Blood Meal and Bone Meal: Is that what a vampire eats?

"Is that what a vampire eats?"  That's what my husband asked when I informed him that I felt like I needed these 2 products.

The main purpose of this entry is firstly to be able to add this to my running tally of expenses. And secondly to give you a quick explanation of what these are. I don't really have an adventure to share about these except that I added them to my soil.

The bone meal I found at Walmart for $7 and the blood meal I purchased on amazon for $10 using gift cards I got from Swagbucks.

The reason I have the Swagbucks section under my tally in the column to the right is more for me than you. “Sooo, why don't you just keep track of this privately?” you ask... A couple reasons: one to promote the site and to maybe get a referral and also to show people another way to be frugal. Gardening isn't really something I can afford to invest in right now, but whatever money I make from Swagbucks, I am allowed to play with and this is how I choose to play with it.

Now on to the informational aspect of this entry... What the heck are blood meal and bone meal? Well... as you might have suspected, the answer is not going to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy.

 

 
Blood meal is a dry, non-reactive powder made from blood, mostly from cattle slaughterhouses and it adds nitrogen to your soil. So, why do your plants need nitrogen? Nitrogen is a fertilizer. It's the fuel that makes plants grow it's foliage. If you have leaves on your plants that have turned yellow, chances are your soil is lacking sufficient nitrogen.

Bone meal is a mixture of ground animal bones and other slaughterhouse waste and it adds phosphorous to your soil. So, why does you soil need phosphorous? It also is a fertilizer that helps your roots and flowers grow. And since the vegetables grow from the flowers of a plant this helps your veggies grow. If your plant is big and has lots of foliage, but just isn't producing any fruit then it is lacking in phosphorus. This can also help your plants survive winter if you have perennials such as strawberries or asparagus, like I do.

These two products can be found in the Soil Amendments department of the Veggieland Store. Or, if you want to test your soil's nitrogen and phosphorous levels you can find an NPK test kit in the Tools & Equipment department.  What is the K test for? Potassium, which is another important nutrient that your plants need to grow, but that's for another time.  Perhaps I will delve into that when I buy one of these test kits.  I have however purchased a pHtest kit for $6.50, which I also got using Swagbucks and can also be found in the Tools & Equipment department.  So I added that to my tally as well.

VermiVenture: My Experiment with Vermicomposting

I have never been so excited about worms! I have them living in my house! Okay, so they aren't just crawling around my house, they are happily confined in a bin in the back of my dining room. “So, why do you have worms in a bin,” you ask... Vermicomposting... “Whaaa?”
Vermicomposting is an expedited form of composting. As I explained in a previous post, “Basically you feed a bunch of worms your organic waste and they poo and that poo is magical dirt.

If you missed said previous post (Compost, Fertilizers & Pesticides, Oh My!) here is the definition from Wikipedia again:

Vermicast

Vermicompost is the product or process of composting using various worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast. Vermicast, also called worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by an earthworm. These castings have been shown to contain reduced levels of contaminants and a higher saturation of nutrients than do organic materials before vermicomposting.

Containing water-soluble nutrients, vermicompost is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. This process of producing vermicompost is called vermicomposting. 

So, for the beginning of this adventure I made my way to Walmart and bought myself two 18 gallon non-transparent(or lucent) storage bins at $5 each and 2 containers of worms at $3 each. Yup, they have worms at Walmart. Now, because I came unprepared and unreseached to Walmart, because that's how I roll, I bought one of each kind that they carried. Red wrigglers and Canadian night crawlers... Well, come to find out, the Canadian night crawlers don't do so well in temperatures above 50°F, and they aren't really the best kind of worm for composting. Sooooo, the night crawlers were dead after day one. Whoopsie, guess I shouldn't have promised them that they weren't going to be fish food and that they would get to live a long life of eating and being merry... Thus, I am left with my red wrigglers, which just happen to be perfect for composting. Some time later I decided to go ahead and get another container of red wrigglers to help out my first batch overwhelmed wormies.

Item	Cost
2- 18 gallon bins	$10.00
2- Containers of Red Wriggler worms	$6.00
1- Container of Canadian Night Crawler worms	$3.00

Red Wrigglers on the left and Canadian Night Crawlers on the right

I am going to put the Canadian Night Crawler worms in the unnecessary expenses column (in the sidebar to the right), since any of you reading this and thinking of doing it will know not to buy them. So, $16 necessary and $3, not so necessary.

