More on the compost, flowers and plastic bags

Okay, let's get the plastic bags from today's walk out of the way.  There are six of them.

Readers, I was so disgusted with the condition of some of the bags today that I only salvaged two for future poop bags.  The rest went into our trash can.

When I got home, I did a couple of gardening chores.  My mother had given me some nice pansies for Easter, and I potted those into a permanent container.  Also, I moved the lysimachia, which was in the container that broke, into one of the whiskey barrels.

Here are the pansies, next to the irises, which seem to be doing well.

Here is the lysimachia in their new home next to the creeping Jenny.  I don't know whether this will be their permanent home, but for now they'll hang out here.

Finally, I worked on the compost.  I wanted to turn it as well as add some dirt to it.  In order to do this, I had to dump it onto the ground and use my gloved hands to manually mix it.  I also added some additional greens (kitchen waste), because it seemed, despite my concerns earlier this spring, to be heavy on the browns (cut up newspaper).

Upon seeing this photo, T let me know that I have way too many eggshells in the compost.  He has heard that there should be only one or possibly two in a pile this size.  I told him I had one or two dozen.  He was adamant that there were too many.  Alas, they are already in there, plus it now kills me to throw them in the trash, so I will have some eggshell-heavy compost.

Here it is all mixed up and replaced in the compost bin.

And here is the compost "system" all back in place.

Thanks for stopping by!

After I finished this post, T read it and wanted to comment, with photos.  Photos can't be added into comments, so I have posted his comment below.

Wow, thats a lot of bags that you found! I don't blame you for wanting to throw some away. For example the bag by the car
That's gross! However I do think the others deserve a second chance. They really don't look to bad. Correct me if I'm wrong but they'd make good poo bags.

As for the compost, I think I found a cockroach!

I hate to be a critic but you do have way too many egg shells there.

In each circle is an egg shell. However there were a few I passed up to give mom the benefit of the bought. Also there are some I missed and some under the other compost. In total there is possibly  10-20X to many egg shells. If you thought my pepper is being tortured wait till you see the plants who have to grow in that many eggshells. Mine just has to survive some paper. Mom, give your plants some mercy and wait until they are sturdier when you give them that.

Beauty interspersed with plastic bags

Last night after work I took Walter for a quick walk.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I challenged myself to pick up three bags in the course of the walk.  It was a beautiful sunny evening, so I took some pictures of flowers and trees in my neighborhood.  Here is a photo-depiction of our walk -- the beautiful as well as the ugly.

Here's the first bag -- that blue thing in the middle of the driveway.

Look at this -- so pretty!

Another bag.  It's next to the crushed milk bottle -- ew.

Pear trees in bloom!

This plastic bag photo is blurry because I'm trying to be unobtrusive about photographing them and picking them up, and there were lots of people driving by.

Pretty phlox spilling over the curb.

Innocent little violets.

There's pretty ground cover in this person's front yard.

Thanks for checking in!

First, cause no harm.

I went on a walk with Walter two days ago, and only found one bag.  That was good.

After finding the bag, we kept walking and looking, and eventually Walter had to poop.  I reached in my pocket for the bag I brought, and it was...GONE!  It had escaped from my pocket!  I littered a plastic bag!  I will have to redouble my efforts on my next walk, to make up for this slip-up.  Luckily, I had found the one bag, so was able to use that for poop pick-up.

In other news, my zucchini seedlings sprouted on Sunday, and compared to the fragile tomato and pepper seedlings, these things are giants.  I have already snipped off the extra seedlings in each cup.  Here's the process.  The first photo is pre-snipping, and the second one is after snipping.  As you can see, the seedlings in the little pot didn't sprout.  That thing is a seedling black hole -- first the sunflower didn't sprout, then the crabapple, and now the zucchini.

Here are all of my seedlings, including the now-even-larger zucchini.

You will notice that two peppers and two tomatoes are missing.  I don't have room for them in my containers outside, so I gave them away to a good home.  In fact, they went to a farm, where the sun is always shining, and they can play outdoors.

Okay, it's not a farm, but it's a good home.

Six more bags on another wet day

Here's what I picked up on a 45-minute walk with Walter today.

There were seven bags, but one held an assortment of wires, so I put it in a trashcan I passed.  I used the first one on the walk, and the other five are drying in the basement.

Walter is a very complex and deeply thoughtful dog.  You can see from his photo that his expression reflects an understanding of the costs of plastic refuse to our environment, plus a hint of exasperation at the carelessness of the person who tossed the bag, plus a hearty dose of hope that one day humankind will realize that the health of the natural world is more important than our fleeting material wants.

Earth Day cleanup!

T and J and I cleaned up the Ugly Strip today, in honor of Earth Day.  Here's a before.  Handsome boys, but an Ugly Strip.

Here's another before, taken by T.

Here's the work happening.

Here's J with the bag of recyclables we collected, and T with one of the two bags of trash, leaves and brush we collected.  Unfortunately, the trash was so mixed in with the leaves and brush that we couldn't easily separate them into compost and trash, so it will all go into the trash.

And here's an after shot, taken by T.  Much nicer!

