Composting Karma

It is time, I think, to unveil my super-duper, space-age, Lifetime 65 Gallon Composter.  Yes, I bit the bullet, took the plunge, went for broke, jumped in at the deep end, and took one for the team by purchasing this hi-tech tumbling aerator in an effort to improve (decrease) my carbon footprint and to help me appear to be a gardener worth...whatever organic brownie points I can get.  Good golly, Miss Molly, rotting vegetable material has gotten so complicated!

I had been eyeing this little gem, and other similar artificial composting bins in Sam's Club and in various gardening catalogues, for quite some time. I had weighed the benefits of tumbling versus "in-at-the-top-out-at-the-bottom composters" for some time and since I only infrequently and reluctantly turn my low-tech, toss-in-the-weeds garden compost pile, I became convinced that a tumbling composter would allow more frequent aeration of the material (it would be less work, anyway) and thus help me be a better composter. This plastic monstrosity, purchased at Sam's Club, had dropped to around $80.00 a month ago when I finally brought it home, so I guess I finally found the point where the price intersected with my basic Miserness.  For gosh sakes, don't buy it at the manufacturer's link above, where the identical composter is listed for $169.99, nor on Amazon.com, where it was priced above $130. 

This particular composter is designed with black, double-walled panels to absorb and retain heat, has an internal mixing bar that increases aeration of the material, and a large door to make it easy to get "stuff"in and out of.  I don't know if it is the "best" available, and I am not an agent for the company, but it seemed to fit what I wanted.  While many would deny that I could ever be mistaken for an accomplished composter, I do know a little about the theory, and so far all those embellishments sound okay to me.  Even so, although the accompanying instructional material talks about finished compost in as little as a month, I'm not going to hold my breath. It is merely a compost tumbler, not a miracle catalyst that will turn a lazy gardener into a reincarnation of Jerome Irving Rodale.

In the past, Mrs. ProfessorRoush has been resistant to participating in the creation of compost because the standard compost pile in my garden is a long walk up and down a hill from the house. For that reason, I placed the new tumbler in a convenient spot about 20 feet from the back door in an effort to encourage Mrs. ProfessorRoush to add the kitchen peelings to it.  Although she initially grumbled that it would smell and draw rodents and snakes, she finally agreed that the great Organic Gardening Gods would likely pleased by her sacrifice.  Okay, I don't know, along with all the sighs and eye-rollings, maybe she just decided to humor her half-crazy husband.  Anyway, I assured her that as long as she didn't add meat, eggs, grease, or our non-house-trained Italian Greyhound to the composter, it would not become a blight upon the entire household.  And I take it as a sign of good will that she has since taken that first step of keeping most of the household vegetable and fruit peelings for me and telling me when they were ready to be walked the twenty feet outside and placed into the composter. 

I have just one question remaining about the composter.  How long, do you think, do I have to use it before the environmental benefits I gain will make up for all the plastic and aluminum and stainless steel composing it and also offset the fuel to ship it here from China?  Just wondering when my carbon footprint karma will balance out?

Wilting Worries

When the ambient temperatures top out daily over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, even a diligent gardener can miss the important signs of plant stress, but it would be tough to miss the miserable plant suffering that I've seen over the past two weeks here in Kansas.

There are many plants that I believe seldom or never require extra water in my garden, but I've seen my beliefs and plant knowledge tested recently.  Consider the well-established forsythia at the left;  when you drive into the driveway after a work day and you are greeted by this sight, it is a not-so-subtle hint that practically everything in your garden should get a little extra watering.  Even the normally drought-resistant lilacs planted alongside this forsythia were showing signs of stress.  At such times, my general philosophy of never providing extra water to my landscape cedes to my pragmatic side and my water bill begins to skyrocket.

I do expect some degree of damage in this heat from a few of my more pampered beauties.  My witch hazel certainly tends to like its water in bucket-full amounts, as do most of its family members, and I always try to add a little extra water during these tough times to keep it happy.  Witch hazels are seldom seen in landscapes in this area, and for good reason, and I gain a little pride by keeping it alive in my garden.  But sometimes, as you can see pictured at the right, even extra water isn't enough, the leaves drying up in a single day as the ground below it turns to concrete.  I've seen the same thing happen to magnolias in my garden, and I am wandering the garden morning and night with a hose right now to try to prevent disaster.

I can't blame the plants, though, or the Flint Hills climate that tests them. I wilt right alongside them whenever I have to venture out at midday, and I take just as much extra water to keep going while I work in the garden.  I do, however, curse those modern Chicken-Littles/Nanny-State Ninnies who have written that we shouldn't drink out of garden hoses.  It doesn't stop me from doing it, and I don't believe that I have experienced any negative effects from that practice in 50+ years of doing it, but now I think about it almost every time I take a drink of that life-giving fluid.  Please, just leave me alone to drink in peace.

Wild and Neglected Gardens

I spent a few days away the past week, visiting my son in Colorado, but thanks to automatic posting, probably the only readers who knew I was gone were the commenting readers to the last few posts, to whom I was slower than usual responding.  The time away was good family time, and it gave me a chance to explore some landscapes that were not my own familar, rapidly-dehydrating garden.  Let's just say that every time I looked at a weather report for Manhattan, Kansas last week, I watered the Colorado wildflowers with my tears.

