Northern & Central Midwest
December, 2010
Regional Report
Books
Garden Spells
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (ISBN-10: 0553590324)
is not a garden help. It is a soul help book. For those cold winter nights, this wonderful book of magic and special gardens will bring a smile your face and transport you to a wonderful back yard where who knows what can happen. It combines love, heartache, herbal culinary wonders, and best of all, characters who are truly a part of their gardens.
Clever Gardening Technique
Bokashi Composting
This is certainly not new to the Japanese, but it is new to me. This is an indoor composting system that works anaerobically instead of aerobically as does traditional composting. You will basically be fermenting food scraps and then adding them to the garden in a sheet composting style (or they can be added to the regular compost pile). There are commercial systems you can purchase, but you can make your own with an airtight bucket, wheat or rice bran, molasses and food scraps. At the end of two weeks, you have fermented compost to add to the garden. For more information, simply check the web for "bokashi composting."
