Hunting for Rocks
June 12, 2007
I’ve been wanting to improve the border on my flower beds for over a year now. I really like the look of stone and the existing stone wall in the front yard looks very natural and appealing to me. After admiring a friend’s front yard garden, I decided to go hunting for rocks. Here are the rocks that started it all:
I was told that it took five loads of rock at $5 a load in the back of a Subaru to put all this together (it extends to the other side of the stairs too). Of course that was about 20 years ago. What a pretty bed for $30!
Posting a “wanted” request on the Kemptville and Ottawa Freecycle gave me two offers: one in Aylmer and another near Franktown – both a lot farther than I was wanting to drive. One my way home, I took a number of different routes through farm fields and construction sites but I was too chicken to ask if anyone was giving away rocks. I read up on where people go to find good rocks and to tell the police that you’re part of the Rock Relocation Program if you’re caught. I really don’t want to steal rocks or involve the authorities on any suspicious behaviour. I stopped by a stranger’s house and asked where they got the rocks for around their drainage pipe and he didn’t know as they had just bought the house. I asked the guy at the local dump who said they don’t get rocks. I stopped by the place where I had bought my patio stones for my front walkway and saw these:
At $3.66 a ton for one and three quarter inch Kingston Buff flagstone, I had no idea how much I would need or how much it would cost. They looked a little too nice.
I drove past a quarry with a guy sitting in a dump truck, mustered up the courage to talk to him, turned the car around and found out that I could get stones from the Kemptville Quarry just down the road. I drove in, talked to the receptionist and found out that I could pick up a load of rock in the back of a small truck for about $10. I drove my little car down into the huge quarry and had a look:
They looked pretty good and it was a big enough pile that I would have a lot of selection. Checking out the other local quarry, I found out that I couldn’t go down into the quarry for another three weeks as there is a crushing crew working down there. Also they estimated a load would cost between $15 and $25.
I think I’ll be going to the Kemptville Quarry.
New Deck
May 29, 2007
We’ve finished the 14’ x 18’ deck. Here it is in all its glory:
For my part, I helped screw down deck boards on Saturday (there was blood and sweat, no tears), which left me drained and sore the rest of the day. It’s a huge improvement from the previous 10’ x 16’deck. Already I’m envisioning big potted plants and lounge chairs. The edge is less than a foot to the vegetable garden, which is great and gives me a place to sit while I write plant names on wooden markers for all my square foot gardening squares.
All Decked Out
May 23, 2007
The deck came down today. About two weeks ago my foot went through it while I was pruning the dog wood bush. It was poorly constructed by the previous owners and heavily rotted in many areas. Here’s the deck before:
And after:
This will make hardening off all my plants a bit more cumbersome. I’ll have to get my boyfriend to pass the trays through the patio door while I stand on the ground. Yikes!
My Worm Bin
April 15, 2007
I picked up my worms yesterday. I decided to buy 1 lb. of red wigglers for $45 CDN instead of 1/2 pound for $25 CDN. I bought them at the Ottawa Organic Market from The Worm Factory. Here’s how I got them home and happy.
Tools:
- 3 Rubbermaid Roughneck Totes, 37.9 L, 24 x 16 x 8 3/4″, with lids from Canadian Tire
- 1 piece of bristol board with a 1/2″ piece cut off
- tape measurer
- Sharpie marke
- double-sided tape
- scissors
- drill
- 1/4″ Brad point bit
- 1 lb red wiggler worms
- 1 Ottawa Citizen newspaper
- a spray bottle
- a handful of used seedling soiless mix
- 2 cups of chopped up vegetables and fruit: broccoli, avocado, green onion, green grapes, corn kernels, celery
The Holes:
I measured 1/2″ along the top of a piece of bristol board, drew a line and cut the strip off with a pair of scissors. I used it as a ruler to help guide me to make the dots on the bins. As I held the strip horizontally, I measured 1 1/2″ intervals along the top of the strip and marked it with the Sharpie. On the bottom, I indented the measurements by 3/4″ and then marked the 1 1/2″ intervals.