Castilleja integra (left) and Penstemon whippleanus (right)

Certainly, I couldn't have gotten much farther away as a contrast from my parched Kansas landscape than the Rocky Mountain National Park, where I captured the pictures on this page of what I think I have correctly identified as Aster alpinus (Alpine Aster) pictured above, and Castilleja integra (Orange Paintbrush) and Penstemon whippleanus (Dusky Beardtongue) both of which are pictured to the left.  They were all growing at about the 10,000 feet elevation in the Park, and seemingly out of solid rock.  I'm going to have to look for seed for that Dusky Beardtongue, also known as Whipple's Beardtongue, because I love the color.  I'm pretty concerned, however, about the exact meaning and root of the species name of Dusky Beardtongue. Talk about your awkward Latin (sorry, but I just couldn't leave that one hanging out there).

Erysimum asperum (at the left)

The wildflowers were everywhere, and, in fact, so prevalent that I didn't even notice some of them until I was reviewing the pictures at home.  The Western Wallflower (Erysimum asperum) in the picture at the right was a simple bystander to the little ground squirrel/rodent/rat that I was photographing and I didn't notice it when the picture was taken.  For help with the identification of Colorado wildflowers, by the way, I'd like to give a big shout-out to a fellow veterinarian, Dr. Mary L Dubler, who has a great website called Wildflowers of Colorado, filled with lots of fabulous pictures. I think my identifications here are correct and I owe them to Dr. Dubler's website.

Another interesting aspect to our trip was the contrast of the wildflowers in the Rocky Mountain National Park with the back yard at the new house my son just purchased in Littleton.  I was envious because his entire new back yard is providing him with the opportunity for a fabulous archaeologic plant dig.  It was neglected by the previous owner, but somewhere in the past, a "real" gardener had terraced and landscaped the back yard.  Amidst the weedy grasses, thistles, and bindweed are peonies, clematis, honeysuckles, irises, various flowering shrubs including a lilac and forsythia, a grapevine arbor, an herb garden where I could identify basil, oregano, spearmint and rosemary, and many other formerly-cultivated plants.  There were evergreens, and a flowering dogwood, and crabapple trees. There was even a small stagnant pond over to one side, a feature that Mrs. ProfessorRoush (who has been forever wanting me to place a pond or fountain in our garden) was sure to point out to me.  I believe that all that my son has to do is pull the weeds and apply some water to have a fantastic garden start. 

I just wish I had a week to spend with him and help him clear it all out.  But alas, I'm back to the Great Grass Desert of Kansas, watching my own garden suffer in the heat and sun.  

Coincidental Catnip

For some time, I had been admiring the drought fortitude of a couple of particular perennial clumps in my peony bed and that of another identical plant in a bed close to a 'Jeanne Lavoie' rose.  These happy-go-lucky plants had a textured medium green foliage that never burns or wilts, and they had began flowering recently, drawing in hundreds of honey bees while providing a nice light-pink (or is it white?) flower for my landscape. 

In a flash of unaccustomed brilliance, I realized this was obviously a plant that adapts well to my Flint Hills weather conditions, and so I resolved last week to divide and propagate it in a few more spots.  Since it was already present in a few spots, in fact, I thought that I had probably already come to that conclusion before, divided it, and then forgot about it.  Old age can be such a bummer.  Seeking to learn again the name of this little pet, however, I consulted my landscape maps in each place that it grew and I came up short.  To the best of my knowledge, I had never placed a plant matching this description anywhere near their locations.

The solution of the mystery, of course, was to acknowledge that I was likely coveting a native Kansas weed, er uh...wildflower, and to turn once again to KSWildflower.org for identification.  And, as usual, a quick search there informed me that I had been admiring the native Catnip (Nepeta cataria), which grows wild over Kansas and, in fact, over the entire United States.  And as I looked for it more carefully, I realized that this member of the mint family was growing throughout my garden; eight separate clumps, although some had not yet started to bloom. As I compared it to the cultivated forms offered locally in fact, it was obvious that my native form is identical to what I could buy for prices between $3.99 and $12.00 depending on the size of the pot.  Talk about your serendipity!  I should be digging this stuff up and selling it instead of looking to acquire more.  

Catnip, also known as Catswort or Catmint,  has a long history of use with humankind and our feline brethren.  It contains a steam-distillable terpenoid known as nepetalactone that has a slight numbing effect on people and drives cats absolutely bonkers.  In the case of felines, it is believed to mimic a natural cat pheromone to which about 2/3/rds of cats are genetically susceptible.  So, of course, people have used it in teas and poultices and smoked it, and cats have just; well, cats just view it as a self-aphrodisiac and general whoopee-maker and they just make fools out of themselves rolling around and basking in it whenever they can.  Luckily, our personal cat, living outdoors now because I want it to earn its keep in the form of mouse mutilations, seems to be immune to the effects and so my clumps remain standing tall.  Or perhaps my cat just hasn't discovered it yet, since bruising the leaves enhances the drug's effects on cats.  If you have a cat addict, you'll have to remove the plant from your garden because keeping it there is as cruel as drinking alcohol in front of a recovering alcoholic.

One last thought; nepetalactone is reputed to be ten times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET in the lab but it is supposedly not effective when the plant is rubbed on the skin.  I'm going to try it out because I frankly don't trust those researchers, who are likely just capitalists trying to keep us from using a plentiful and inexpensive alternative to DEET.  Of course, their motive could be to prevent me from being molested by a herd of drug-craving cats, but there are some crosses we all have to bear in the name of science.