Morning Hawk

I woke up this morning to a shrill cry in my garden. I went outside and found this wonderful creature in my palm tree!!

It's too bad it wasn't a sunnier day so I could get better pictures. I hope they little fella will catch some of the rats in our yard.

My $5 Compost Bin

I don't have nearly enough organic material from my garden and kitchen to create a giant compost heap, but I want to do my part in trying to reduce my carbon footprint (isn't that the cool thing to do nowadays?). I've always wanted a compost bin, but those fancy shmancy bins are too big for my yard, and frankly, too expensive. I started late last year with my first attempt at composting with a small plastic box (about 8 gallons). It served its purpose, and I could see the effects of cold composting, but I soon outgrew it.

Then I ran into this article online: http://organicgardening.about.com/od/compost/ht/storagecompost.htm which shows how to make a compost bin with a plastic bin! And to my delight, Big Lots was selling these plastic bins for $5 a piece! Here is the bin that I bought.

I more or less followed the instructions and drilled holes in the top, sides, and bottom of the bin.

Then I threw the compost from the little box that I had going already, and discovered that I now have tons of room for more organic material!

I added some cuttings from my garden this morning.

Cold composting takes a lot longer, but Mother Nature still finds her way to take care of things, regardless of how small the pile is!!

So, lesson of the day is: Composting can be nice and cheap, as it should be!! Go do your part today!

And with that, I leave you with a picture of my lazy dog. :)

Tonight, we shall have peas!

Sugar snap peas, that is! Freshly picked from my garden!

I think I'm going to give these guys a quick stir-fry and have them with some rice! YUM!!

The fruits-- or shall we say-- Vegetables of Summer

Well, well... how quickly Summer approaches us! And with Summer are the vegetable that are FINALLY starting to show up in my garden!!

TOMATOES:

ZUCCHINIS (Or are they called Italian Squash?)

Snap Beans!




And here's the beginning of a young cucumber!

I've been traveling a lot for work lately, and have found that my garden seems to make more progress while I'm gone for a few days. Maybe it's because I'm not going outside every 4 hours to see if anything's changed!! Hahaah!!