Step by Step Organic Gardening – Step 1: Pick a Spot

I just spent close to an hour looking for a step by step organic garden blog on the west coast, with a specific bent towards lasagna gardening. No luck. So I’m creating my own. Feel free to leave advice, criticism, compliments, questions, answers, jokes, and/or random comments (as long as it’s not spam, I’m good) in the comment feature. Because I loath spam with a depth one cannot express with mere words, I am making the comments moderated… and because I have a life outside of blogging… it may not show up for a few days… Do not fear, I always get around to it.

Now that is out of the way… Let’s Garden!

One of the things that attracted me most to this property that we’re renting is that it is 5 acres of SUNNY land! There aren’t that many sunny lots of this size on this particular gulf island, so I consider myself very blessed. We also have landlords that are open to us gardening, so garden we shall!

With the price of food going up, and the quality of food going down, gardening has become a necessity in our frugal little health-nut family.

Never having gardened in this climate/zone, the garden we are starting this year is highly experimental. In case you were wondering, we’re on a small gulf island in British Columbia, Canada, just off of central Vancouver Island. It is highly humid (rainy), mostly mild (not much snow), and a gardening zone 7b.

Step 1. Pick a spot

There’s a lot of bedrock and pond that is fenced off for child-safety reasons.

There’s a unruly unkempt kitchen garden on the shady side of the house.

There’s an overgrown flower garden fenced off on the sunny side of the house.

There’s a weird fenced off area under the pine trees.

We picked the area next to the porch on the sunny side.

Doing Green Weekend Chores

Every Saturday is my “chore day”, so I thought I’d share what I do, and hopefully others will share their tips.

Laundry

I buy a biodegradeable concentrated liquid laundry soap called “Terge”. You put about 20 mls in each full load, with a splash of vinegar, no scent, no toxins, and your laundry smells really fresh! I also use reusable cloth dryer sheets.

Use an energystar appliance, and if you have access to one, a laundry line to hang out your clothes. I live in a very small condo, so I’m using an old apartment sized washer/dryer, but we’re saving up for a new energystar set, and should be able to make the purchase around Christmas time. In the meantime I wash MOST loads on cold, I always do full loads, and I am sure to clean out my lint tray regularly in my dryer.

I wash sheets only once or twice a month, more often, depending on whether they get soiled or start smelling bad.

Dusting

Mix a little vinegar and water in a spray bottle and wipe down surfaces with an old rag. Streak free, and the vinegar neutralizes any nasty smells that might have accumulated in the room.

Floors

This is the one area that I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t found a natural energy conserving alternative yet. Right now I’m addicted to my swiffer for my laminate floors because it works so well, doesn’t leave any streaks, doesn’t leave excess water on the floor (causing bubbling), and is SO easy and convenient. I’m open to any ideas that are equally convenient and successful.

Dishes

I have an energystar dishwasher, and I use ECOVER dishwasher tablets. I never rinse (benefits of having a newer machine), so I save water there… I never run a load unless it’s full. I probably run it once every other day, I’m guessing.

If I want to handwash dishes, I use Nature Clean All Natural Dishwashing Liquid. I LOVE the smell of the lavender tea tree oil scented one. I even went and bought some lavendar and tea tree oil essential oils to use as air freshners after finding this dish soap. Another tip… I use this as liquid hand soap in the bathroom. I have an old dispenser that I refill. Much cheaper than all the organic hand soaps on the market, it smells awesome, and it’s biodegradeable…

Bathrooms

For the tub, I have a Nature Clean All Natural Tub & Tile Cream Cleanser that is chlorine free. It has a bit of grit to it so it gets the tub really clean. We also found some reuseable no scratch scouring pads, and throw those in the bathroom cleaning bucket, instead of using paper towel.

For the mirrors, I use a vinegar/water mix. I need something reuseable to replace the paper towels that isn’t going to leave streaks on the mirror. I’ve heard newspaper is great, but I don’t accept flyers or newspapers here, so that’s out. Suggestions anyone?

For the toilet, I found a cool toilet cleaner at a local natural cleaning supply store. It looks like a large cotton ball on the end of a stick, and has this plastic thingie you push down to squeeze the excess water out of it. It’s rather nifty… I use Nature Clean All Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner (septic safe).

