The Wu Tang clan of gardening

 I spent most of the day yesterday working on a piece for a show with Little Paper Planes for the book launch party in June. Although I took a few breaks to change up the pace, most of the day was spent sitting in front of the computer working in Photoshop. A brief conversation in Facebook about how to deter slugs from strawberries compelled me to illustrate my advice: use eggshells.

Let's drive the point home, shall we? Egg shells are the Wu Tang clan of gardening.

Laissez Faire Food

I'm planning on an outdoorsy kind of weekend, finally getting some seeds in the ground. It's nice to look back at an area that was once English ivy and a boxwood to see it growing into an area of abundant food.

 

The strawberries sent out runners galore last year. This year I'm letting the runners root and will move them to another garden bed later in the season. The rhubarb has disappeared, but it might've been moved without my permission. Funnily enough I've been wondering where a purple anemone came from that popped up in the backyard near the pond. Looks like a squirrel stole the tubers from the front and transplanted them to the back. The kiwi vines seem happy enough, as does a fall planted blueberry.

The rain barrel stand is an old iron frame from a wicker chair a room mate left behind about 8 years ago. It works perfectly! The stepping stones are actually insulated glass samples we get from window reps at work. I'm mulching with old, broken terra cotta pots. I just give the pieces a smack with the shovel every once in a while to make the pieces smaller. They'll disappear soon enough.

Here's a little timeline for those of you without the patience to sit through the slide show. After ripping out the ivy I put the compost bin in the area for a few rotations. The worms moved in and tilled up the soil and I started getting to work adding plants. Somewhere along the way my focus shifted from pretty flowers to tasty foods and it became a designated perennial edible bed. 

Souls and Soles

It's been a while since we did a little compare and contrast. Today we'll look at TOMS shoes vs Skechers' brand BOBS. Since the picture I put together explains most of the details I won't touch on those, except to say the curly brown haired guy on the left is Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS; the curly haired dude on the right is, as far as I can tell, just some dude they found to put on the website for BOBS.  Perhaps the obviously profit-minded Skechers could adopt a new slogan: Soulless Shoemaker.

Redneck Hot or Urban Haute?

I've been bothering Charlie for one of these for oh....say...2 years now? See The Brick House's vision? Search "stock tank pool" or "livestock tank pool" and you'll find pages of drool worth examples. The idea of pool upkeep isn't so fantastic so the popularity of living pools makes for an equally tempting option, albeit one that might leave you with little fish nibbles every time you swim. But as far as a plain ol' stock tank with water? In one context it's a whole lotta hillbilly, but in another it's modern, simple design.

I love Jay Sauceda's images of the pool at El Cosmico in Texas; the built up stone edging, the way the water calls for a dip. Check out the Lundberg Design sophistication going on--zero redneck there.

Steve and Glen's Joshua Tree abode as seen on Apartment Therapy.  bigBANG studio's pictures of the same.

Who's ready for a dip? What do you think? Redneck hot tub or modern with a bit of twang?

DIY Soil Amendment: Calcium

Calcium is one of those things we don't usually talk about in terms of garden nutrients, right? I mean, you buy a bag of soil amendments and the big numbers are NPK, but what about the little guys? The minerals and micro nutrients that feed soil health? I'm no soil scientist, I don't purport to be an expert, but I can recognize a deformed fruit when I see one. (Blossom end rot, anyone?) Funk lookin' fruits can be a sign of calcium deficiency. Calcium is vital for sugar production in plants, it's part of what keeps your vegetables from being bitter. 


To boost my beds with a bit of calcium I fill empty milk and dairy containers with water to rinse them, but instead of pouring the water down the drain I'll pour it on a garden bed. I'm also hoping the finished bokashi will add micro nutrients to the soil, and the addition of bokashi-composted bones from dinner should add a little something to the soil, too.

We also have a plenitude of eggshells. After a Sunday of cooking snacks for the week ahead I generally have a small pan full.Now, if you've ever thrown eggs in the compost bin you know they break down very slowly. When added directly to a garden bed they break down even more slowly, so they don't directly provide much calcium to your plants; something like Soft Rock Phosphate is better suited for that. This past winter I've been saving the shells from hard boiled eggs and grinding them up. I've also been taking the shells from other eggy exploits and sticking them in the oven to bake when I'm cooking dinner. My theory is to kill off unwanted bacteria and dry the shells out for storage. They, too, are ground up. In the end, I have something that looks like this:

The texture ranges from a fine dust to gritty bits that look like pulverized shells on the beach. Since eggshells are a good way to keep slugs under control, the grit should work double time. The powder will be more readily available to the plants and the larger grit will work as pest control.

It's not revolutionary, but I get a little excited about free garden solutions. Do you save your eggshells? What's your favorite free soil amendment?