It’s pea-planting time in New Jersey. I ordered my peas and inoculant; they are sitting and awaiting my having the time and energy to plant them. I already dug a trench where I want them planted.
Digging the “trench” (it’s only about 3 inches wide) was easy because the “dirt” in that spot is a mound of compost. When I started composting, I used to put all my compost scraps in one corner of my yard. But come planting time, I then need to transfer a heap of the stuff to my garden spot. Also, I found the chicken wire I originally used more of a nuisance in terms of turning the compost than a help. Instead, I now pile the scraps one season earlier in the spot where I will later plant. The compost may not be fully de-composed, but that’s OK.
What do I put in my compost? Vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grinds, egg shells. Animal products are a no-no, as they attract rodents and other unwanted creatures. Every time I put down a pile of these kitchen scraps, I cover it with some soil. That will help keep away any flies. Also, the scraps needs soil to decompose. I also add layers of garden “waste” such as dried weeds with no flowers, dried grass, thin sticks. Every now and then I turn the pile (except in winter; impossible to do when the ground is frozen!).
Key elements in compost are: air (turn it sometimes), moisture (add a bit of water if it hasn’t rained much), soil and/or manure, carbon and nitrogen (which you get from the kitchen and garden wastes).
You can read more about composting online (try http://www.howtocompost.org/, for example) or from a book (I own The Rodale Book of Composting). But my suggestion is: try it! Ask questions as you go along. You don’t need to be a chemist to make compost.
It’s cold and grey outside. We have no snow, but it has been wintry cold. Maybe you will enjoy my new garden show?
I confess that I stayed up last night working on this slideshow. And then some more time early this morning. Is this how a mom with three kids spends her “free” time? Well, that’s my habit, anyway.
So for those of you who like the technical details, I did this in Actionscript 3. The pictures are all external to the Flash (.swf) file. They are listed in an XML file, as are the captions, so if I feel like adding or subtracting one more pictures, I don’t have to touch the code. It worked fine on my computer, but then when I uploaded it to my web server, not too surprisingly it needed a preloader. I put in the most basic preloader I could find. That’s those little numbers (and “images coming…”) you may see on the screen before the winter pic comes on.
So here’s a list of stuff I might add if I wanted to continue with this project:
1) fancier preloader
2) something more interesting at the end than “the end”: menu? redo? “the end” typewriter style? a fade out?
3) fun with tweens — meaning fancy effects
My last attempt with tweens in Actionscript 2 didn’t go so well. Some of the tweens worked, but some failed in Firefox, for some reason that I will probably never know since I am now delving into AS3. I do hope I get some mastery over AS3 before AS4 shows up.
4) Maybe get that frog that I drew really quickly for Parshat Vaera to jump through the garden? Or let the user control how it jumps? Or hide the frogs in one of the pictures and see if the user can find them? Time to do some more skill building…
All the photos are taken by me of my garden, except the tulips are from my neighbor’s yard.
My 5 year old daughter and her friend’s reaction? Beautiful pictures, but boring.
Well, I gotta learn some more Actionscript 3 before I do anything terribly interesting with it.