For the sinks and counters, I use Simple Green all-purpose cleaner concentrate, watered down… I bought a 650ml bottle of this 3 years years ago, and the price tag still on it says $6.99, and I’m still using it! Good stuff! I use an old towel rag, and wash and reuse them.

The garbage in the bathroom is usually just paper products, so I sort it out into the recycling, and very rarely have anything more than one or two items that go to the landfill…

Recycling

I collect all our cans and bottles and give them to a co-worker’s kid towards his spending money. When my son is a bit older, I’ll let him do the chore of sorting and cashing them in at the bottle depot, cause I personally loathe those places.

I have a system in place that is working wonderfully. In my hall closet next to my kitchen: Top shelf – box for bottles and can. Bottom of closet I converted a garbage can (one of those ones that has the foot pedal to open the lid) into a recycling bin, and taped a sign to the top of it indicating everything that can go into it. That one gets emptied into the recycling bin in our condo unit. Next to it is a canvas shopping bag, and anything that needs to go to the recycling depot goes in there. It gets full about once a month, and I make a trip to the depot (which is conveniently close to my work) and sort it into the appropriate bins. Under the sink in my kitchen I have a plastic bucket with a lid and a handle, and all our food waste goes in there, and then gets emptied into the compost bin, which I started in our condo unit, thank you very much. I throw out a grocery shopping bag sized bag of garbage once or twice a month, MAX. Often less. For a family of three. Can you tell I’m proud of our efforts in that department?! LOL

Patio

We have recently planted a small herb garden in a large pot. So far we have mint, chives and rosemary. There’s also a climbing jasmine and lavender. I plan on buying a bunch of basil for another smaller pot to keep out there, cause there’s nothing like fresh basil to spice up a dish.

I’m having ant issues. The condo unit had an exterminator out to check them out, and they are just sugar ants, so aren’t destructive, but they are EVERYWHERE. I could really use some suggestions for getting rid of them naturally. I’ve noticed the neighborhood kitties like to hang out on my patio, so nothing that is going to harm local domestic life.

Now that I’ve covered all that, I’m going to go do all the chores. Wish me luck!

Recycle? Check!

So… I was introduced to the condo garden shed today, located a rake, and we (read Brent & Micah) got the compost bin started with a nice heap of old leaves. I had some grocery shopping to get done, so they took care of it in my absence.

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for ages, cause I basically recycle every other piece of waste in my home. There’s very little that goes in my garbage other than food scraps, so a compost is the perfect solution. I also got my recycling system organized a little better today.

Bin 1: A large garbage can that has been converted to a recycling bin, and is for items that can go in the recycling bin on the property. It’s even labeled for those (Brent!) in my house that might be confused about what can go in there.

Bin 2: I have put one of my cloth shopping bags to use for collecting any items that need to be dropped off at the recycling depot (batteries, glass jars, etc).

Bin 3: Anything that can be cashed in at the bottle depot.

Bin 4: I found a bucket with a lid and a handle, and made a space for it next to the sink. It’s for food scraps to go in the compost. Cannot include any meat products, grease, or citrus peels (takes too long to break down).

So what is your “system”?

Start that compost!

Okay, I’ll warn you, this guy has a cheesy fake “happy” voice, and his grin is a bit nauseating, but the info is good.

Gardening in a condo

I have zero green space. There was a patch of bare hard dirt under a tree just outside my dining room window, where nothing would grow, so my landlord (who is also my dad… go dad!) built an amazing patio (he’s also a talented finish carpenter), and installed sliding doors in my dining room.

I’m planning out a patio garden that includes hanging herbs (to keep the cats and other animals from peeing on, marking and otherwise destroying plants I want to eat) and rectangular boxes of bamboo plants to screen the patio from the driveway and provide some privacy. This plan won’t go into effect until mid June cause I’m getting married and will be leaving for Jamaica.

In addition, I’m prodding the condo organization to start letting me use the huge compost bin that I found out behind the garbage bins. They want more people to participate, and I’m planning on going door to door if I have to! If I can’t get them on board, I am considering a wormery.