how to make compost

Well, now I have started a compost pile, with "refuse" that we discard from our kitchen. Though we can't eat the stuff, we know that the plants will love it!

Our compost pile includes the remnants of our daily vegetable juicing (the matted vegetables that are left after we drink the liquid) egg shells, fruit remains even rinds of citrus fruit that we eat. We learned that our compost pile shouldn't be too much of one thing all together, and shouldn't include things like woody plants or bones or coconut shells, etc., which don't decompose readily.

We add to this mixture some leaves from the trees which graciously shed them for us, we just have to collect them and add them to the pile. And given a bit of time let's say four to six weeks, we shall see what happens! All this this I learned from that wonderful product about organic gardening which we purchased at www.organicfoodforless.info. It's all an adventure. I hope you try it too--and by all means, let us know how it goes!

Planting an organic garden with mulch for yummy pesto.

I have just planted some young basil plants, according to the strategies outlined in the organic gardening website for vegetables: www.organicfoodsforless.info. I will feed them some garden mulch from our kitchen, and watch them grow and harvest the leaves for a wonderful raw foods pesto that I make, along with cold-pressed olive oil, raw pine nuts (or pistachios) fresh organic lemon juice and rind, a bit of unheated raw honey, and voila! Very yummy to use with raw meats and fishes or avocados or with guacamole, or as a condiment on top of almost anything!

This method of organic gardening with mulch is really suitable for different kinds of vegetables that can be grown in most any climate and soil conditions, and with so little maintenance. Happy gardening and buon appetite!

Organic Gardening with Mulch in a Wet Climate

For the first article in this series, I will give a little story about how I got introduced to organic gardening. It was in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada where (you may have guessed this) IT RAINS. And it rains and then again, it rains some more. There I was, a new wife trying to provide good quality foods for my husband. The only resource I knew of was a huge volume of over 1000 pages called "An Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening," by J.I. Rodale, who was probably the grand-daddy of books published on this subject.

So I chose the organic gardening mulching method to protect the young plants from pests. The only problem was the persistent and pervasive moisture in Vancouver. I might as well have issued written invitations to all the slugs in the neighborhood, since in fact they promptly descended upon my garden and ate up all the young plants-right at the stem line.

How we handled the slug smorgasbord is a story in its own right: we thought of trying chopped up glass (harking back to the J.I. Rodale Encyclopedia) but we thought, who wants glass in our garden? The thought of kitty litter to deter the slugs produced similar concerns. So we finally opted for dishes of beer to dehydrate the slugs. (Our neighbor said we should call it "cocktail hour for the slugs"). Well that worked! But since buying beer was so expensive, we started to brew our own in the basement. And the slugs weren't the only beneficiaries of that plan!

Since you must have some desire to do it right, we can cut to the chase: please check out the following, very helpful website: http://www.organicfoodforless.info. Barbara Ellingson is a survivor of advanced spinal cancer diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago. She has had no chemo, radiation or surgery, and is handling this with nutrition. She is an author, and is avidly interested in people's health, and in the practice of sustainable gardening and other sustainable practices that will ensure a long-term future for all of us on this planet. She will appreciate hearing your stories and comments made directly to this blog.