Making Dirt

November 30, 2009 by Adam in Adam's Projects

After my organic gardening class, I came across some plans for a compost tumbler.  When I was a kid, we had compost piles for the garden, though I haven't had one in years.  It's always bothered me, throwing out perfectly good food scraps.  With my recent gardening kick, I decided it was time to screw up my courage and do something about it.

I picked up the supplies some weeks ago, heading over to my dad's to help cut out a door in the 55-gallon drum.  The drum itself came from Pasta Plus, where they make industrial volumes of pesto out of olive oil.  Over several weeks, I've been putting parts together, and today I finally assembled the thing.  There was a brief moment of excitement when I realized the measurements were off, but with a little improvisation, I managed to make it work relatively well.

There's still more I could do, such as painting the drum and staining the wood.  I'll see if I can do that before throwing it out in the elements.

Still, it was satisfying seeing it together.  Soon I'll be making dirt like the best of 'em.

Garden Plans

November 19, 2009 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I was talking with Seraph tonight and she asked that I post the plans for the new garden.  You can click on the picture below and theoretically make it bigger.  To the right are two big boxes with another labeled "future" that represent the raised beds.  To make things more confusing, the long box labeled "Planter Box" is the existing one with all the flowers.

In terms of what I want to grow, I have all sorts of plans: spinach, arugula, kale, lettuce, peas, tomatoes, green beans, and maybe potato and onion too.  We'll see what I actually have room for.

I also need to find the time to assemble the compost tumbler.  I actually had some time tonight while Jamie took the kids swimming.  I ended up chatting away with Seraph for an hour, though, which I considered time well spent.