Jackie's Blog

In one of my more craziest moments I decided that I'd order a wormery or vermicomposter to compost our kitchen waste. This is how it gets put together! Step 1 Clip all the parts together and line the collection tray with newspaper. Step 2 Mix up the coir brick (basically tried coconut husks and soil) with water to hydrate it and add in paper scraps, so it is nice and moist. Add food scraps in one corner for food for the worms. Step 3 Cover with damp shredded paper- very useful when you had a bag of pre-shredded office paper! The worms were delivered next day all snug in their own compost in a cotton bag , padded well with shredded paper. The only thing they needed upon arrival was a little water spayed on them. The box. The worms mixed in their compost. Added to the wormery. It's ready!

I realized I haven't explained the logistics of the whole garden. The garden is completely fenced by a 6 ft high chain link fence. We have mains water and several places where we can attach the hoses. The hoses and other shared gardening equipment are stored in a shed on site. Here are three of our beds together- all planted. Close up of the raised bed after 10 days- one end... and the other.. So, in case you are in interested, we have planted cabbages (red and white), broccoli (seeds and plants), brussell sprouts plants, onions (sweet, and red- both plants and seeds), lots of different lettuces (also plants and seeds), herbs (sage, parsley, basil), radishes, carrots, spinach and kale (all seeds), leeks (plants) and cauliflower (plants). Not sure how it will all go but this is an experiment!

The bed was full so it was time to start planting. I laid all the plants I had out in the place I thought I'd plant them and then put them in the ground, leaving space in between to plant some seeds too. Ironically I forgot to take a photo that day- this one is three days later and the radish seeds were already up! Here's a few more lots that are now planted. Note the cover crop in the bottom of the picture. That will add lots of nutrients into the soil over the winter and then will be turned back into the soil. There are still some empty beds, but one family has theirs as a science project! The beds are 100,200, 250 and 300 square feet, and everyone just chose the size they wanted. As of today there are 30 beds occupied, and probably room for another 20 depending on the size chosen. Cindy, a new garden friend, chose a 200 sq ft bed and cleverly split it into four sections using paving stones. She's also planted some flowers so it looks great already!

Four weeks ago, I decided to sign up for a plot at our new community garden in Morgan Hill. This is a new project which involved using a city owned piece of property to build raised beds to grow our own flowers and vegetables. With the wonderful help of lots of community donations, we first had to build the frames from the donated wood. This is the pile after we all raided it! Then fill it with donated vermiculite soil and compost. The mix was very light and very dry. . As we only had enough soil to fill the bed half way, I also went to a local horse farm and got some partly composted horse manure. We mixed it up really well and left it for a full week. Then I added some other soil and was ready to start planting. I'd already bought some baby plants and some seeds but we also had some other plants donated too.