Rabbits

I posted here awhile back about my volunteer tomatoes. Some were in the current pile and some where the old pile was.

Now there's a cluster of squash plants coming up in the pile. Curious how that will turn out...

I've had pumpkins, butternut squash, tomatoes, and avocados (those won't survive here unfortunately).

The best cucumber plant I ever had came out of a compost pile. One day I picked 13 cucumbers off it. That was a long time ago; I can't even grow curcurbits anymore, too much bugs and disease.

raee_gw, I have an avocado right now that came up last year from scraps and somehow survived our very cold winter. It's almost 4 feet tall now. I know it won't survive forever, but it's cool watching it grow.

I keep waiting for a cardboard plant to pop up, I've put so much in my pile lately.

TJ, you're lucky to have a possum. They eat ticks.

I had potatoes growing in my pile along with mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, deer, groundhogs. Now I use a tumbler to make compost. Weeds go on a pile without food added.

Little green sprouts from popcorn kernels. These are the kernels that did not pop when they were in the microwave.

Susan, I saw a Ted talk from a man who says you should never put food in the compost pile. I know the British don't. They swear by what they call leaf mould, which I assume is just composted leaves and other green and brown stuff.

Still, I toss all my kitchen scraps out iinto my courtyard garden, and just let whatever happens to it happen. I used to dig them in, but I got lazy. The soil was completely dead when I moved in 3 years ago, and is now teeming with earthworms, so who knows? On the other hand, all I put on my other gardens is leaves and sticks, and they're teeming with earthworms too.

Irving, I have always wondered if those kernels would grow, since they were in the microwave. Now I know.

This Brit definitely puts food in the compost bin. Mine has a wire mesh lid to keep the local fox out.

Leaf mold is great but we don't use it instead of compost. It's an entirely different product and is used differently. It contains only leaves with no greens or any other material.

Two cabbages from the tossed cores, butternut squash, Everglades tomatoes.

floral_uk, thanks for that bit of info. What exactly do you use it for? I'm interested, because I've fed my plants mostly dead leaves for 3 years now, and they seem to get happier every year, but then, they have oodles of earthworms feeding them now.

Where are you in SW UK? My lifelong dream is to live in Cornwall for awhile, but I'll never be able to afford it. Well, maybe if I just live in a bedsit, which I could easily do, if it meant living somewhere on the coast. My Cornish (surname) family were reportedly pirates, but the only location we can find for them in the 1500s is Lydlinch, which I think is in Devon?

Leaf mold is used in potting mixes and for mulching. I don't make it myself since I have no trees in my microscopic yard. But the council dumps leaves at our allotments and I use that between the soft fruit bushes.

I don't live as far west as Cornwall but it is ccertainly a beautiful county. If you like to walk there's a coastal path that goes for 630 miles around the SW peninsula, not just Cornwall. It's absolutely stunning walking.

That's what I thought it was used for, but wasn't sure. I'd love to walk the cliffs of Cornwall. The sea is so wild and untamed there. I can't imagine every being a sailor on that coast. Must have been a lot of shipwrecks.

Don't think I"m up to walking 630 miles, though. LOL Well, maybe if I could afford to stop frequently and camp out or take a room.

Bea, the great thing about Everglades tomatoes is that you never have to replant them. Just toss a few ripe ones on the ground when the bush dies back, and you get new ones in the spring. I love those tiny tomatoes!

I found a mango sprouting today from a seed I threw out a couple of weeks ago. I already have a volunteer avocado that managed to survive last winter, so might as well pot up the mango and put it over by that south wall. It might come to nothing, but who knows?

Deb yup, that's what I do with the everglades. My spring batch is about done so I threw a couple of the fruit in the pot and they are sprouting! Not to mention about 5 other plants growing outside other pots and in between. Oh, and one in the rose bush pot and one in the blood orange pot, both of which are close to the Everglades pot!

Bea, they are the only tomatoes that grow well for me, and even at that, they don't grow as well as for people with full sun. They seem to die quickly, though, once it gets hot, so I keep a few seedlings going all year to replant.

I've got about a dozen date palms sprouting from seeds in the compost pile. At least I think they are from date seeds thrown in from the last 6 months since there are no other palms near the compost pile.

I don't have a compost pile on the ground anymore. Just in a tumbler which i rarely use since most goes into wormbin.

I do blend up and put a lot in my indoor worm bin though and a couple weeks ago some dirt I made from the vermicompost sprouted a tomato seedling in my microgreen tray.

Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be the golden cherry tomato. I threw all the tomatoes that were lost in there during the hurricane. Crossing fingers. Those tomatoes tasted great.

dangermouse, I used to dig up my volunteer palm seedlings and sell them in community pots. You'd be surprised how much people will pay for them. It's insane!

Countrygal, I thought I had lost all my everglades seeds, then one day I found an old six-pack that had some tiny seedlings coming up in a bone dry cell, and I put them into a bigger pot and watered them, and guess what they were? My Everglades tomatoes! I've been careful to always have a few seeds just in case from then on.

I always have strange things come up from reused soil.

No volunteers. But I've read so many fond reminiscences like this, that I went out and bought a couple of watermelon plants and stuck them in the compost pile after I was done using the pile this season for purposes. I mean, why not?

Touch and go as to whether I'll get anything before the end of the season.

You never can tell. I put cantaloupe seeds in the compost one season, and had them come up the next spring.

I hope the rabbits in my compost pile has moved on cause its underwater this morning...my compost pile a hole out back with a mound of stuff in it...i know the rabbits like it as i have seen them dart out of it when i get near it with the mower.

I've had mango seeds sprout, of course tomatoes, cantaloupe. I once threw some old bug infested birdseed in, and it all sprouted. I do NOT recommend that.

Pea, I don't have a pile, per se, but I just toss my kitchen scraps out around the plants, and sometimes the lizards and birds have a field day! The lizards love sucking the last juices out of the mango pits and papaya peels. The birds love apple cores.

socks, when I lived in the country, I had bird and squirrel feeders everywhere. I always had sunflowers, corn and millet coming up. I just let it grow and used it to save money on feed. Of course, you can't do that in the city, but it was nice having all the sunflowers coming up all over.

Dirtygardener, I had millet sprout last year-- I let it stand & ripen, assuming that the birds would eat it. I was surprised that the birds ignored it!

Our compost pile is really a compost bin. We use the compost around the bananas and mangoes. I have found a few tomato plants growing around the base of the mangoes and found baby mango trees growing in the bin from seeds deposited there :)

ree_gw They won't eat it because they stems won't support their weight and they can't hover like hummingbirds. You have to let the stalk dry, then cut it off and put it somewhere flat where they can get to it, or just lay it on the ground.

Also, you can put a tomato cage around it, which gives them something to sit on while they peck. I always just cut mine off and put it in the squirrel feeder. Squirrels didn't like it, but the birds could get to it there.