Springfield Locavore

Garbage Bag Leaf Composting

(I started this post back in early November. *sigh*)

When we were preparing our Halloween decorations, one item we had was a giant spider made out of black plastic bags that you fill with leaves to form the body and the legs. In order to do this, we needed leaves! So rather than use the mulching mower to mulch the leaves into the lawn, as I normally do, I began to rake them into piles, something I hadn't done since college.

My 3-year-old son had other ideas for the leaves, of course, and did his best to ensure that the piles weren't too neat.

However, at some point I noticed on the packaging of the spider another suggestion: Instead of leaves, you could use wadded up newspaper. Given that we had recently moved, we had 2 large garbage bags filled with wadded up newspaper, waiting for me to take them to the recycling center. So, rather than raking up a bunch of leaves, we were able to (temporarily) reuse all that wadded up newspaper!

But now I had piles of leaves slowly killing the grass. I got out the mulching mower and took care of the piles, but those leaves were quickly replaced by more. What I really wanted to do with the leaves was to throw them into the compost bin. Unfortunately, before I can do that, I have to make a compost bin. I haven't been organized enough to do that yet, given the other priorities we've had with getting settled into our new home.

Then I came across mention of a method of composting leaves that was easy and required nothing more than a plastic garbage bag!

Garbage Bag Leaf Composting

1. Put the bagging attachment on your lawnmower.
2. Mow up leaves and grass.
3. Empty bagging attachment into large black plastic garbage bag.
4. When garbage bag is mostly full (about 2 full bagging attachments in my case), add about a gallon of water.
5. Add a shovelful of dirt.
6. Tie the garbage bag closed.
7. Shake up the contents of the bag to mix everything well.
8. Use a knife to poke several holes in the bag.
9. Place the bag in partial sun.
10. Shake up the bag every couple of weeks.
11. Come spring, the bag's contents should be fully composted! (If you still see bits of leaves, tie it closed and let it sit another couple of weeks.)
    

At least that's what the Internet says, and the Internet is never wrong! :P

• How to Compost Leaves in a Plastic Bag
• The Lazy Man's Guide to Leaf Composting in a Plastic Bag
• Easy Composting

We'll have to see how this turns out. I got a late start, both on bagging the leaves and grass, as well as on adding the soil and water. However, since I haven't built a selected a compost site yet, this will have to do. At the moment I have 9 black plastic garbage bags sitting near the house on the south side. I'm hoping that during the winter months they will get some reflected heat from the bricks of the house to help keep the process going. We'll see!

Review: The $64 Tomato, by William Alexander

When I heard the title, The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden, I knew I had to get this book. As someone who is on the verge of plunging into fairly unknown territory -- vegetable gardening -- I figured this would serve as a useful cautionary tale, as well as being funny. I was somewhat correct on the first count, and definitely correct on the second count!

The author, William Alexander, lives in New York's Hudson Valley in a large 3-acre property in a big old farmhouse that required extensive renovations. When he and his wife decided they wanted a garden, they hired a landscape architect to design it.

As soon as I read that, I began to get an idea of why his tomatoes were going to cost him $64 each. Who in the world hires someone to design a vegetable garden? Actually, I suspect quite a few people do. I'm definitely not one of them.

When I was growing up, my parents had a vegetable garden. It was a fenced in area with plenty of vegetables planted in rows in the dirt. Period. It worked quite well. (Of course, as a teenager, I had no interest at all in the garden and would only reluctantly help my parents maintain it. How things have changed!)

William Alexander, however, didn't want just a patch of dirt with rows of vegetables. He envisioned the garden as being beautiful as well as practical. Thus, the landscape architect, as well as numerous other expenses and aggravations that he incurred over time.

For example, one labor-saving way to keep weeds down is to use black plastic or landscape fabric. However, since he didn't like the appearance, and because he didn't want to be separated from the marvelous soil of the garden, he refused to use it.

The garden he plants is quite large: 20 raised beds (4 feet by 12 feet), plus another thousand square feet for corn, cucumbers, squash, and melons. I hope I'm smart enough not to plant a garden that large!

However, throughout the book he displays plenty of humor about his misadventures and plans gone awry. Here's an excerpt, where he explains the difference between "weeding" and "cultivating":

"Gonna be a lot of weeding," he repeated. I let the handful of sixty-dollar-a-yard topsoil drop back into the bed.

"Cultivating," I said under my breath. "Gonna be a lot of cultivating."

What's the difference?

Well, none really. Except image. As when decades ago my sweaty teenage sister (or was it Blanche DuBois?) declared, "Ah don't sweat; ah perspire." Well, ah don't week; ah cultivate. (As it turns out, ah will cultivate a lot.) Whereas weeding evokes images of backbreaking labor, kneeling under a broad-brimmed hat while hand-yanking weeds into a basket to be dumped in a remote corner of the yard, cultivating suggests nurturing, caring for tender shoots, feeding, and raising. All of which you accomplish, of course, by kneeling and hand-yanking weeds into a basket to be dumped in a remote corner of the yard.

Some of the most useful bits of the book discuss his attempts to keep out deer and groundhogs, as well as his battles against insects, weeds, fungi, etc. He also relates the conflict between his desire to have a completely organic garden and his desire to actually have something left to harvest! I suspect many gardeners go through a similar struggle.

The title of the book refers to a calculation that he made at some point to find out how much each tomato that he had harvested that season had cost him. The cost he comes up with is $64 each. However, don't make the mistake of thinking that amount is typical and let it discourage you from planting a garden! I have to nitpick and point out that there are significant flaws in his calculation. In addition, he incurred large expenses that most gardeners will not face.

For example, because the spot he chose for his garden was on a slope, he had to bring in a professional with some heavy equipment to grade and terrace the ground, at a cost of $8,500! Plus, he valued all of the rest of his produce at standard supermarket prices, leaving $1219 in expenses. He then divided that among the 19 Brandywine tomatoes he got that year (it was an extremely bad harvest that year) and came up with the figure of $64 per tomato.

I could go into great detail, analyzing his accounting method and explaining what's wrong with it, but frankly it would be about as interesting as, well, accounting. So instead I'll just repeat that the average gardener is not going to spend anywhere near $64 each to raise tomatoes, so don't let that scare you off!

Regardless of nitpicks with his accounting, this was a very entertaining book and I recommend it to everyone, even if you doubt you will ever put spade to soil.

• The $64 Tomato web site

What I'm Currently Reading

• Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook, by Jennifer R. Bartley

Waiting in My Queue

• Let It Rot! The Gardener's Guide to Composting, by Stu Campbell
• Keeping the Harvest: Discover the Homegrown Goodness of Putting Up Your Own Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs, by Nancy Chioffi & Gretchen Mead
• Illinois Gardener's Guide, by James A. Fizzell

My Resolutions for 2009

Resolution #1: Post more often to my damn blog!

*sigh* Actually, I started several blog posts over the last month. I just haven't actually finished any of them! Some of us aren't hung up on the whole "completion" thing, ya know?

Okay, the holidays are done with, so I should be back with some real posts soon. I've got a few book reviews, some info about garbage bag leaf composting, and some updates on buying local in Springfield grocery stores, not to mention lots of complaining about how thoroughly not prepared for a garden our property will be this spring!