My Fascination with Composting: God's Fertilizer Part 2

As I learned more about compost, God's fertilizer, I have learned that natural things that we consider undesireable actually have a great purpose in the world of composting. For example the compost pile is broken down by three processes,

1- The natural rotting process.

2-Bacteria fungi, and actinomycetes (a group of organisms intermediate between bacteria and true fungi), which feed on decaying matter.

3-Insects entering the pile and breaking it down by eating, shredding, and secreting rich material very healthy for the garden. These include nematodes, some types of mites, snails, slugs, millipedes, sowbugs and whiteworms. Perhaps the most helpful of these insects is the earthworm.

According to an article I found, "Earthworms do the lion's share of the decomposition by tunneling and feeding on dead plants and decaying insects. The soil and organic material passses through the earthworm's digestive system and produces some of the "finest quality of all humus material."

Amazingly, a couple of years ago, I heard about a commercially available fertilizer  based on earthworm poop! Yes, gross but amazing! 

Everything has a purpose in God's economy, even the lowly earthworm...even the refuse of the lowly earthworm! Wow! Next time I turn over a rock in my backyard and find an earthworm, I'll have a little more respect. Click her to learn more about our slimy but super helpful friend. 

Stay tuned for part 3, I told you I was fascinated! 

My Fascination with Compost: God's Amazing Fertilizer! Part 1

My first real encounter with the principle of composting came when I was a child on a farm in Harnett County, NC. This story is a little gross but  it makes the point on how something  undesireable and useless can actually become something of great value! Don't worry,  I'll give the sanitized version.

Just a Little Support Goes a Long Way

Close up view of bamboo stakes supporting my cucumber vines

As cucumbers grow and produce fruit, they can grow for many feet (4 to 9 feet depending on the variety) and sprawl all over the ground. They take up precious garden space and then there's the issue of dirty cucumbers, not to mention easy access to  ground insects. I have solved these problems with bamboo stakes, a simple yet inexpensive solution. At first glance, bamboo stakes look like a pretty flimsy solution. By themselves, bamboo stakes are thin and spindly and bow under the weight of heavy and productive cucumber or tomato plant.  They are certainly not as sturdy as the solid wood sticks that my Father would use to or the metal cages you can buy in the store and use year after year! 

That said, I like bamboo stakes for a number of reasons:

1-They can actually become a pretty strong support system for cukes or tomatoes when you tie them together into a trellis and brace them to ground with a one or two "tent stakes"   

2-Building my trellis becomes a part of my daily nurturing process as I "sucker my tomatoes, redirect my growing vines, look for storm and insect damage, prune and support them as needed.

If you look carefully at the picture above, you will see the bamboo stakes supporting my cucumber plants as well as the little curly tendrills that the cucumber sends out to support itself.  You might also see a string on the left side of the picture going down to my tent stake.

Erosion!

Erosion in my garden (left)            Erosion in my back yard

We have been getting a lot of rain  in Raleigh lately. That has had terrific benefits for my garden and has brought a welcome relief to my water bill! One downside of the heavy rain is erosion.  I have noticed erosion in two places. First in my garden. I try to created deep trenches between the rows which  captures and retains the water as it falls.  I get very little run off!  Fortunately, the garden is well drained so there is no problem with flooding! These trenches have become less defined as the dirt fills them in with erosion. In my backyard, the gutters fill up with pine straw, the gutters overflow and the torrent of water washes away the soil next to my patio! Getting the gutters cleaned once a year is not enough to stop the problem. I did noticed that it helped to dig a trench and put down gravel where the water comes off the house.                                                                                                                              

God Wants to Meet Me in the Garden

Welcome to FredsGardenMusings! I love prayer, I love the Bible, I love nature and I love gardening. They all restore my soul! Yourdictionary.com defines musing as " a period of deep thought, meditation or reflection."

 This blog will be an intersection, maybe sometimes a collision of those loves!   I will share activities, pictures, thoughts and lessons from my garden, from nature in general and reflections from by prayers and meditation on God's word. Come with me as I enjoy God's creation and think out loud!

July 17, 2013

In my recent quest to grow in my prayer life, I recently started collecting what I call, Prayer Room music, it provides a good background for meditation, reflection and prayer time with the Lord,  without a heavy beat but more instrumental and with fewer words if any.  Such a song is Mitsy Edwards "Garden"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Owb_B9BO_c

Yesterday, this song ministered to me as I listened to the words:

.

 Here are some of the lyrics: 

"You and Me Alone God, You and me alone. There a place within,

 where no man can go, in the secret  resevoir  of the soul. In your jealousy, 

you created me as a garden enclosed for you alone.

"I close my eyes and go to the sacred space inside a cathedral within...

where you and I collide."

My love for the word, prompted me to ask the Lord for related scriptures and he took me to. John 15: 4-8:

"  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 

except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, 

the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; 

and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will,

 and it shall be done unto you.  Herein is my Father glorified, 

 that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples."   John 15: 5-8 KJV

That place of fellowship with God is called "abiding"  The goal of Jesus is that we bear much fruit. Not just look pretty or stay green! Last week my tomatoes looked great due to the rain. Yet, I was looking for fruit. First came then flower buds, then the bees pollenated, then at last on yesterday, the first signs of fruit! I saw my first tomatoes. On Monday I noticed that the vines, though staked individually  with bamboo stakes were starting to lean forward under the weight of the quick growing vines and the new cucumbers. I then had to come back with additional reinforcements. This time, made tent like stakes by bracing the original stakes, to hold up the growing tomatoes.  Then I created a trealise by connecting the stakes with strings.  I  dropped some of the strings from the top of each stakes to "grab" the new vines which would eventually "lift them up" as as they shot out from the main vine below.

Detached branches;;

Every year for some reason, my pepper plants lose their bottom leaves. Sometimes a falling pine cone lops of a tomato branch or I accidentally break off a branch while pruning. Sadly, these broken branches, detached from the vine, can no longer grow. They wither and die; so I gather them up in put them into the compost bin.

Application Questions:

As I close my prayer times, these are the questions I am asking:

Where are there signs of new flower buds and new fruit in my life?

Where do I need to see fruit?

Where have I detached from the vine and have no life and need to be tossed in the compost bin?

Where does God want to prune in my life?

Are there areas that I assumed were productive but are now dead? Ouch?