Gardening Excetera Column 7/16/11

THE ANSWER MAN: What’s Your Problem?
Dana Prom Smith

This column receives many queries about gardening. Some questions and answers follow:

Q. My composter stinks. People walk by our house holding their noses. My wife stamps her feet and shouts at me in shrill-speak. Our small children cry because they’ve lost all their friends. I’m losing my grip of reality. What do you advise?
A. My diagnosis: you’re an addict, addicted to caffeine from drinking lots of coffee and then dumping the coffee grounds into your composter. You’re a reactive personality, easily distraught by loud, high-pitched voices. Also, you’re a dependent personality, worrying too much about the opinions of others. Caffeine hypes you up, making everything worse. As for the stink, you can either cowboy-up and tell everyone, including your neighbors, wife, and small children, to buzz off, or you can change the ratio of nitrogen to carbon in your composter. I recommend the latter because if you chose the former, you’ll careen off the charts.
First, cut down on the coffee to improve your emotional stability. You’re on the edge. Also, it would cut down on the stink. Besides, coffee turns your teeth brown so that you look like you don’t brush your teeth. You’re putting too many coffee grounds in your composter. Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen. Although dark brown, they’re considered green (nitrogen material) by compostees. Go figure. Too much nitrogen results in putrefaction. In short, your compost is putrid.
You can also put more carbon material in your composter. In the composting community carbon material is called brown. Google for a list of nitrogen and carbon materials suitable for composters. Carbon material will reduce the stink. Generally speaking, the ratio in terms of shovelfuls is 1 nitrogen to 3 carbon.
Also, take a pitchfork and turn the material in your composter. Often the stink comes from a lack of air (oxygen) inside the pile, ostentatiously called an anaerobic condition which simply means airless. In other words, air out your composter like you’d air out your dirty linen.

Q. My tomato plants are wilting. What should I do?
A. Check to see if the soil is dry by sticking your finger in several inches. If it’s dry, water it. If it’s wet, your tomato plant likely has an incurable disease. If it does, pluck it out, roots and all, and throw in the garbage can. All is lost. Live with it.
Wilting tomato plants generally are caused by one of three possibilities. The first is soil-borne fungi. There is nothing to do as I said above. Don’t use the soil again for tomato plants unless it’s sterilized. Soil can be sterilized by putting it in a black container, covering the container with a clear plastic bag, and letting it sit in the sun for two weeks, or you can stick it in the oven in the kitchen which might cause your wife to shrill-speak. Not recommended. Container gardening is best with tomatoes as a means controlling fungi in the soil.
The second cause is a viral infection which is air-borne. In ostentatious-speak it’s environmentally transmitted. Again, there is no known antidote, just like the common cold. Only with tomatoes, they can’t just hang until the virus has finished its course. With tomatoes, yank the plant and throw it in the garbage can so that it won’t infect others. WARNING: Do not try to save anything from the vine like cankered tomatoes.
The third cause is pests such as cutworms, whiteflies, flea beetles, aphids, mites, and stink bugs. These can be managed by vigilance and the application of appropriate remedies.
Growing tomatoes is une affaire du coeur unlike rutabagas and cabbage, and as in affairs of the heart, there is heartache, grief, and sadness. As Saint Eustace IV of Billingsgate said, “Alas, shitte doth happen.”

Q. My Kentucky blue grass front lawn takes lots of water and care, costs big bucks, and is a pain in my back. What do you advise?
A. Dig it up, amend the soil with compost, and sow vegetable
seeds. At least, your pain in the back will produce something worthwhile. Grow America.
Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2011

Dana Prom Smith edits of GARDENING ETCETERA, blogs at http://highcountrygardner.blogspot.com, and can be emailed at stpauls@npgcable.com.