Violet leaf green

Today is the first day of summer and with it we, my son, wife and self, put the finishing touches on the front lawn that will be transformed into a rain garden tomorrow. The rain barrel is in place, although not hooked up yet; the ground is prepared and the red well we purchased for the middle of the rain garden (living on Wells st.) is in place. Tomorrow morning I will go to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to pick up the perennial plants, all native to Wisconsin, that I ordered. It is fitting that I go to Sewerage District office to get the plants since it is by diverting water from the sewage system that earned me half the cost of the plants. Also as a bonus I will get a 5 lb. bag of Milorganite Garden Care free. Milorganite is the organic fertilizer made from human waste. The cycle of waste to green goes on. Who knows, perhaps some of the plants will be edible like the edible weeds I discovered yesterday?

Tonight’s dinner salad with Raspberry Walnut vinaigrette was made with greens and herbs from the garden, raisins, apples purchased from Growing Power and violet weed leaves from my front lawn. I should probably have waited till later to tell my family about the violet weed greens since after I said that my son took just a bit. He said it was because of the apples and it being a “fruit salad” which he does not like. This is true. However, he normally is a big consumer of my special homemade garden green salads. But my wife who is a picky eater of my ‘creative’ cooking said it was good. I chose the leaves of the violet weed since that was an easy one to find and define.

Speaking of waste and greens, my wife sifted some of the worm compost from the first worm condo. The worms are still coming up through the screen to get to fresh waste and then to be put in Worm condo #2, but the time to make “black gold”, castings, is approaching. She looked like a miner sifting through the screen on top of the wheelbarrow allowing the fine castings to fall through while scooping out any worms or large pieces of compost into worm condo #2. She says she likes doing this, which is good. I will need her and my son’s help next week to sift out the castings from the compost. In the language of children, which I am guilty of being one of in spirit, worm castings, black gold, or worm waste is really worm poop. One summary of this whole method of growing might be in this line: “Give me your waste composted and I will give you back rich worm poop.”

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