Thoughts of composting class, warm weather, and veggies...

~DISCLAIMER~
Due to computer issues, I don't have any new pictures. But hopefully tonight I'll have a few to post.

The composting class last week was very informative! Not only did it give me a chance to see how wet the bins needed to be (A LOT wetter than I thought) but I got to meet a few new folks, hang out with my buddy, and got a welded wire composting hoop. Now to get mine started. I need to find a load of browns though, guess I'll be using the neighborhood's throw outs.

So my seedlings didn't do so well. I'm a veggie killer. I was starting the hardening off process and got wrapped up in the day. They spent the better part of two days outside and of course they were windy, hot, and dry. I lost everything except for a couple of cantaloupes. They are now in the beds and I'm hoping they'll pull through.

So I ended up buying all of my plants from a local nursery. Well, all of the except for all of my crowder peas. I started them from seeds in the beds and boy are they taking off! On Friday I was starting to worry I had planted them too deep, it'd been a week with no signs of life. And then came the 85-90 degree days over the weekend. It's amazing what some good sun shine will do. By Monday night they were almost 2" tall and looking extremely healthy!

Now here's one for you guys that are a little more experienced than I am (like that's hard). When watering my beds, the water drains out of them pretty quickly. Now I know I need to stop before this happens, but how much in the way of nutrients am I loosing in the brown water that comes out?

Since spring is officially here in NC, I hope everyone can get out and enjoy this beautiful time of the year!

Have a great one!

Composting Class

I singed up for Cabarrus county's newsletter when we moved back in Janurary. They have your normal county information as well as some classes offered for kids and adults. Well today I received the newest e-letter and they are having a class on composting. So I immediately sent off an email asking to be registered for the class.

Now I know I might not learn much more than what I've picked up on the internet, but they are offering a free composting bin for participating in the class. I'm not sure what type of bin it'll be, but for free and to be able to meet new folks makes it more than worth it!

Now that I'm all geeked out about going to this class, I'm off to ask the deli owner in the ground floor of our building to save me his coffee grounds.

Enjoy the weekend!

Started the garden...well the plants anyways.

I'm still on my quest to find vermiculite that won't cost me an arm and a leg. The local nursery wants $20 for 4 cubic feet. With the size I'm doing (2 4'x8' plots) I will end up putting $60 into just the vermiculite.

Anyways, I started the seeds tonight. Spent a few hours out in the shop building some quick seedling trays. I will probably end up changing or atleast adding paper cups under the peat moss cups. They leak horribly and Erin's going to kill me if I make a mess on the floor every time I water (not to mention I don't want to have to clean up the mess every night).

I have 10 brandy wine tomato's, 10 beef steak tomato's, 5 chives, 10 onions, 10 canteloupes, & 5 oregano's started. I'm thinking I might start a few more once I get these in the ground. Maybe a late crop of oregano I can keep inside and a few more chives to plant later in the season.

Here's a couple of shots of the seedling trays.








And here's a rough sketch of how I'm going to lay out the beds.







The lay out still needs a little work, but that gives you the gist of how it's going to go.