Silly me, I didn't take any photos of my process, but I used this to help guide me. Only, I used 18gal. containers instead of 10gal. And I don't have mine up on blocks. Oh, and I used far less worms to start.... They'll reproduce anyways.

Wormy Eggs!!

A worm in the bin and the bin in my dining room.

Yea, I heard you earlier, when you asked, “What?! You keep rotting food and worms in your dining room?!... doesn't it smell or attract insects?” Yup, I do.... and nope, it doesn't..... Welllll.... if it's done right. In my life if something can go wrong, it will, but I've learned to roll with the punches. I'll admit it, I did have a small battle with fruit flies.... because I apparently didn't do it right. But I am now happily fruit fly free. (Say that 3 times fast.) Let me share what I learned... It is crucial that the bedding (shredded newspaper) be of adequate thickness and bury everything under it. This is what keeps the smell in and the insects out.

Here's my story of how it all went wrong:
I read that coffee grounds are good to add to your bin, but I don't drink coffee (for shame!) and neither does my husband, but my thought was “I have to get coffee grounds to them!” I had a plan: My husband travels a lot and thus stays in hotel rooms where they leave free samples of coffee and he brings them home occasionally to have on hand for guests to our home that drink coffee. So, unsure if the coffee grounds should have gone though the brewing process or not, I decided to be safe and make the pot of coffee and then give them the grounds (after they cool down). Then I thought, well, the instructions say I need to get the bedding wet... so I guess I'll just use this (cooled down) coffee to wet the newspaper. Well this made the bin smell very strongly... Aaaand, it also didn't help that I mixed my food scraps into the bedding instead of putting them under it.

How I got rid of the fruit flies:
Being the stubborn person that I am, I was bound and determined that I was not going to be starting all over. So I sifted through everything that was in the bin, moving it from one bin to another and killing anything fruit fly related in the process. It was actually kind of interesting (if you are into that kind of thing) to see the fruit fly in all of the stages of development. Then I piled on another layer of clean bedding and waited.... and to my delight the fruit fly problem was gone!

Tip: The bedding needs to be black print newspaper only (color ink is toxic), which is kind of hard to find in abundance these days. I found the Greensheet to be mostly printed in black ink. If you don't have a Greensheet where you live, try sifting through some of the free local publications at your grocery store or gas station. (Also, no glossy paper.)

Things to avoid putting in your bin:
Fruits from the citrus family, veggies from the allium family (onions, garlic, etc.), meat and bones, foods that have been cooked in oil. Cores are fine, but they don't seem to do much with pits. Also, my worms left behind the tomato skins...?? Optional: don't use non-organic scraps if you don't want any chemical residue in your vermicast.
 
Tips: 

• Chop your scraps into small pieces and they will be eaten faster.
  
• Coffee grounds and egg shells are great additions to your bin.
  
• The worms prefer food that has been left to rot a few days.
  

Now, if you want to do vermicomposting but really aren't sure about the homemade bin and just want all of the guess work taken out of it try one of the ready made worm factories in the Tools & Equipment department of my store.  Also worms can be found in the Creepy Crawlers department.

Compost, Fertilizers & Pesticides, Oh My!

Oh my indeed!

Okay so it's been a little while since my last blog post. But don't you worry my loyal follower... I haven’t forgotten about you. I've been doing a ton of research. I mean, what's a girl to do during August in Houston, but sit inside and do research? 

I must admit, all of the information out there is a bit overwhelming. But, essentially what I have learned is that the 3 most important things needed to help your plants thrive beyond what dirt, water and sun can provide are compost, fertilizer and pesticides. The compost and fertilizer are going to aid in growing and the pesticide will kill whatever wants to harm your plants. 

Now, don't get me wrong, there are a ton of other things that you can do to help your plants grow, but in my novice opinion these seem to be of most importance. And of course if you have no pesky plant killing bugs and beautiful loamy soil, perhaps you don't need any of this at all. Unfortunately, that is not the case around here. 

So, the question is how do you go about these 3 things organically and for as cheap as possible....well you know me (maybe), I must DIY. Or DIM??? whatevs! So, I looked to my handy dandy frugal gardening book and the internet and I came up with a few answers: vermicomposting, liquid fertilizer from grass clippings, tomato leaf spray, ladybugs and beer. 

Vermicomposting 

a la Wikipedia:
“Vermicompost is the product or process of composting using various worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast. Vermicast, also called worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by an earthworm. These castings have been shown to contain reduced levels of contaminants and a higher saturation of nutrients than do organic materials before vermicomposting.