Zucchini, carrots, and a resolution

Another walk with Walter equals more plastic bags.  I think the rain makes them easier to find, because they get weighed down with water, and it was rainy on Wednesday morning.  Here are the three bags I found.

I brought them home and gave them the hanging-in-the-basement treatment, and I will use them as poo bags for Walter.

Also, on Monday, I figured I might as well make use of the three cups that have seed-starting mix but no seedlings (the two chili peppers and one crabapple tree that didn't sprout), and plant zucchini seeds.  I had bought zucchini seeds and then decided I didn't want to devote the space to it, but then, given the available cups, I figured I'd just do it.  Here they are -- three cups of Black Beauty zucchini seeds!  Their germination time should be five to 10 days.

Also, I've been so preoccupied with the seedlings that I haven't been looking at my notebook, in which I recorded the dates when each of the vegetables needs to be planted, whether inside or outside.

I took a look and realized it's time (almost past time) to plant the carrots!  I'm reading a book called I Garden Urban Style by Reggie Solomon and Michael Nolan, and they describe a helpful method for planting the tiny carrot seeds.  First, you lay out as much toilet paper as will fit flat in your planting area.  Then you mark with a pen the correct spacing for the carrot seeds.  Then you put a dab of nontoxic glue like Elmer's on each dot, and with glue on a toothpick or chopstick (I used my finger), you pick up a miniature carrot seed and put it on the glue dot.  Continue until you have a seed on each dot.  This is not so easy because the seeds really are tiny!

Next, I laid the toilet paper in the pot and weighed it down with a little dirt, because it was extremely windy out yesterday, and I wanted to be able to take a picture of it!

Finally, I covered it with a little dirt (1/4"), and watered it.

Germination time for these Scarlet Nantes carrots is six to 18 days.

I took a break from writing this post to walk Walter.  On that walk, I found two plastic bags.  One was clean and I put it right in my pocket for my next walk with Walter.  The other one was full of broken glass and I put it in my trash barrel.  I don't like always feeling like my hands are dirty and I have to scour them, but look, here's why I want to do this.

That's from seaturtle.org.  They have lots of pictures of sea turtles swimming in and eating plastic bags and other plastic items, plus lots of pictures of the plastic that is part of the contents of sea turtles's stomachs. This photo is of a leatherback turtle nesting beach on the Dominican Republic, covered with trash that has washed up in the waves.  It's digusting.  I am a part of that problem, because, just like most people, I buy things all the time, and that's where trash comes from -- the things we buy, and the things that wrap the things we buy.  I am gradually getting better, though -- for instance, I don't often accept plastic bags at a store.  I can and should never accept a plastic bag, however.  I have reusable bags that I bring places with me -- it's when I forget to bring a reusable bag that I end up accepting a plastic bag.  I just need to tell myself that if I forget my reusable bag, I'll have to wait to make the purchase, if there is truly too much to carry without a bag.  I'm going to do that starting now -- no more accepting plastic bags at a store.  Okay, it's done!

There are obviously a million other things I need to stop using/accepting, but I'm going to start with the plastic bags.  Today is Earth Day, so it's a good day to start a resolution like this!

Also, today is Earth day, so the kids and I will be cleaning up the Ugly Strip later.  Stay tuned!

A very nice gardener!

Yesterday I was thinking about the various flowers I might like to plant in the containers in the front of the House Behind the Other Houses.  I decided to post on Freecycle, to see if there might be any gardeners who have flowers that multiply year after year, who would be willing to give me some extra plants.  I posted, and very shortly after that, a woman named Alison responded.  She offered some plants that have purple foliage and yellow blossoms (which turned out to be lysimachia ciliata "Purpurea").  I drove over there this morning, met her and her dog Cede, and saw her beautiful gardens and lawn.  Here's her front entranceway.

Not only did she offer the lysimachia, but many other plants too.  As she walked me around her yard, I dug up bits of plants and put them in my paper bag.  Here's Cede hopping past my bag.

As soon as I got home, I rounded up my helper J, and we headed outside.  T chose to oversee the action inside the house (aka he watched Phineas and Ferb via Netflix on the IPad).

First, J and I laid out the plants so we could see what we had.

Next, we prepared the pots.

We potted up three plants that will be heading up to the Rocky Coast with the blogger from Nellie Sold Her House To Us.  Here they are -- a columbine, salvia and iris.

Then we potted iris for ourselves.

And then we planted the rest.  In the whiskey barrel is a little bitty salvia on the left, and creeping Jenny in the front.  In the smallest pot is something I don't know the name of, even though Allison wrote everything down for me (I don't think this one got written down -- maybe she will comment and tell me what it is!).  In the bright blue pot is the columbine, and in the gray pot on the left is the lysimachia.  Take a look at that pot.  After it was planted, I picked it up and moved it to where I wanted it, and set it down too hard, and broke it.  I didn't even need any help to do that -- I did it all by myself.  Ugh.  I will buy a new pot for the lysimachia ASAP.

We even got all of the containers prepared for when the vegetables are ready to plant outside.

We were tired but satisfied after our morning of gardening.  Thank you, Alison!