My Award

I’ve never gotten an award before so I was delighted to wake up to this award bestowed by Tinky of Our Grandmother’s Kitchens. Thank you Tinky! She did say there were seven things the award givers want to know about me, before I pass the award along to seven other favorite bloggers.

She also said if I was too shy I didn’t have to tell all – but I can certainly think of seven things to share. Some may have been self-evident to readers of my blog.

You all must know that I love roses and have a collection of over 60 roses. These are not fussy hybrid teas, but hardy roses that can take our Heathan winters and winds. Many are fragrant as well as beautiful. And the last Sunday in June we always have our version of Garden Open Today at The Annual Rose Viewing.  Lemonade and Cookies.

I’m a reader. I like many kinds of books, mysteries, novels, poetry, ‘lit-ra-chuh’, cookbooks and, of course, garden books. When I was a librarian I loved being a ‘reader’s advisor’ helping my patrons find a book to delight and inform. So I will pass on a couple of suggestions. I love the Mary Russell mystery novels by Laurie R. King beginning with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and Penelope Lively whose latest is Family Album. I’ve also just finished Letters from Yellowstone by Diane Smith. A national park in 1898, botany, a feminist, a raven and much much more. I highly recommed it.

I’m a cook, and I love baking. I baked this apple tart for a ‘meeting’ of the Heath Gourmet Club. We have been meeting and eating once a month since September 1981. That’s 28 years of serving ourselves. I’m famous for choosing France as a theme, but we’ve had picnics, winter brunches, English tea parties, Russian Easters, Indian curries, and dim sum. Our President’s Meal is coming up in February. I haven’t chosen my dish yet.

I’m a Granny and we love having grandchildren visit. They pick berries in the raspberry patch, in the blueberry fields across town, feed the worms, catch newts in the Frog Pond, hike in the woods, play cards in the Cottage Ornee, visit Mass MoCA to see weird and wonderful art exhibits, and Read Aloud. I’m a great granny, now too. Isabella and Lola live in Florida. We are looking forward to Lola’s first visit.

I have a lot of trouble controlling paper. I might need that article, that scribbled note, that address on a napkin.  I’m not a collector, except books and plants, but paper is something else. However, this year, we are Reviewing and Renewing. there is a chance I will at least cut down in a radical way.

That’s five things about me.  I can also tell you I love Netflix. We live 25 miles from the nearest movie theater, and its the ride home that is always the killer. I’d rather watch on our new digital TV. We watch all kinds of movies, but we love old classic comedies. And musicals. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly! Last night we downloaded Greenfingers. Prisons plus gardens equal redemption!

Tinky mentioned her crushes. Have I ever had a crush on a movie star? I suppose so, but so long ago. Still, there is Tommy Tune. So tall. A drawl. And those dancing feet. Sigh!

Now I’d like to pass along this award to 7 other of my favorite bloggers:

Sue at A Corner Garden

Rose at Prairie Rose’s Garden

Rose at Ramble on Rose

Dr. Mom at Back Quarter Acre

Daphne at Daphne’s Dandelions

JP at Artful Greens

Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm

Sam at Red Worms – a fairly new blog

Sue is excited about her kitchen these days, and Nan is always excited about books, and Sam has a new blog about vermiculture which I am very excited about, but everyone else is busy thinking about their gardens while they wait for spring. It comes earlier to some than others. I hope you’ll stop by and visit and meet some interesting people with interesting projects and thoughts.

Worm Manure Harvest

A few of my worms

It might be more genteel to say a harvest of worm castings, but no one ever knows what I’m talking about when I use that term. Castings or manure, I took advantage of the warm day to bring my worm farm out of the basement and begin the harvest

I dumped the whole bin full of worms, bedding and manure out onto a plastic sheet, and let that rest and give the worms time to dive deep into the bedding away from the bright sun while I rinsed out the bin and put in a layer of damp shredded newspaper.

Worms always move away from the sun which means it is pretty easy to remove the top layer of bedding and castings without getting too many worms. That layer goes immediately into the wheelbarrow. Then I go through the rest of the bedding to separate out the worms, throwing them back into the bin, and throwing the bedding and castings into the wheelbarrow.  Sometimes I’d come across a whole nest of worms in the matted wet newspaper so I’d throw all that into the worm bin. Throwing some of the old bedding and castings into the new bin is fine. It is even good for the new bin. 

I was very happy to see that I have a good population of worms including tiny baby worms. If they are reproducing I must have a good system going. I moved the bin into my basement at the end of August when night time temperatures routinely went below 50 degrees which is the lowest temperature these red wigglers can stand.  The basement temperatures remain a fairly constant 50 degrees through the winter. The worms did survive their first winter, but they do not thrive at those temperatures so manure production goes down, but with luck there will be another good harvest in the early spring.

Some of my blogging friends are collecting a harvest of award nominations and all of you, not only bloggers, can go to www.Blotanical.com and vote for your favorite blog in a whole array of categories. Some of my favorite blogs have been nominated for Best U.S. Blog – namely: Faire Garden, A Garden in Progress, My Secret Garden, Garden Rant, and Hoe and Shovel.

Other favorites have been nominated at Best Educational Garden Blog – namely: May Dreams Gardens, In the Garden, Little Green Fingers and Hayefield.

Nomination season at Blotanical is an especially good time to discover  some of the best and most beautiful blogs, blogs from other countries, and blogs that might fit your own special interests.  Be sure and check them out.

Worm Update

The worm farm is celebrating its first anniversary. A year ago the grandsons helped set up the worm bin, drilling air and drainage holes, and putting in rotting leaves, compost and a little soil.  All of that was really unnecessary; red wigglers are not the earthworms that live in our gardens. Red wigglers are happy with damp shredded newspaper.

We started with one pound or about 1000 baby worms.  The worm bin lived outside into the fall on the north side of the house. When evening temperatures started to fall in September we moved the bin into the basement. During the winter temperatures there were stable at 50 degrees, the coldest that red wigglers can tolerate. In fact, a couple of times temperatures dipped just below 50.

This spring, when I was planting the vegetable garden, I dumped out the worm bin to harvest those valuable castings and check on the worms.  I doubt that there were 1000 worms any more, but some survived and I did have good worm compost to use when planting.

I cleaned the worm bin and this time I set up the bin with damp shredded newspaper and a little bit of finished compost. I put back the worms and hoped for warm weather, but this summer nighttime temperatures have dipped into the 50s almost every night. Great for sleeping, but the worms don’t appreciate it.

Before grandson Rory left last week we checked the worm farm. We learned that we need to keep a close eye on the bedding.  Shredded newspaper can dry out. We also decided to add some new bedding. This is a very large bin.  We do still have active worms and they are eating our kitchen waste. They love bananna peels and I give them the eggshells they need to reproduce every week. More worm compost in the making, but it is a slow business.