Composting, Mulching, Reading List, and Planting Calendar
Kristi Twichell of Growing Gardens Together, a Boston-area garden coaching service, gave a talk in Maynard in October 2010. The talk, which was open to the public and sponsored by MCG, included a number of helpful handouts. Below are the materials from that talk.
References for Composting
General:
http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/compostbrochure.pdf
http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/compos01.htm
Worm Composting:
http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/vermi.htm
Do-it-yourself composter plans:
Compost tumbler plans:
http://www.compostbinplans.com/compost-tumbler-plans/
Ultimate compost bin:
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-3-79-1736,00.html
Wood and wire bin:
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/9538/all-about-compost
Sources for ready-made composters:
Composters are usually available at many retail stores such as Home Depot, Sears, garden centers etc. as well as online sources such as Gardener’s Supply (http://www.gardeners.com). A Google search will yield many choices.
SUGGESTED READING LIST
Coleman, Eliot. Four Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1999. This book gives good basic information and goes beyond to discuss how to extend your growing season.
Deardorff, David and Wadsworth, Kathryn. What’s Wrong with My Plant? (and How Do I Fix It?). Portland, OR: Timber Press, Inc., 2009. A book to help gardeners diagnose disease and pest problems in their own gardens. Covers problems in all types of plants.
Gillman, Jeff. The Truth about Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why. Portland, OR: Timber Press, Inc., 2008. The author is a professor of horticulture and reviews scientific evidence to help the reader decide what techniques are most likely to work in his/her garden.
Smith, Edward C. The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible.
North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing, 2000. Good introductory book covering all the basics with lots of good pictures.
Web sites
: Often universities with horticulture departments (eg., Cornell, U. Mass, U of Conn) make lots of information available to the home gardener. Organic Gardening magazine (http://www.organicgardening.com) and Fine Gardening (http://www.finegardening.com) have good ones too.
Seed catalogs: In general it is a good idea to get your seeds from catalogs located in areas as similar to yours as possible. In our area, what grows a bit north of us is likely to be hardy here. Try the following: Johnny’s (http://www.johnnyseeds.com); Pine Tree Seeds (https://www.superseeds.com) which offer seeds in small quantities; High Mowing (http://www.highmowingseeds.com) which is organic and independent; Baker Creek (http://rareseeds.com) which isn’t local but has great pictures and a huge variety of heirloom seeds.
Holiday Greens Workshop
| December 4, 2010 |
Location TBD
Holiday Potluck
| December 4, 2010 |
Please see the Evite for complete details (members only).
Lecture: Healing Gardens by guest speaker Lisa Bailey
| November 16, 2010 |
Landscape artist, Lisa Bailey, will talk about creating healing gardens.
Monthly Planning Meeting
| November 4, 2010 |
Our monthly planning meeting is held on the first Thursday of every month (except August and December) starting at 7pm at the Maynard Public Library, 2nd floor. Meetings generally last no more than an hour. All members and prospective members are welcome to attend.