Homemade Compost

We started collecting our food scraps about 1 1/2 years ago. We threw all of our fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, tea and coffee leaves and sometimes a paper towel or two into our compost bin in the backyard. Sometimes we put in discarded plant material (but not weeds), leaves and grass. We never stirred it, mixed it, or did anything else to it like you are supposed to if you are a master composter. In fact, as the winter progressed and our bin got fuller and fuller, I was beginning to wonder if we might need to get with the program and do it the right way. I just wasn't seeing any evidence of the black gold we were supposed to harvest.

So I was surprised and relieved when Tom took down the sides of the bin, dug beneath the top layers, and pulled out some lovely compost (do the words 'lovely' and 'compost' go together?). The picture above shows the compost beneath the current top layers, and the picture below shows it on its way down to our lasagna gardens.

Now that I know that this works - particularly when using the dump-and-leave technique - I am re-energized and re-committed to our food scrap recycling process. It's nice to know we aren't dumping our food and plant waste into our water system, but instead are using it in our yard. I love it when it all comes together like this!

Building Lasagna Gardens at Marygrove

On Tuesday, April 28th, a group of us met with a group of volunteers from Marygrove College in Detroit to help them build the frame for their first lasagna garden. A lasagna garden is a raised bed garden full of layers of organic matter that grow huge vegetables with little watering or weeding (for more details see our Lasagna gardening page). Marygrove is currently clearing out dead ash trees, so there was an abundant supply of wood. The wood was cut to fit a 4 X 6 garden. We stacked the logs on top of each other and put stakes in the ground to hold the logs in place. We'll return in a couple of weeks to fill the garden and help plant the plants. Martha is jumping over the finished garden, below.

For a video showing the pounding of the final stake (and to hear Delphine's fine singing voice), see below...

Vacationing without a car 2

Our goal in Washington DC was to locate close to public transportation, and Tom found a great hotel right across the street from the subway. DC has a wonderful subway system, and we had no problem using it to get our luggage to the hotel, and then on our daily adventures. I had a flashback to our time on the subways in Tokyo.

In Williamsburg we stayed at Kingsmill, a resort about 4 miles from Colonial Williamsburg. Tom had found a bike rental place ahead of time, so on our first full day there we hopped on the Kingsmill shuttle, and they dropped us off to pick up our bikes. You might notice from the picture that my bike was rigged with a piece of cardboard on the back (no fender - I wanted mud protection) and a nice little basket in the front. The owner of the shop was happy to accommodate my requests. It was wonderful biking to and from our destination, and we really got a great cardiovascular workout from a couple of strategically placed hills.

I will say that we, as bikers in Colonial Williamsburg (and Kingsmill), were definitely an oddity. We did see a few other people biking, but it was unusual. That surprised me. The place is huge and it's nice to traverse it by bike.

One thing that posed a challenge for us: eating. Since we were there for a week, we wanted to buy groceries, and not eat out all the time. Kingsmill did not have a grocery nearby, and we did not encounter one on our 4-mile rides to Williamsburg. So we fired up the computer and made use of Google maps...and found a store about a mile out on the other side of the colonial area - no problem on a bike.

So my main message about a carless vacation is that it's a lot of fun, but it requires flexibility and a bit of work. We're scheduled to do the same thing again next year. We've already inked it in.

Vacationing without a car

Tom and I recently returned from another trip without a car, and we really loved it. We wanted to get to Williamsburg, VA, and decided to take the Amtrak train. The whole thing is a process, certainly not as easy as driving, but train travel has its rewards. Here's how we did it: First, we found out that we would have a short stopover in Washington DC, so we decided to take advantage of it, and we simply extended the layover to a few days of sightseeing. So the trip became a 2-city vacation. And who can resist a trip to the capitol?

The next obstacle: we found out that we had to board the train in Toledo....at midnight (boarding it in Detroit would take us to DC via Chicago). No problem - we were up for an adventure. We took a bus from Ann Arbor and arrived at the terminal in Toledo to discover that the train was an hour late, so we boarded at 1 AM. We were in a sleeper, which meant we had a tiny room - and let me emphasize the word tiny - and it was a goat rodeo figuring out how to undress and get into our little bunks. But we managed - sleep was a powerful incentive. We actually slept pretty well. Do you have any memories of your mother rocking you to sleep? Not quite like that, but you are rocking.

Now let me tell you some wonderful things about train travel. The next morning we woke up, showered (!) and headed for breakfast in the dining car. We shared a table with a nice couple traveling out to their daughter's wedding. Yes, people actually seem to like each other on trains, as opposed to how we barely tolerate each other on planes. The atmosphere is so relaxed, mainly due to the fact that on a train the one thing you have a lot of, in addition to leg room, is time. So we shared a leisurely breakfast and then went back to our little room to find the beds had disappeared and in their place were 2 comfy chairs with pillows. Due to some very admirable engineering, the bottom bunk transformed in the daytime to chairs, and we saw that the top bunk had been sort of pushed up and attached to the ceiling. So, given the fact that we had had an abbreviated night, we fell asleep and awoke just in time for lunch. We arrived at Washington DC's Union Station refreshed and full. When was the last time that happened to you while traveling by plane or car?

This is getting long....the next post will describe how we got around once we arrived in DC and Williamsburg.

Lasagna Season Extension

Spring is finally arrived, and gardeners all around Michigan are waiting for the soil to warm and dry up, so they can start planting. But look: raised beds (aka Lasagna Gardens) warm quickly and while they keep moisture, they won't be soggy. So, with the help of a little plastic tunnel, I already started my cool season veggies...

This neat raised bed is waiting for some seedlings. It is nice enough to be in the front of the house, ... but it has been my compost pile during the winter. Lasagna Gardening wonders!

--[[User:Erica|erica]] 09:53, 14 Apr 2008 (EDT)

Kill-A-Watt

Our Tuesday group has been studying energy for a while now. We first looked at worldwide energy use, then carbon, then light bulbs, and now we are settled on energy in the home. Our goal: a 10% reduction in our energy bills (gas and electric) by next year at this time. First, we looked at how energy use is distributed in our homes, and we examined our gas and electric bills. We started with the chart above, from Energy Star.


Now we're trying to figure out how much energy we use in the various appliances in our homes, such as our refrigerators, computers, washing machines, etc. Our group has 2 Kill-A-Watts, above, which we are passing around and using all around our homes. You plug it into your wall socket, plug your device in, and it will tell you how many watts the device is using. The results can be surprising, as you can see in this video.

Another rain barrel class

On Saturday, March 1, we conducted another rain barrel presentation, this time at the Clinton-Macomb Public Library. We didn't build a barrel at this one, only talked about them and brought one along so everyone could see it. It was a small but very interested group, and the size made for great discussions.

On another topic, I ran across this cartoon today while reading the No Impact Man blog, and thought you would all appreciate it. Credit for the cartoon goes to Eric Lewis of Cartoon Bank.