Journal 4-13-08

Well, this was an eventful garden day. I decided, rather late in the afternoon, to do something about the compost. I went to Star Market's nursery and bought a box of compost activator made up up blood meal, bone meal, and chicken manure. I also bought an orange begonia.

When I came home we looked at the compost and found that it was moldy, very wet, and had a smell slightly reminicent of the breath of Beelzebub. It was unanimously decided that the batch I had should be scrapped and we would start over. This time Zach and I poked holes in the bin and we are going to do a better job of balancing the brown and the green. The problem is that I have much more green than brown material most of the time, so I'll have to be a bit more scrupulous about saving leaves and newspaper, etc. This photo is the new and improved compost (brown only at the mo')

I would really like to get composting worms, and I'm going to get down to looking into it tomorrow.

Everything is doing pretty well.The tomato has two babies now, but it also seems to have a sickness that worries me.

The leaves on the top of the plant are turning a bit black and looks kind of dry. It has been really really wet over the last couple of days, and I'm wondering if some of the plants in the wall bed have become a bit waterlogged. The seedlings are growing like gangbusters, so the rain isn't all bad! I am going to do a little research on the tomato problem and see if I can diagnose it.