Hanging Up Some Buckets

Unfortunately, my life is much more hectic now that my son is out of school for the summer, the garden is booming, fishing is underway, and craft fairs are in full swing. At this time I simply don't have the time to pick up buckets and clean them. The residential aspect of the co-op is now suspended.  I will still continue composting for 4 Juneau businesses, as they require little time and provide lots of composting material. I'm am truly bummed to end my Monday composting run, but that's what my family needs for now. 

So that brings my experiment of six full months of composting for 20 families to a close. I spent 75+ hours on the project and have accumulated a lot of important data and experience. Here are the final numbers for the residential component:

486 buckets collected and hauled
2644 pounds of kitchen scraps
1002 pounds of yard debris
1076 gallons of material

The material is breaking down quickly with the first cubic yard done, the second cooling, and the first one hot. I'll be able to make many, many new fertile raised beds this fall.


A big thank-you to all members for doing your part to reduce your landfill usage. Please continue to do so by forming your own compost pile or getting a worm bin, and also tell the city you think they should compost!  If any of you would like help setting up your own composting system, however big or small, please let me know. I'm more than happy to help anyone get started with composting and can provide support along the way. It really is easy, can be done on any scale, and works in just about any space. I hope that after six months of composting you all cringe at the idea of throwing your food in the landfill and take the composting plunge for yourselves. My goal is to open a composting business in the near future. I've seen that it's possible to compost on a large scale in this town--now I have to convince the city of that!

Composting is an amazing process that turns would-be garbage into a fertile medium for gardening. It's easy since it's a natural process that happens on it's own. This place can grow tons of food if you provide the soil. Compost makes things taste good, and it shows your compassion for Lemon Creek and the Earth!

Happy composting!

Jammin'

I just finished my 7th batch of jam. Blueberries were a bust last year, and we were very glad I had frozen and jammed copious amounts the preceeding year. This is another stock up year. Here are recipes of what I've made so far:


Rhubarb Medley
4 cups Rhubarb
1 cup blueberry (frozen from last year)
1 cup strawberries (thanks to Costco)
4 cups sugar
1 box sure-jell pectin







Triple Rhu
2 cups Rhubarb
2 cups blueberries
2 cups strawberries
4 cups sugar
1 box  sure-jell pectin





I also made a lot of spruce tip jelly, which I had never tasted before. We absolutely LOVE it! It'd also be great with apple and cinnamon in it. I plan on drying extra crab apples this fall to save for next spring's spruce jelly. To make the jelly you need to make juice.

Gather about 18 cups of tips when they are bright green and soft. If you wait until they've opened the picking goes much faster and I couldn't tell a difference in flavor. Put the tips in a large pot, add water until it's just below the tips, cover, and boil. I followed one recipe that required 1 hour of boiling and 3 hours of simmering. I couldn't tell a difference between that and the batch I just simmered for an hour. Do what you want! Once you've boiled to your heart's content, strain through a sieve and you have spruce juice. 18 cups of tips makes enough for two batches of jam.

Spruce Tip Jelly - yields 3 pints
3 cups spruce juice*
4 cups sugar
1 box sure-jell pectin

Spruce Tip Honey Jelly -yields 2 pints
3 cups spruce juice
1/3 cup apple juice
1 cup honey
3 tablespoons no/low-sugar pectin

Composting Progression and Digression

Feel my bulging arm muscles! 

We've saved 8,075 pounds of food and yard debris from the landfill!

Composting is going well. I have 7 bins in progress and microbes are turning all that would-be landfill into beautiful fertilizer. Compost is actually more than fertilizer in Juneau--it's an outright growing medium! The second (albeit smaller) dump truck load of topsoil I got recently is just as horrible as the last lode. The few vibrant transplants I planted in the stuff promptly died within a week. You can't grow anything in a solid cake of muck. It has terrible structure, no porosity, and no nutrients.I don't even know how these places can call their product "topsoil." I wouldn't be so disgruntled if they called their load "dirt." It's like a bakery saying they'll deliver cookies and they drop off some flour and butter. It may help you make cookies, but it ain't cookies!  ANYway, mix in a bunch of compost, rabbit manure, and leaves into it and you can grow something. Once I start harvesting all my new compost I'm going to skip the dirt and fill my new beds with a mixture of sand and compost. 

Just over a month ago I picked up another business in the co-op: B's Bistro and Bakery. They're  located downtown on 2nd street. Stop on by and tell them how great they are for composting. You can thank them by purchasing something delicious.

a new peace magnet

I also have been composting for Helping Hands, which gives food to people in need. They collect outdated food items, including produce, and redistribute it. Whatever doesn't get handed out before true expiration now gets composted. The former waste of a store turns into the gold of the needy. Then the waste of the foodbank turns into the gold of my garden. This interesting chain of passing food on got me thinking about extending it even further by turning the gold of my garden into the gold of the needy. I recently heard about the Plant a Row program. Basically, a person or organization plants an extra row in their garden for charity. It's an easy thing to do and does a lot of good for others. I set aside a plot and am putting my thinnings in it. So far I have lettuce, parsley, kale, carrots, and--I think--broccoli (they're mystery plants that got passed on to me).

Consider planting a row, a bed, or just a pot!

Home is where the...garden is

Carcross morning 

The exceedingly wet and cold weather this spring has me already thinking "it'll be better next year."

It sent me to the Yukon and B.C searching for blue sky a possibly a new spread.

Shooting stars

Upon my return I was greeted by the 5 day growth spurt of my garden. Juneau always does that sort of thing. My garden  hasn't seemed to notice the lack of spring and has just leaped and bound on to summer mode. Greens for salads are abundant and we're swimming in rhubarb. The jungle aspect of the garden is in full force with frilly ferns nearly as tall as I am and skunk cabbage taller than Huck. The elderberries have covered their artful skeletons and busted out their corsages. Cloudberries are popping up everywhere, strawberries are sending runners, and dwarf dogwood is sporting it's bracts. I figure that if my garden is welcoming summer, so should I. Wearing complete rubber armor is a luxury. John Muir didn't have it this good!

 I keep weeding the chickweed and feeding it to the chickens. They love it so I guess I should too since it beats organic feed, which is .$.74 a pound. I wish I had known, though, when I made my first few beds, that the nitrogen in horse manure is not worth the weed seeds. Horse manure should definitely be hot composted to kill the weed seeds before using. What a resource all of those horses could be if their stall muckings were mixed with food scraps! Anyone need a project?

Toscano kale

European salad mix

I did some thinning today and put a few things in pots to bring to the Sunday Market. I'll have green leaf lettuce, Toscano kale, dwarf green curled kale, and Red Russian kale. I'll also be selling some fresh oregano, sage, and thyme. I'm lucky and grateful. I also ate a big fat salad full of homegrown greens and chives tonight. Can't beat it!