What Delaney's Been Working On

periodicals section of the NYU Bobst library which I have access to and is open 24 hours and that’s cool

Have a look at her Tumblr page.

A Quick Primer on Compost

Compost nourishes plants with micronutrients and trace elements not found in most organic fertilizer and helps protect your plants from diseases. And because compost is nothing more than broken down organic matter you can easily make it yourself.

WHAT'S COMPOST MADE OF?

Easy answer: dry brown stuff & wet green stuff.

Dry brown stuff includes things that are high in carbon, such as:

• dried leaves, branches and twigs
• straw
• sawdust & wood shavings
• pine cones & needles
• shredded newspaper
• manure 
• old cut flowers
• nuts & shells
• shredded paper egg cartons
• shredded cereal & cracker boxes
• Dryer lint
• Cold wood ashes

Wet green stuff is naturally high in nitrogen and includes:

• Kitchen scraps - Fruits and veggies
• Egg shells
• Tea and tea bags
• Fresh green grass clippings and plant trimmings (grown without pesticides or weed killers)

But don't add:

• animal manure
• diseased plants
•  meat and bones

Proportions:

• 5 parts dry brown to 1 or 2 parts wet green is recommended to speed up the composting process.

Heat:

• Ideal composting happens at 135° -160° Fahrenheit. 

To Speed Up the Process:

• Smaller bits decompose faster than bigger bits. Some people even toss their kitchen scraps into the blender and make a slurry that they toss onto the pile.
• Keep the pile moist (not wet!). If it's slushy it's too wet and will start to smell really bad.
• Incorporate air. Use a pitchfork to toss the pile or invest in a compost tumbler.
• Keep an eye on the dry brown to wet green ratio. You may need to adjust what's recommended.
• Add compost activator, a product that accelerates the process.

Compost is ready to use when it's rich brown and looks just like the compost you pay money for at your local nursery. 

Common Problems:

• Pile isn't hot enough. It's probably too dry. Sprinkle on some water or add more wet green stuff.
• Smells strongly of ammonia. This can be a normal part of the composting process. But if it lasts more than a couple days you need more dry brown stuff.
• Soggy pile. This usually accompanies the stinky pile problem above, so add more dry brown stuff. Adding air will help too, so toss the pile with your pitchfork.
• Finished compost is too chunky. Big chunks in, big chunks out. (Or a lot more time to breakdown to smaller chunks.) The solution is to chop or shred your dry brown stuff and wet green stuff into smaller bits before you toss it in.

If you want quicker results there's a great tutorial on Hot Composting here. They claim you can get compost in 18 days, but you need to pay a lot more attention to your pile than we do here, so I can't report on how successful it is, but the article is filled with really nice little drawings and graphs and charts.

Parmesan Baked Zucchini Recipe

I invented this as a way to try to use up the endless zucchini crop in my garden. At the moment it's my favorite zucchini recipe.

Parmesan Baked Zucchini

4 Tbs chopped parsley
1 tsp minced garlic
2 Tbs chopped basil
½ cup shaved parmesan
½ cup Italian Style Panko breadcrumbs
2 medium zuchinni (sliced on middle blade of mandoline)
4 oz shredded mozarella
2 Tbs olive oil


1. Mix parsley, garlic, basil & parmesan in medium bowl.
2. Mix 2 T of garlic with breadcrumbs in a separate bowl.
3. Oil small backing dish or souffle pan.
4. Place layer of zuchinni to cover bottom, overlapping slightly. Top with layer of mozarella, then layer of parsley/garlic/basil/parmesan. Repeat 2 more times.
5. Top with mozarella. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake 15 minutes, until top brown & bubbly.


Servings: 6-8

Cooking Conversion Calculator

Link to an online calculator for converting recipe measurements from cups/teaspoons etc. to weight. Much more accurate, especially for baked goods.

Identifying Pestss on Corn

Here's a link to a very thorough article on  bugs on corn:  http://ipm.illinois.edu/pubs/cip.pdf

And a link to info on the corn leaf aphid: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r113300611.html

Plant Squash to Keep Skunks and Raccoons Away

We now have what appears to be a skunk nest in our garden, just above the vegetable planters. 

This seems like a potentially unpleasant problem, particularly if they're planning on starting a family. We've got a humane trap we can set with the idea of relocating him/her to the local national forest. In the meantime, I've learned that skunks dislike squash leaves. They may eat ripe summer squash if it's accessible, but they won't walk on the leaves of squash plants because they have little hairs that irritate the skin on skunk's feet. Any variety of squash should work, but you've got to allow the vines to lay on the ground instead of training them up a pole or trellis. 

This still doesn't definitively answer the question of who/what ate all the leaves off the squash plants the week they were planted. Guess I'm staying with grasshoppers as the culprit.

Natural Deterrent to Grasshoppers

What's left after the grasshoppers visited the squash

Little tiny grasshoppers, hundreds of them, have taken over the squash plants. I searched online for an organic method of getting them off my plants.

1 part molasses to 6 parts water, mixed in a bottle and sprayed on the leaves made the grasshoppers scatter.

A week later I found one more grasshopper, that was about 3/4" big, and hit him with the molasses mixture. He's nowhere to be found today.