Cheap Watering Can and Compost Sifter

Cheap watering "can" that works better than most store bought:

Two gallon cat litter jugs with 1/8" holes drilled in lids and 1/2" vent hole in the top of the handles. Works great for my compost tea.

Compost sifting container:

Large rubbermaid trash can and lid, invert the lid over container and cut out most of the lid and tightly fit lid with 1"x1/2" wire mesh, or whatever size you like. Scoop compost on mesh, rub around. Handy to drag trashcan around garden and distribute compost.

Charlie

"Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers." ~~Mignon McLaughlin

Reply to
Charlie
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You didn't say anything about how society regards its' "pain in the butts";o)

So how are things coming along down at the "skunk works"? Your compost juice got the cabbages doing cart wheels or the soil delicately sticking together when you squeeze it into a ball? How's the long suffering Miss Lovely holding up under the stress? Any plans to ameliorate your log before winter sets in? Come June 20, 2008 at 7PM EDT, the days start getting shorter for us here on top of the world. Don't put off any plans. Remember "Murphy's Law".

Reply to
Billy

I make watering cans out of plastic one gallon milk jugs. The SO drilled a bunch of little tiny holes in a couple of jug lids for me. When a jug wears out or gets ratty, I recycle it and use a new jug.

I like your compost sifter idea, Charlie : )

How do you aerate your compost tea? (I'm way behind on my reading in this ng. I'm sure you've discussed this and I've missed it.)

Folks around here are just starting to plant their veggie gardens this week. The soil is finally warming up and drying out enough. 'Bout time!

Jan USDA Zone 3

Reply to
Jan Flora

This works much better than store bought watering cans that broadcast water over about a half acre. ;-) I'm collecting rainwater in a 350 gal tank and four fifty-five gal poly barrels and filling watering cans like ours is quick.

Thanks! It is working well. Makes a nice fine compost for tea and spreading in the garden. Nice working height for those of us who avoid bending when possible. :-)

I'm using aquarium air pumps, dual outlet, and bubble sticks in the buckets. I've three buckets brewing at a time. Three pumps with both outlets/stones going to one bucket.

This is my main reference, with advice from catdaddy and victoria...

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am seeing some amazing growth and flavor in our produce.

Reply to
Charlie

Heh heh......love you too, Billy! I think you know the answer to that question. ;-)

Damn, that is a lot of questioning and thought required in one short paragraph.

Tea is showing great results. Miz Loverly is doing well, and tolerates admirably the situation, and in reagrds to the tea, she is enjoying the results of all this, after I moved brewing operations out of the garage, around the corner and out of sight.

You start brewing yet? Hmmm?

Shoot mon, my log needs amelioration *now*! Thanks a bunch for dragging me, kicking and squeeeeking, from my refuge. Must you remind me of the cycling to winter, when the season of birth and life and rejuvenation is still so fresh upon us? You are cruel and a harsh taskmaster, Mr. Billy. Perchance this is what I need, eh?.......ya d*ck!

So many of us are leaving this life, my friend......Utah, Bo......trying to get my head around this, you know......cycles...funny thing they are.......

Catch ya later on the other/up side, my friend.......

Charlie, blinking absently at the world beyond my log

"I'm nobody, who are you?" ~~Emily Dickinson

Reply to
Charlie

Okay, I started a bucket of compost tea yesterday, after reading that link. Put semi-composted chicken poop, a little molasses and a little epsom salts in the bucket and stirred it with my clam shovel. It was already "brewing" last night. It's still cooking along this morning. Looks good, so far. We'll see : )

I've got to haul a couple of yards of composted cow poop up from the ranch today and get the garden beds going. (We have cows. We sell the compost to the neighbors for $20-25/yard, loaded into their trucks for them.) I'm trying to rebuild soil that got bulldozed when the house site was prepped.

Jan

Reply to
Jan Flora

I think you will enjoy the results. After a several of weeks of application, our plants, both edibles and the pretty stuff is looking wonderful......deep green foliage and rapid, luxuriant growth, abundance of blooms on the pretties. The stuff we are eating *seems* to be better tasting than in the past, but you know the power of the mind. ;-)

G'luck and strength to ya'll....the busy season is upon you!

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

We've enjoyed a late, slow spring this year. The snow just went off my yard in the last few weeks. My rhubarb was already growing when the snow went off it, but the leaves were bright red and yellow. The SO saw the rhubarb growing under the snow and said, "What did you do to that stuff??" Cow poop. I top-dressed it with a little composted cow poop last year, about this time of year, when I planted it there. The SO's mom had a tremendous rhubarb patch, but she never put any compost on it, so it never grew leaves under the snow.

This is totally irrelevant to gardening: a Goshawk came into my yard today, to try to catch one of my hens. I ran the hawk off with my pea-shooter, but the hens hid for many hours under the willows. When I finally got them to go back into the henhouse, I found one scared little hen hiding under the rhubarb. She was clinging to that rhubarb plant like a tick on a dog. It may have saved her life, to hide under the big leaves and stay totally still. My dumb hens are already dead, from hawks, black bears, coyotes, etc. Some say that keeping chickens in Alaska just amounts to maintaining a bait station for predators. If I didn't enjoy my little biddies so much, I might agree.

Charlie -- my busy season is when we're haying, doing the garden, and trying to keep my FIL from carping at us because we're working 16 hours a day and won't stop at 5 p.m. to have cocktails with him. Calving season, which is 24/7 for a couple of months, is easy in comparison. No one carping. The carp is in Tucson during calving.

The older I get, the less tolerance I have for insufferable people. Since I was raised by very high-maintenance people, I can recognize them from quite a distance. My sense of humor just fails me around them folks.

But I digress...

Jan

Reply to
Jan Flora

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