Containing water-soluble nutrients, vermicompost is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. This process of producing vermicompost is called vermicomposting."

Basically you feed a bunch of worms your organic waste and they poo and that poo is magical dirt.

This is just one of many options for composting, it is just the one I chose to use.  As I have stated previously, I am impatient, and this is to me the fastest and easiest form of composting, shortening the process from potentially as long as 2-3 years down to just 2-3 months.  So, I set out to make a vermicomposting bin. Here is a link to the tutorial I used to make it.

Here she is! I will be posting more in the near future about my vermicompost adventure.

Liquid Fertilizer

Okay, this is pretty simple. You cut your grass, put it in a large container and add water and let it sit. Now, if you are trying to be chemical free in your garden and you have your lawn treated with any chemicals then you can't use your grass.

So, in my frugal gardening book, the author suggests that you use an old 5 gallon painters bucket, fill it 2/3rds the way full with your grass clippings and then fill it to the top with water. Let it sit for 3 days at room temperature stirring once daily (warning: this can start to smell strong on the 3rd day). Strain out the grass clippings (which you can keep for compost or mulch) and dilute with equal parts water. And there you have it... liquid fertilizer DIY style.

Pesticides

Tomato leaf spray and ladybugs are for control of aphids, which are little green bugs that you will find on the underside of your plant's leaves.  They suck the sap out of the plant, thus damaging it.  An easy option, before you try the following two, is to simply give the underside of your leaves a good spray of water and this will dislodge the aphids. 

Tomato Leaf Spray

I have not yet had the opportunity to try this one.  Here is a link to the instructions.  You just steep tomato leaves in water, strain and put the liquid in a spray bottle and aim.

I didn't want to tear the leaves off of my tomato plants before, but now that they are starting to die, I think I will make myself a batch.  Of course for this be a no-cost DIY you would need your very own tomato plants. 

Another option that can be found on the aforementioned website is garlic oil spray.  However, that concoction is a non-selective insecticide and will kill your beneficial bugs as well, including ladybugs, which are a natural predator for aphids.... so....

Ladybugs

Yup!  Ladybugs can help your garden by eating those pesky aphids and they are oh so cute and fun to play with!  What's that you say?... you don't have any ladybugs in your garden?... well here is your answer.  Okay, so it's not a no-cost DIY, but I would have to say that less than $10 for 1500 lady bugs can't be a bad price. And I've seen this listing go as low as $7.
 
Beer

Beer is one of a few pesticide options for slugs and snails.  (Slugs and snails damage your plants by grating away the surface of the plant tissue).  You can leave a small bowl with beer in it or leave a small amount in the bottom of the beer bottle and lay it on its side.  The snails and slugs are attracted to the scent of the beer and when they go to investigate they drown in the beer.

Furthermore...

Another organic option, that is not DIY, but still something I may consider using is diatomaceous earth or DE.  More specifically, food grade DE.

Again, a la Wikipedia:
"Diatomaceous earth also known as D.E., diatomite, or kieselgur/kieselguhr, is a naturally occurring, soft, siliceous sedimentary rock that is easily crumbled into a fine white to off-white powder. It has a particle size ranging from less than 3 micrometres to more than 1 millimeter, but typically 10 to 200 micrometres. Depending on the granularity, this powder can have an abrasive feel, similar to pumice powder, and is very light as a result of its high porosity. The typical chemical composition of oven-dried diatomaceous earth is 80 to 90% silica, with 2 to 4% alumina (attributed mostly to clay minerals) and 0.5 to 2% iron oxide.

Diatomaceous earth consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. It is used as a filtration aid, mild abrasive in products including toothpaste, mechanical insecticide, absorbent for liquids, matting agent for coatings, reinforcing filler in plastics and rubber, anti-block in plastic films, porous support for chemical catalysts, cat litter, activator in blood clotting studies, a stabilizing component of dynamite, and a thermal insulator."

DE is dust like and has microscopic razor sharp edges.  Those edges lacerate the exoskeleton of insects which causes them to dehydrate and die. Also if they ingest it, it will shred their insides. 

DE, which can be found here, is said to be 'completely' safe for humans and pets (although, I have seen a couple warnings about inhaling it... do your research if you are planning on using it).  In fact, you have most likely eaten a bit of it already.  DE is not just limited to garden use.  It also makes for a better organic option to using harsh chemicals to keep bugs out of the house.  You can sprinkle DE around the foundation of your house, in your carpet, on window sills, in the kitchen or near openings that might be potential entrances for bugs.  DE can be great for flea control as well.

