August | 2011 | Far Out Flora

More Mendocino Flower Madness

August 6, 2011 by Megan | 10 Comments

Brugmansia love

If my last post about the bloomiferous Mendocino Gardens didn’t make you want to jump in the car and go, this post is should do it. It’s just pictures of the amazing gardens in town. I’m obsessed with Brugmansia sanguinea, and may have squealed when I saw this one covered in blooms. We’ve got a baby who’s about four feet tall in the garden. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it looks this good when it’s all grown up.

Alan, Roxy & Scooter's Garden

According to the posted piece of paper about the garden there are over fifty varieties going on here and the peak time to check it out is mid-to-late May. I keep having to remind myself that we should be able to grow all the same plants out here next to Ocean Beach. Same wind, salt, and fog.

Pelargonium lust

I want this Pelargonium. Does anyone know what it is? It kind of looks like ‘Lord Bute’ gone all ruffly.

Cottage garden explosion

You pretty much walk twenty feet in any direction in the town of Mendocino and there are flowers in all shapes and sizes going crazy. It’s seriously garden heaven.

Echium forest

We definitely need to plan a trip up here in spring when the mega-Echiums all over town are going off, but these fading guys were still pretty sweet.

Foxy Phygelius

Lychnis something

Not sure what this is exactly, but love the deep pinky red going on with the grey green stems.

Cute windowbox

Mendocino Garden Shop

We couldn’t resist stopping at the Mendocino Garden Shop on our way out of town. You can see it from the Mendocino exit to town on the way in and out. The display gardens were going nuts.

Mendocino Garden Shop

Check out the Verbascum bombyciferum ‘Arctic Summer‘ on the right looking cool. Penstemons were blooming en masse pretty much everywhere. I went a little picture crazy, but there are way more pics of the flowery town o’ Mendocino on flickr.

p.s. We’re still in the process of getting our crap where it needs to go after the move seven steps east to the way nicer apartment overlooking our garden. Pics of the new houseplant set up, our new bamboo floors and views of the garden from above will be coming soon. There’s also going to be an open one bedroom if you’ve ever wanted to live next to Ocean Beach & Golden Gate Park.

Juicing the Worms

August 3, 2011 by Matti | 1 Comment

Red Wigglers

Our Wriggly Ranch has been working over time. The red wigglers are chowing down like there’s no tomorrow. Lots of good scraps left over from our salad cutting board for them to munch on. Oh hey peoples, we in the process of moving so posting is light at the moment (don’t worry within same building…just better view of the garden).

Worm compost

About 5 months ago we finally joined a CSA here in SF called Eating with the Seasons. Hey, there are a bunch to choose from in SF, but this one we loved for two reasons. First…well…probably the main reason..they have a drop off point within walking distance from our house. The second reason is awesome. We get to go online and select our fruits and veggies that will deliver that following week. You see, they operate more like a coop and get fresh goods from a couple different local farms which makes it more flexible.

Draining the juice

Back to the red wiggler worms…here’s What we do. We keep two plastic tupperware type plastic containers. As we collect veggie and fruit scaps, we toss them into the first bin. We tend not to keep any onions, citrus, meats and dairy…not exactly sure, but think they don’t like them. Next we store the bin in the freezer. This helps break down the cells in the scraps, making it easier for the worms to process. Also, it eliminate any odor and critters that like to swarm around old bits of food…yeah I’m talking to you Mr. Fruit Fly. After the bin is full, we thaw it out to room temperature, either overnight or during work. Then it’s feeding time for the worms.

The second collecting bin starts getting used until we wash the first one.

Overview of the worm bin

Here’s where the magic happens. Unlike a lot of worms, red wigglers do their activity at the surface. They eat and make castings, aka a compost like material. We dump the scraps in the top, lay some shredded newspaper / grocery bags over that, then mist it all with water…not soggy, just damp. The worms take over from there.

Pouring out the worm juice

There’s three worm bins stacked up in this set up, and a reservoir at the bottom. When the first bin fills up, we stack on top an empty one and start feeding them there. The worms all migrate up to the feeding level. When all three bins are full, we harvest all the castings from the bottom bin and work it into the garden. That empty bin now becomes the new one to stack on top.

Sometimes we can tap some liquid from the reservoir, aka the worm juice. We pour it into a watering can, add some water, then pour it on the plants.

Hot topic alert: I know there’s a bunch of recipes and techniques out there for how to harvest the worm by products. What we’re doing seems to be working, and at the very least we’re keeping some food scraps from traveling to a process facility and / or the dump.

However we’re no experts and always willing to improve on what we do. If you have some thoughts or suggestions, we want to hear them.

– Far Out Flora