The Compost Heap
News, Views, and Features from the Posh Squash Garden
The Sea Ranch, California
Fall 2002, Issue #5
The Steering Committee met under the cherry tree at The Garden on Wednesday, September 4, 2002. Present were Tom Warnock and Mary Austin, Co-coordinators, and Ken Holmes, Jer Skibbins, Sal Skibbins, John Horn, Chester Case and Jim Grenwelge. Brigitte Micmacker and Laura Franklin joined in on the discussion.
Tom told the Committee the Posh Squash balance is now $3181. Recent water bills have been in the $600 neighborhood.
Tom reported that Kelly Mason, executor of the Baker estate, has been busy lately having a baby, so has not yet been able to respond to our ideas on the present garden site. The Committee discussed at length what we will need to do when we get a response. If it is favorable, we will want to continue discussions with the Baker estate. We will also need funds to take positive steps, so money-raising strategies were brainstormed. Uncertainty prevails as of now. When things have firmed up enough to formulate an action plan, the Garden membership will be engaged in discussion, planning and decision-making. Anyone wishing more details on this complex topic is invited to talk to Day Leaders, or to Tom or Mary.
It is getting to be time to winterize the Garden. There will be winter plantings like the ever-popular garlic. Also, fall and winter plantings of broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, cabbage, peas, māche and the like. The Herb Garden and flower perennials will keep on truckin'. Now is the time for Mary, Sal and John to designate certain rows to clear and retire for the winter and mulch against winter's pounding rain and spring's weeds. Black plastic was rejected as a mulch, but straw, compost, chips, and newspaper were smiled upon. We will need newspaper and lots of it. By way of reminder, Gardeners can check out in the Chore Book what is to be planted, where and when. Sal constantly updates the list.
The Committee discussed several of the larger projects in the offing for which work parties will be organized. One will be for garlic planting in November. Raspberries will need to be pruned and, this year, thinned and replanted and beds renewed. Same for the rhubarb and strawberries. Another work party will be organized to do general cleanup, trimming and weeding.
The present tent greenhouse will be taken down before the winter gales send it flapping into the hinterlands. Since tomatoes cannot successfully be grown successively in the same place, a second tent greenhouse will be erected on the eastern line past the Compost Works when the winter storms are over.
Now that this growing season is winding down, we can see, looking back, that the greenhouse has been a great success. Jer ran up some figures to make the point of phenomenal germination. "6,117 seeds were planted at a rate of 90% germination," he declared, "which put 5,400 plants in the cold frames." Thereabouts. More help is needed in the greenhouse. Especially needed are greenhouse-minded Gardeners who can give steady and consistent attention to the little seedlings in a timely manner. Jer will train persons in the ways of the greenhouse.
Dates were set for the Harvest Dinner and Organizational Meeting. See items elsewhere in this issue.
Watering remains a problem. Over- and under-watering still occurs. Gardeners must test the ground for moisture with the probe, as visual appearances are deceiving. Check with the Water Persons or a Day Leader if you have questions.
A bit of beauty is heading our way. Genny Wilson has created a Posh Squash design suitable for color printing on sweatshirts, T-shirts, posters, or as a logo. Jim Grenwelge and others are looking into ways to get the printing done and offered to Gardeners for purchase...a great fundraiser! The design sinuously intertwines the vine, leaf and blossom of a squash in a harmony of line, space and color. Watch for it!
GARDEN GOLD FROM GARBAGE; THE ROMANCE OF COMPOSTING
by Chester Case
"Compost is the core, the essential foundation of natural gardening and farming. It is the heart of the organic concept." J. I. Rodale
Though romantic and powerfully metaphoric, making compost is hard work. Happily, the work is done mostly by myriads of micro-organisms,earthworms, nematodes, and sow bugs. The means are complex and mysterious, but Composters get off easy. We only facilitate processes as inevitable and unvarying as the great cycles of growth, return and renewal that sustain the Earth.
Composting has gone on at the Posh Squash since it was first planted. Lately, we have expanded the Compost Works to increase output. Three variations on the theme of composting are at work in the Bins, Pens and Heaps.
In the Bins, compost is made by the "California Method," which features chopping, mixing and moistening green (nitrogen) and brown (carbon)ingredients. The mix is tossed every 3 to 7 days. Aerators are used. Fine-texture compost happens in 4-6 weeks.
The Pens catch rougher organic material. Weeds, leaves, softer vines and stems are layered with manure, earth, finished compost, sometimes organic nitrogen, and moistened. Perforated PVC pipes introduce oxygen. Pens are tossed several times over 2-4 months to produce a coarse compost.
Woody, decomposition-resistant stuff like cabbage stumps, stems and stalks, heavy weeds and sturdy vines, go into the Heaps. Shredding helps. Manure, earth, and finished compost are layered. The material is heaped and wetted in piles or rows underlaid with perforated pipes. In 4-6 months, with several turnings, Composters are rewarded with nice smelling, dark, "rough" compost.
