Compost Alive!

Our two plastic worm composting bins are getting rather full. I should have done some emptying in fall, but never got around to it. Worm compost is still great for the indoor houseplants though, and I had a big hole to fill in the banana plant pot. After being away for a few days last week, I came home to find this green mass at the bottom of the banana trees. A multitude of tomato and squash/cucumber seedlings have pushed their way up towards sunshine. The composted material in the worm boxes doesn't exact heat up enough to kill seeds, but that's okay. It's all just kitchen scraps and not weeds.

Of course, I can't give them all a home, so they'll have to go back to being compost material when I pull them up. In related activity, I purchased my vegetable, herb, and annual flower seeds today. I buy online from Stokes and T&M. I got a fair quantity of cosmos seeds for direct seeding, hoping to fill an entire bed with them. I experimented with a few last year and they did well. Best of all, they flower until frost and are some of the greatest flowers in the fall garden. Blue cornflower is also an easy one, and I bought a short variety for the edges of my raised beds. The fun begins for another year.

January Skies

Yes, I haven't posted in a while. However, I plan to make this a great year for garden documentation and photography, eventually culminating in a photo book for myself to forever remember 2012 in my garden. I suppose my next tasks need to be buying seeds, buying some seed-starting mix, and gathering all the little pots from the shed.

What can I say about the yard? Snow, snow and more snow. Oh, and cold. If you try to keep up with the activity of the aurora borealis, you may have read about the massive sun storms going on since January 19th. I follow this forecasting website from Alaska. The forecast for northern lights is tonight is in the "extreme" range. I hear that the intensity of the sun storm is even causing havoc for satellites, precision GPS, high-altitude polar flights, and potentially for the international space station. Fortunately, we get to see some spectacular northern lights in return for all this solar violence. The lights should be visible as far south as New York City and North Dakota.



My significant challenge in taking photos of the northern lights is finding company. Not too many folks enjoy standing around outside in -25C, at night. Maybe I need to find the ice-fishing crowd and interest them in SLR cameras. Hmmm.

A November Butterfly?

We left town for a few days this past week, noticing a butterfly sitting on the concrete floor of the partially-heated garage before we left. When we came back three days later, it was still sitting on the floor, though moving only minimally. Puzzled as to why there was a butterfly in our garage while we have a thick layer of snow outside, I decided to feed the butterfly a bit of fruit. It started moving a bit more, enjoying the pears and pineapple. Who knew a Saskatchewan butterfly would enjoy tropical fruit? Last night, I moved it into the kitchen for the kids to watch. My four-year old drew a picture of it, complete with a large smiley face. It now is feasting on Ceres mango juice, lemon, and bananas.

Online searching found that it is a Compton tortoiseshell butterfly and it is known to overwinter as an adult in a protected space. I am wondering what they usually eat over the winter? If it survives past watching our Christmas decorating in the next few days, we'll have to figure out where it can spend the rest of the winter. Perhaps hidden away in the summer shoes on the top shelf of the garage? Hmmm.