This, also, is a non-selective pesticide and can potentially kill your beneficial garden bugs. 

To find more products to help your plants grow, visit the Soil Amendments department of my store. 

Gutter Planter

I saw an idea on Pinterest and said to myself, "self, you have to do this. Nay, you need to do this." So I did it. I didn't want mine to be as large as the one from Pinterest, so I just got one white vinyl gutter and decided I would cut it into 3 shorter pieces.
Then, I thought to myself, 'How does one cut a gutter into 3 pieces?' Perhaps there is a tool for this very purpose. Well... I'm not going to spend money on said tool. You didn't fool me Lowe's. I've got a box cutter. So, I proceeded to spend 3 hours scoring and scoring and scoring the gutter until I was able to cut through it... twice.
After finally separating the gutter into 3 sections I put the ends on, attached the gutters to my fence with nuts and bolts, drilled holes in the bottoms, filled them with soil, added seeds and water and 5 months later..... Isn't she purdy?

Gutter Planter as of 7/16/13

Okaaay, sooo, it isn't as lush as the one in on Pinterest. However, I am not chalking this up to failure yet. I think I just need to reassess and try again next year or maybe in the fall.

I shall add this to my expenses, but I am going to add another section and call it 'Unnecessary Expenses,' and that is where this shall go.  The 10' gutter was $5.23 and the 6 side pieces were each $3.12 for a total of $23.95 which I will round to $24.

In the Beginning...

 

A little factoid about me: I have very little patience. If I have an idea, I want to try it NOW. So, I tend to jump in head first into projects and then do research later. This is the exact approach I took in starting my garden. As I have previously stated, I have no idea what I am doing. I mean, I get the basic concept: you stick seeds in the ground, add water and, viola, veggies! So that's what I did.

I figured I live in Houston and it usually starts warming up in mid February, so, that's when I started. I found out later that the average last frost date in Houston is February 15.  I was right about when to start putting things into the ground, but I probably should have started my whole process in December... woopsies.

Anyways, I started planting a few things in various pots I had laying around to get them started while I took care of a little problem.  I decided I wanted my garden to be located along my neighbor's house (we have a zero-lot-line) and the fence. But before I could get started I had to dig up a whole lot of rocks.  This is what I should have started in December.

The remaining pile of rock that I will dig up before next season.

This has no value to you.  I just thought I would share because I have been quite annoyed with this since we moved into this house. The previous owners thought it necessary to put rocks in every flower bed and along the neighbors house and along the sidewalk.

The problem is not just that I have put a ton of time into removing these rocks, but also when my husband mows the yard, every time, he inevitably hits a rock and sends it flying.  Furthermore, they have migrated deep into the soil.  I constantly run into them when I dig hole.

Okay, back to the important stuff... The plants I started out with this year are: carrots, green onion, onion, asparagus, cucumber, lettuce, bell pepper, zucchini, tomato, dill, chives, parsley and basil. I plan to post about my experiences and what I learn about each of these at a later date.

I decided I would keep track of the money I have spent on gardening so that perhaps someone wanting to get started might get an idea of how much they are going to need to spend.  I will keep the total on the right side of the screen with my lists.

These are my initial costs.

Item	Cost
Seeds	$15.00
Soil	$12.00
Tools	$10.00
Book	$4.00
Gloves	$1.00
Tomato Plant	$1.50
Total	$43.50

The book that I purchased was an e-book titled, 'Frugal Gardening 101.' I have not read the book in its entirety, however, the sections I have read have been quite helpful to my endeavor. 

My garden on July 16, 2013. Not much to look at, but I'm cool with that.

What am I doing here?

Hello, my name is Charlene and I want to be an expert organic vegetable gardener. The only problem: I have no idea what I am doing. So, join me as I succeed and fail in all things gardening.  My motto: no expectations.

“Why not wait to blog until I know what I am talking about?” you ask...

Recently, after feeling inspired by all the blogs I have been reading to help me in my operation, I said to my mom, “Mom, I think if I do well at this gardening thing I might blog about it.” She replied, “Why don't you start now so that people can follow your journey and learn from your mistakes as you go through the process. You can be helpful to them in that way.” So, here we are... no guarantees people!

A few things before we get started...

I live in Houston , TX, which is in Plant Hardiness Zone 9. So, what I learn and write about will be based on Zone 9 factors.

My goal is to spend as little money as possible and build whatever apparatuses needed on my own. Basically DIY on a tight budget.

My intent is for everything I grow, make or use to be organic.