Using double-sided tape, I taped down the paper strip and put dots at all the measured intervals with the Sharpie. Drill your holes using a 1/4″ Brad point bit.
The Bottom Bin
There are no holes on the bottom of this bin as it catches the leachate that drips down from the middle and top bins. The only holes in this bottom bin are drilled into the top 5″ of all four sides of the bin.
The Middle Bin
This is where the action first starts to happen. Initially, you only need to start off with two bins: the bottom and the middle bins. The bedding, worms, soil and rotted food go into the middle bin. As this bin fills up with worm castings (from the bottom to the top) you will eventually need to place the top bin on top of the middle bin. More on this later. The bottom holes of this bin allows air circulation from the side holes of the bottom bin. The middle bin has holes drilled into the bottom and the bottom 1″ of all four sides of the bin.
The Top Bin
After five or six months, depending on your feeding schedule and the voracity of your worms, you will need to place the top bin onto the now-filled middle bin. When you place this bin on top of the almost-full bin, take out any leftover compost from the top of the middle bin and put it in the bottom of the top bin. Make sure the top of the compost in the middle bin is smoothed over to ensure full contact between the bins. The worms will crawl through the holes of the bottom of the top bin and after a few weeks you can harvest the middle bin as it will not have as many worms in it. The top bin has holes drilled into it like the middle bin.
The Lid
The lid is comprised of two Roughtote lids, stacked on top of each other. The bottom lid had a 6″ x 12″ rectangle cut out of the top. Two wooden squares, made with 1″x2″ wood pieces, sandwich a fine mesh piece to cover this hole. This keeps out all the bugs and flies (if there are any). The top lid covers this meshed lid to keep out the light.
More Pictures
Here is my 1 lb of worms.
Can’t see them in the bag for all the shredded newspaper.
Here’s the middle bin nested in the bottom bin.
Shredding the newspaper by hand.
Spraying it with water.
Here’s the worm food.
Chopped up for easy consumption.
Add a handful of soiless seedling mix.
Add the worms.
There they go!
Spread the tasty worm food.
Cover them back up with a layer of moistened newspaper.
Put the lid on askew and place under a strong light in the basement. The light will stay on for a couple of days while the worms get used to their new home.
Check on them twice a day to see if there are any escapees. I had two worms in the bottom bin in the first two days. Just scoop them up and nestle them under the bedding in the middle bin.
Trading Seeds
April 12, 2007
Yesterday I packaged up my very first seeds for trading. Since I’d never traded seeds before, I needed to ask a few questions like determining what was a fair trade and how to send them in the mail. There is some good pointers here.
I decided to send 10 Suyo Long seeds in exchange for some Flemish antique poppy and Cosmos seeds.
I got together all my supplies:
- a sheet of seed packet patterns that I found here
- scissors
- double-sided tape
- pen
- the smallest Ziploc bag I could find
- a bubble mailer
- a photocopy of the front of the catalogue and the page that the seed is listed
- 10 Suyo Long seeds
I cut out one of the seed packet patterns, folded along the sides and taped it.
I wrote the year of the seeds, if it was an heirloom plant, the number of days to harvest and any additional notes. Eternal Seeds don’t have that much information on the envelope and their catalogue gives marginally a bit more. I put the seeds in the packet and taped it up so that no light would get in.
Then I put it in the Ziploc bag to keep it dry. It went into the envelope with the photocopied pages and I went off to the post office to mail it off. The cost of the stamp was $1.16 including tax.
I don’t think this is a very economical way of trading seeds as the bubble mailer is more expensive than a regular envelope and it also costs more to send it in the mail. I think next time I will use a regular A10 envelope with a piece of thin scrap bubble wrap that comes in boxes of electronic equipment.
