Should You Compost Diseased or Bug-infested Plants?

Should You Compost Diseased or Bug-infested Plants?

I just got this question today from a former student of mine. She was removing the summer plants and noticed an Aphid infestation.

She had asked two other people, one being a plant nursery, and got 2 different answers. That's how it is with gardening. Everyone has an answer usually based on their experience.

Here's how I answered - I have a personal rule of never composting any diseased or bug infested plant - why take the risk? I compost a little more casually than the scientific or bio-dynamic version and I can never be sure if it gets hot enough to kill off the bug EGGS, the disease or bacteria.

What do you all do with bug-infested plants? I would love to hear from you!

Happy Digging,

Doreen, the Garden Goddess

www.down2earthgardens.com

Eating from the Garden

Eating from the Garden

Finally I am eating the fruits of my labor - literally - I have been eating the apples from my trees I planted only five months ago! This is actually the FIRST apple I ate on May 1st. The branch was bending dut to the wieght of three little apples so I picked one and at it. Notice it is smaller then the tennis ball! The apples are much bigger now and much better tasting.

There is no button that pops out of your apples or other fruits or veggies when they are ready to eat like on the butterball turkey. You just have to be adventuresome and pick one and taste it! If it's really bad toss it in the compost bin!

Here's my latest pride and joy - a 15 inch long Armenian cucumber! and boy is it tasty! The vines are covered with blossoms and little cukes the size of my pinky finger. I was warned not to plant too many of these! It is interesting how the different garden beds are actually performing. The cukes I planted in the back bed are not doing much at all. But the ones in front have really taken off!

Tomatoes are doing just OK - mine are mostly either cherry or grape tomatoes and there are lots of green ones. I picked a few of what I thought were red ones and they were not quite ready yet. I am trying to beat the birds to the ripe tomoatoes as I keep finding some on the ground all broken open.

I am kind of worried about the eggplants - lots of blooms - no eggplants yet. I have lots of bees and butterflies for pollinating so I am not sure what's up!

Pepper plants all look great and are filled with small peppers. I have red, green, yellow and a chocolate pepper (kind of brownish - an heirloom) - all sweet peppers. I loved roasted peppers and stuffed peppers so I will be sure to enjoy these.

My watermelon seeds sprouted right away and are grown like crazy - I should have watermelon by August!

Now all I have to do is keep all the plants happy over the summer. We have been blessed with temps under 100 and partyly cloudy skies lately so that is good for the plants I stroll through the garden daily checking for new veggies and seeing if they need water. The joy I get from discovering a new veggie ready to pick and eat totally outweighs the sweet and time it took to get the bed planted.

How is your garden doing? I would love to hear from you!

Happy Digging

The Garden Goddess, Doreen

www.down2earthgardens.com

Done Digging for Now!

Look - the garden beds are in! We did the final 5 hours of moving soil around – taking some out of the yard entirely (about 8 wheel barrows worth) and getting the beds shaped. This pic shows both planting areas – well there are really four planting areas.

At the top of the photo at the edge near the neighbors yard is a sunken bed the will help manage the water that runs off the north east corner of my roof. That water will help deep water the female Mulberry Tree (gives me berries in the spring) as well as the future mini apple orchard.

The bed below it is for the edible garden. I transplanted the salvia from the pots on the porch to create a perspective so my neighbors could see these are gardens, not mud pits!
I threw a mix of about 10 different kinds of flower and veggie seeds into the dirt which I had amended with really great organic mulch (from Ken Singh). Then I covered the seeds with more mulch and watered everything down really well with compost tea. The seeds have started to sprout (after about a week). I am really excited for them to turn into a riot of plants, all growing and blooming at different times.

Then this sunken ‘pit’ is to manage the water that runs off the porch roof (could be up to 200 gallons in a one inch rain!) and where I will plant a desert tree for shade for the house and the garden.



Now, I get to just sit back and water the beds and watch them for the next 30 days or so. Well, not really sit too much. I still have the brick edging to install and a brick patio, but I feel like the push is done to get the seeds into the ground so they could germinate.

I got it all done just 2 days before the Thanksgiving rain of ’08. It was great to see Mother Nature provide the water and then the sun.

This is not the end of my journey, just the beginning of new front yard adventures. I am already planning what to plant next spring!

