Week 5

This cauliflower we did not tie the leaves above it, so we'll have to see how it tastes.
Pulled out all the carrots... there were a lot!
The backyard compost is doing well!
Harvesting delicious apples every day.
This week I spent around two hours movie manure into our garden beds, pulling out old plants and weeds, and a few other things were harvested.

A Composting Success Story

Interesting elements of the High School Garden Grows Pride article:

• Windermere uses its feeder schools for their compost too as well as its own compost material
• The aquaponics system sounded very interesting and fairly unique for a school
• A small fruit orchard. Several schools have had vegetable gardens, however A fruit orchard would be a very interesting aspect.

Questions

• Is a fruit orchard something West Van high or Rockridge could consider?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of an aquaponics system

Next time I'm at my school compost, I will see how we recruit people to help out with our garden and compost.

Worm Composting

Interesting elements from Composting with Red Wriggler Worms article:

• The idea to reuse something such as an old dresser or a trunk for the container
• Not to use the large worms found in soil and compost. I would have assumed they would survive just as well in the worm composting
• The number of worms needed for one pound of waste (2000 worms)

Questions

• What other species of worm would work well in other parts of the world?
• Does introducing these worms into your garden have an effect on the worms already there?

Next time I'm in the garden I'll see how many different species of worms I can see.

Week 4

I composted for 30 minutes this week and spent 35 minutes gardening.

Before working

After working

Leaf Mold

Interesting elements from the How To Make Leaf Mould video:

• Best to use a range deciduous plant leaves for a range in nutrients, pine needles in a different heap for other varieties of plants, but no coniferous plant leaves
• Leaves will take about a year to create a useful leaf mould but dampness and circulating air in them is helpful
• Pine needles create an acidic leaf mould

Next time I'm in the garden I'll look for leaves to see what types are around here.

Questions

• I wonder which mix of leaves would be the most nutritious for the garden?

Other plant leaves that are bad for leaf mould

• beech
• birch
• hornbeam
• oak
• sweet chestnut
• magnolia
• holly

Bokashi Fermentation

I was very interested to find out from The Composting Guy's Guide to Bokashi that you can even through meat and dairy into the Bokashi as well as all the usual brown and green materials. It was also very interesting that the liquid from the waste materials can be poured down the drains to eliminate odours. I originally would have thought the liquid would cause odours. That is another thing I was interested to read, that the bokashi box has no bad odour.

When I'm at my compost next time I will check to see if mine has an odour or not.

I'm interested to know what other "goodies" would benefit the bokashi mix besides kelp or rock dust?

General Composting Tricks for the North Shore

Watching the North Shore Recycling Program, I liked the comparison they made saying the compost should have the same moistness as a damp, wrung out sponge. Using this comparison made it very clear what the compost should be like. It was interesting that you need equal amounts of green and brown materials. It's crazy that one household can compost about 500kg of material that turns into 100kg of fertilizer.

Next time I go out to my compost or the school compost, I will make sure to bring an equal amount of newspaper shreddings or other brown materials as well as the fruit and vegetable scraps.

This video made me wonder why people would buy fertilizer when they can make their own, more environmental fertilizer for free? I also am curious as to how long it would take the anaerobic bacteria to ferment the food scraps in a composting bin.