Every Gardener can be a Composter by bringing to the bins easily compostable kitchen trimmings, peelings, rinds and husks, egg shells, coffee grounds and the like. Corn husks, cobs, viney stems and stalks are welcome, too, but not in the bins. Toss them on the big weed pile. Whack the stuff with the machete, or pull woody prunings, stalks, stems and stumps out of the bins with the five-tine manure fork. You may entertain an urge to toss and fluff some compost, but check with one of the Compost Crew first.
Everything that grows in the Garden, except what Gardeners eat, should be recycled. Not oxalis bulbs, of course, or diseased plants. These go in the trash or burn pile. Meat, bones, oils, grease, animal waste are verboten in the Compost Works.
Compost is good stuff. It improves tilth, water retention and absorption by plants. It is good mulch, but not great fertilizer. It plays a big part in what the Garden is today, and what it needs to stay healthy. Composting shows our stewardship for our small piece of the earth.
Recipe from Dean Schuler
4 large pears (Bosc, Bartlett or Comice)
1 cup water
1 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp honey
4 dried apricots
2 strips lemon rind (3x1/2”)
1 tsp vanilla extract or a 3” piece vanilla bean, split
1 whole clove
4 vanilla wafers, crushed
5 tbsp coarsely-chopped pistachios, divided
Peel and core pears from bottom, leaving stems intact and pears whole. Slice about 1/4” from base of each pear so it will sit flat.
Combine water and next 7 ingredients (water through clove) in a large saucepan; bring to boil. Add pears; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 5 to 10 minutes (depending on ripeness of pears) or until tender. Remove pears and apricots from cooking liquid using slotted spoon; chill pears and apricots. Bring cooking liquid to a boil; cook about 15 minutes or til reduced to 1 cup. Strain through sieve over a bowl; discard solids. Chill.
Chop apricots. Combine them with wafer crumbs and 1 tbsp pistachios. Stuff about 2 Tbsp of this mixture into each pear cavity. Place pears in individual serving bowls. Spoon 1/4 cup syrup over each pear, sprinkle each with 1 tbsp pistachios. Garnish with mint sprig if desired.
Serves 4.
Garden Haiku by Gerry Wilson
Hushed by tall sentinels
Sunspots meld with oxalis
Living on a stump
Mark These Dates on Your Calendar
Annual Harvest Dinner
Wednesday, November 6, 2002, at the Barn. Continuing the mellow Posh Squash tradition, the Harvest Pot Luck Dinner will celebrate the Fall Harvest and mark the advent of winter gardening. Jim Grenwelge and Barbara Miachika have volunteered to organize the dinner and decorate the Barn. Gardeners will be needed to help set it up, and all will bring the luck of their pots. In the spirit of the occasion, everyone pitches in to clean up. Jim and Barbara will be sending out the word soon. An event to look forward to.
Spring, 2003 Organizational Meeting
Saturday, February 6, 2003 at the Del Mar Center. Next year, the Garden season will begin with the Organizational Meeting. If you know Sea Ranchers interested in joining the Garden, this is the meeting for them to attend. More information will be coming later.
TCH recommends “Greenfingers”, a Gardener’s kind of movie. Available locally on tape and DVD.
With satisfying predictability, though not without amusing surprises and suspense, this fable of redemption unfolds. You know pretty much how it is going to come out, but how? How is the morose, self-loathing murderer incarcerated in the experimental “open system” Edgefield Prison going find love, purpose and self-forgiveness? Hint: think Gardening!
Colin Briggs (Clive Owen) is the convict without hope or purpose, remanded to Edgefield to serve out the remainder of his sentence. Fergus Wilkes (David Kelly of “Waking Ned Devine”), a lifer, is his old, sick, wizened and wise cellmate, who presents him with a packet of seeds, and...well, see for yourself. Hint: “Beauty (like wildflowers) grows in unexpected places.” Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren) is the very epitome of the English Gardener, author, expert, authority, frocked and hatted in floral splendor. She (imperiously) takes up Colin’s cause. Her georgeous daughter, Primrose, and Colin...well, see for yourself.
“Greenfingers” runs fast, funny and is pictorially super. When I ran it a second time I was delighted at its depth and scope of observation, not to mention the delights of John Daly’s cinematography. Joel Hershman, writer and director, managed not to overload his story with trenchant social commentary, but he did get in some licks on the class system, politics of prison reform and garden show judging, etiology of criminal behavior, oh, and a little sex in and out of the greenhouse.
Explicit in “Greenfingers” is the top-down, garden-as-performer approach. The gardener commanders and controls. Fergus coaches Colin, “What do you want your garden to do?” Flowers and shrubs are the horticultural stars. How about vegetables and fruits? And while I’m complaining, where is the compost? Not a mention of composting and compost, maybe because the metaphoric cycle of garbage to garden gold is too gross for such a fable of human transformation.
Photos by Reva Basch