The Compost Bin

Ahhh yeah, this is Anthony coming at ya from W-H-O-S-T-A and I've got another funky beat for you to get your groove on. This one is called "Hosta Pictures". Check it out baby.

Last night, when my wife came home from food shopping she noticed this egg was sitting there next to our azaelas. Earlier that day, she had dug up some of my burnt Zinias and now there was an egg in this burnt zinnia hole. No one noticed any birds in the area so now we have a mystery egg staying warm in the mulch.

My best guess would be that it's a duck egg. I don't know anything about what bird eggs look like but I say duck egg because we always have ducks hanging out by the pool. A few years back the pool was broken and we had ducks and frogs living in there so I guess these ducks remember the good old days and like to visit.

My son thinks it's a dinosaur egg and that would be pretty cool although I think we would have noticed a T-Rex popping a squat in our Azaelas.

When the pot is labeled "Sun Annual" that should mean that the plant would love to be planted on the Sun, right?

Oh well, I guess I forgot to water these guys. I could really use a sprinkler system.

In a few more days, these guys will have opened up and there will be an explosion of yellow all over my yard.

Daylilies are great because not only do they look good, but they can be split every year to make even more of them. Most people use a shovel to split daylilies but I like to use a large serrated bread knife. I started using one to split my Hostas and just decided that it's the right tool for the job.

Oh you know what? I just remembered that the last time I posted a picture of these guys, someone told me that they were regular lilies and not daylilies. They were marked daylilies when I bought them but they could very well be lilies. I have some Stella D'oro's on the other side of the house and the greens are definitely different.

Well whatever they are, I like the way they look and I split them every spring with a bread knife and that's good enough for me.

I don't even know how I did it, but I cracked my Kitchen Compost Crock. It was a great crock and has helped me compost my kitchen scraps for a few years now, but alas, it's time has come.

My crock was great for coffee grinds along with the filters, tea bags, vegetable scraps and even the occasional paper towel. No matter how long I waited to empty it into one of my bigger compost bins outside, it never got stinky on my counter thanks to it's built in carbon filter.

With all the coffee that I drink it would be a shame to waste all of those coffee grinds. And I don't plan on going outside to the compost bin every single time I have a cup either. That's why the crock was so convenient.

I'm going to start looking for a replacement before the crack turns into a giant hole.

I have this idea to drill some holes into the lid of a cookie jar and then stuff the filter in there. I don't see why that wouldn't work. Now I've just got to be on the lookout for a cheap cookie jar. Maybe I'll get a cool character jar shaped like Batman or Daffy Duck.

Everyone knows that Batman is a big composter.

My name is Anthony and I'm a Web 2.0 junkie. Hi Anthony! Yes, if they talk about it on TechCrunch or TWIT, I sign up for it. So not only am I on Twitter, Friendfeed, StumbleUpon, Jaiku, & Pownce, but I've started using another cool new site called Plurk.

Plurk is very similar to Twitter but adds some cool features that make conversations a lot easier. Yesterday Bumblebee and Indygardener were discussing how much better it would be if more Garden Bloggers were on Plurk. If you read a lot of garden blogs, those user names should sound familiar to you.

So if you're into this sort of thing, then go ahead and check it out. And feel free to click this link (CompostMan) and add me as a friend.

People always say things like, "I don't get Twitter" or "Who wants to know what I had for lunch?" but it's not really about that. It's about participating in a nice community. Sort of like a Web 2.0 version of a forum.

I've also included a video of what Plurk is all about from DemoGirl. She shows you how to sign up for and use Plurk. If you haven't seen DemoGirl screencasts before, I highly recommend them.

This year I'm trying lots of new things in the vegetable garden. Just like the Swiss Chard that I'm growing, I've never grown Bok Choy before. But unlike the Swiss Chard, I've definitely eaten it and know that I love it.

The type of Bok Choy seeds that I picked were from Burpee and were actually labeled Pak Choi. From what I understand, Bok Choy, Pak Choi, Joi Choi are all the English language names of small Chinese Cabbage. There's a larger cabbage that's grown mostly in Northern China but I don't think they refer to it by the same names. Please feel free to correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.

Here's how the Burpee catalog describes it:

Pak Choi
Also known as bok choy or Chinese white cabbage. Pak choi is grown for its stalks which are used in oriental cooking. It is also delicious raw. Each plant bears 10-14 erect stalks, 8-10" long. Grows best in cool weather. Can be grown as a spring or fall crop.

And here's how I describe it:
Delicious!!!

Bok Choy is another early spring green that's pretty easy to grow. Just popped the seeds into the ground and watered. Now 2-3 months later, I'm searching all over the place for Bok Choy recipes to try because I have almost a whole raised bed full of them.

As the early growing season is coming to a close, I'll soon be pulling out some of my spring crops to make room for the tomatoes, peppers and other summer favorites. The fact that my broccoli rabe has flowered is usually a good sign that it's time to start the switch over.

This spring I planted Swiss Chard for the first time. I've never even tasted it before but I've always wanted to try it. So in my usual winter seed buying frenzy I ordered some Swiss Chard to try it out. Yes, the sensible thing would have been to buy it at the market to see if I liked it first but I've never been accused of being sensible.

Before I bought the seeds, I saw a great looking recipe for pasta with Swiss Chard and bacon in an issue of Bon Appetit magazine and that's when I knew that I'd be growing swiss chard this year. The recipes in that magazine always look so good and who doesn't love bacon? I mean really, it was a no brainer.

Sometime in April, I sowed the seeds directly in the garden. Really nothing too special about growing Swiss Chard, just kept the seeds moist until they germinated like any other seed and then watched them grow. I could have weeded more around the plants but they did fine without much effort on my part.

Well, about 2-3 months later, it's harvest time and I had better make sure that I've stocked up on bacon because this weekend the chard will be picked. Hopefully, I'll like the taste of it and won't have grown it just for the compost pile. Wish me luck.

Image via WikipediaAn Iowa City man was charged with possession with intent to sell when police arrested him with a large amount of marijuana.

First it was a retired UK man who was storing his heroin in his compost bin and now this guy claiming he was going to compost several gallon bags full of marijuana. Now it's a good guess that pot is a green and would get a compost pile cooking pretty well but these guys are giving us composters a bad name.

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There are blackberry canes popping up all over my garden. Some of these things are about 10 feet away from the raised bed that the plant is in and some are even invading my other beds.

One runner even decided to spring up in the middle of my red onions. That's just not right. Come on, leave a man's red onions alone. Since the main plant is very close to my fence, my neighbor totally must have some in his yard now too. Ooops.

I was going to add, "Build root barrier" to my list of things that I don't have time to do but after some research, I've found out that blackberry runners can go down a meter deep. Yikes!