Happy Digging,

Doreen Pollack
www.down2earthgardens.com

The Big Spray

Well, I sprayed – it took me an hour and a half the first morning (it got too hot by 10:30am to continue) and an hour the next day, but it is done. I may have overdone it with the amount of Glyphosate I applied, 7 gallons for about 600 square feet. The back of the bottle said one gallon treats 300 square feet. But they have not seem how thick and lush my grass is, so I feel pretty certain that I got all of the grass blades wet. That was my goal, to wet the grass enough so the chemical would be pulled into the roots and start to do their thing – kill the grass.


One small event happened that MAY have made all my hard work for nothing – It rained about 12 hours after each spray! I was both giddy and upset when it rained at my house Sunday night. I got a chance to watch the rain fill my newly installed barrel. Those thirteen minutes of rain turned into several gallons in my barrel and other catchment devices (kitty litter buckets, watering cans, old trash cans).The weather man had said a 10 - 30% chance of rain, and since we hadn't had much rain yet, I gambled - and lost. But I blogged about it at the Phoenix Permaculture website www.phoenixpermaculture.org and thankfully my grass removal mentor read my pitty-party post and responded: “You should be fine...the chem would have moved into the root zone in a few hours and so the kill will happen. Don’t Panic. Don”

You can visit Don’s website here to see the recommended process I am using. http://www.4dirs.com/fdpc/bermuda.html


Thanks goodness! Of course it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but I feel a little relieved.

So far now, I go out and look closely at the lawn when I go to my car and watch for the tell tale signs that it is dying. I understand from a fellow gardener –Fred, who is also following the same process, that his took about a week. So watch for my celebratory post in about a week from now!

Until then – Happy Digging!

Doreen Pollack

www.down2earthgardens.com

gardengoddess@down2earthgardens.com

602-275-5368

Good Bye Bermuda Grass

Today is the first day of the bermuda grass removal campaign at the Goddess’ Gardens! Oh what an exciting day it is! This journey will ultimately end up with a wonderful edible and sensory garden right in my front yard! I can just smell the lavender and taste the peaches now!

I am tired of mowing and fertilizing a lawn that does nothing but sit there! It does not earn its keep as a play ground for children or pets (we have a back yard for that) and I spend lots of my time and money making it look good. (Well not that good.) And more importantly I use precious water to keep it green. I would rather use water for plants I can eat and use. And with a garden V.S. a lawn, I can use the rain water I collect and re-route off the roof to water the plants.

Oh but wait – first the Bermuda grass must DIE! I have been telling people I was going to do this for months now, but just didn’t know HOW. There are several ways.

Dig it out - but the roots can go down several feet!
Solarize – but that would also kill the roots of the other plants and trees I want to keep!
Or use a chemical – Glyphosate (i.e. Round Up)

I thought and researched about this. I went from thinking about renting a bobcat to dig it out and haul the dirt/grass away and then hand digging around all the border gardens; to laying down plastic and bricks and letting the sun cook it away (but how would I get all the grass growing in the border gardens?); to using a chemical even though I support using earth friendly products and being as natural as possible.

Then I attended a class through the Phoenix Permaculture Guild (http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/) where we were taught how to use a chemical responsibly! Imagine that, use a chemical to kill a plant! (Bermuda grass) and then bring the soil back to life!

So this is my journey. One where I will make my Bermuda grass look the best it ever has – and then I will kill it off! This will take several months to do. Then I amend the soil and plant a cover crop; nurture and harvest it; and throw it away! Only then can I begin to plant my edible garden. My goal is to plant a peach tree in January 2009 as the start to my edible front yard.

This is what my lawn looks like now – not yet ready for the first spray. I must get all of the bricks removed, so I can get to all of the roots below them and all the grass that is brown is still alive below the surface, so it must be growing well above the surface for the Glyphosate to work its magic. I will water daily and fertilize weekly to get it healthy and growing so it will be able to bring the chemical down into its root system. Of course unless the monsoon rains help me out!

I will share my journey with you here – all the tips, tricks, mistakes, all of it, so you can benefit from it.

You can also get more tips on my website at http://www.down2earthgardens.com/ and http://www.4dirs.com/fdpc/bermuda.html.

Happy Digging,

Doreen aka THE Garden Goddess