I do a lot of composting at the urban thicket, about a 4 liter ice cream tub every 2 or 3 days. Therefore i research different ideas of composting. One thing i was reading recently was about an organic farm that does hot composting. The theory the composter had was that the corrugated cardboard allowed for oxygen to remain in the pile. Also i was thinking that if you allow the corrugated cardboard to be at the the sides of the compost it allows air flow into the pile, ultimately speeding up the process.

Im going to be making vermiculture shake boxes over the next week to put in the deep shade area of the balcony which sits empty and un-used all year.

I opened a flickr account today. So far theres only photos from the Urban Thicket, one set from jan 20th 2009 and one from march 5th 2009. Though most of the excitement is at my garden plot i haent gotten around to organizing photos of it will post a link at later date.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36361576@N06/

Plants i am currently trying to find a home for.

If i cant find a plot to work on and throw these in or find anyone who wants them they are likely to end up planted in an abandoned lot. The list is likely to eventually get quite long this year.


Chives
Evening primrose
Oregano
Lemon Balm
kale

tulips, crocus, and new growth

At what i call the Urban thicket

My tulips are all about 6 inches tall now, none of them were dug up last year. The few crocus' and galanthus are flowering. Strawberries, jacobs ladder, bleeding hearts, roses, iris', dragon snaps, garlic, dianthus and a bulb which im not sure what it is until it flowers(thinking hyacinth) have all started new growth.

The Urban thicket doesn't get a lot of light as it is trapped between buildings facing north, west. The only sun it gets at this time of year is for about 1.5 hours midday and only half of the area gets that sun. Though it seems to be a little bit warmer due to being so close to buildings. The soil isn't in that great of shape so throughout winter i have been composting all of the residents compostables in the plot. This likely means i will have to pull out lots of vegetables when they sprout as they either wont get enough sun or be killed by midday scorching. The extra volunteers will likely go to a guerrilla garden somewhere in the neighborhood. Also the resident doesn't want to eat anything out of the plot due to when she dog sat for 6 months the dog used it as a bathroom.

UPDATE: Vancouver b.c. is currently about 4 or 5 degrees colder then the average temperature. The forecast says we will be getting around 0 at night on the weekend. I would like to make note that in some places the defrosted ground turned to mud, others it seemed to hae remained fluffed up and looser. My guess is its related to the amount of moisture in the groundwhen it freezes. Will spend time researching this, possibly there is a way to use this as a winter aeration process, possibly nature already does.

The Farmers Almanac states that the last frost for Vancouver b.c. will be march 28. To be on the safe side i will aim to have things sprouting for the 30th. The Farmers Almanac also states that we should have about 221 growing days this year, which is the longest estimated growing season out of the major cities in Canada this year.

This year i've actually gone out and bought seeds, normally i wouldn't do that but last year i wasn't looked apon to well by everyone by the state of my garden. All my garden beds accept one will remain treated as Permaculture beds. The one is to sandy and i will be ammending it with composted materials.

On Sunday march 9th i will be planting a rows of lettuce. The fallowing week i will plant a second row the normal spacing between rows plus half. As the first row sprouts i will be thinning them out and about 6 inches south (deeper into the shade) of where i removed the young ones from the first row i will plant another row. Hopefully planting in succesion deeper into the shade each time i may be able to pull off having lettuce that doesn't bolt mid summer, if it does oh well i like seeds.