earned the right to brag about the height of your compost pile! 🙌 And look at those sweet kitties ❤️
@DreamMachine I just learned so much. Nadia this IS as cool as you hopefully think It is. Your amazing!
@debbiedo because I had to force type out the typo for that comment, when I then tried to say his actual name, it autocorrected back to the bad autocorrect 🤣🤣
@Bmd Bleezy’s smoke circle #mendodope I mean you know build your paradise how you want! Rows of fruit circle of medicine 😇bean cover crop get lasagna with it