The most frugal thing you can do is shovel work if you have the time. Dig out all of the beds to about two shovel depths, and loosen/turn over the bottom layer of the trench (if you go this deep you won't have to water very much if at all). Add lots of organic junk (leaves and small stickes etc.) from the yard. Put on some granulated lawn and garden fertilizer (very inexpensive in a big bag this time of year), and put the dirt back in, mixing it up a bit. Save some topsoil for a top layer (so you don't have leaves and sticks pokeing up). This will keep the clay from compacting, and it will compost itself over the next couple of years. The fertilizer helps the break down process, and give your plants enough boost to offset the nutrient robbing nature of the raw organic material/junk. If you have compost and/or fine organic material like grass clippings, mix it in with the top layer. I like to "quick" compost wood chips by adding high nitrogen lawn fertilizer (first number on the bag e.g. "28:4:5") this will get the pile heated up and get you good compost in one season rather than taking a couple of years. You could also add wood chips directly to the soil along with fertilizer, but this could cause growth restrictions the first year. How you want to do it depends on if you are growing perennials and want to get them planted right away the first year even if the soil isn't quite ready for optimal growth (add chips top soil), or if you want to wait a year for best first year results (wait for them to compost). Dealing with Clay....If you do as I suggested above, you will end up with clods of clay. Plant roots will infiltrate these somewhat and help break them down, but a good thing you can do is to let them sit on top to dry out and then shatter them with a whack of the back of the shovel. I like wood chips in clay (used either way described above). The chunkiness gives long lasting 'fluff' and humus to the soil. Things like grass clippings/fine compost seem to have shorter term benefits to clay. Clay soil is terrible around houses because the construction process strips off the topsoil and the machinery and foot traffic of the workers compacts the subsoil into hardpan that roots can't penetrate. People often only loosen this up to one shovel depth before planting, and then have to water alot (or let their plants suffer) because the plants quickly suck out all of the moisture from that relatively thin layer. They also may not add enough organic material (which is what holds onto/recycles nutrients long term). I like to use a short "D" handle shovel for this type of work, but that's just me.

I don't believe you should act like you are getting her permission but let me tell you,my neighbors always are giving me THEIR opinion. If it is important such as the ole gal across the street having a hard time where my mailbox was,ok I move it. But she may tell you she hates that tree or its messy and she better not find its droppings in her yard and then what do you do? I am speaking from experience unfortunately. Maybe if you told her how great your new tree was and how you would SHARE some seed later she may share some of her pretties. I always am taking my extras to a neighbor that recently moved in and she loves it. Anyway be prepared for whatever.

Peas and spinach like cool weather, as you have experienced with the bolting spinach. The arugula is probably being eaten by cabbage worms or flea beetles. What kind of soil conditions do you have? A garden that grows well depends on a lot of factor: choice of plants, soil conditions, nutrients in the soil and proper watering.

When to harvest the castings from the bottom tier of the Can O Worms (COW) is tyically more reliably determined by worm activity than a specific physical characteristic of the finished material. If the bottom tray contents contains little if any recognizable material and few if any worms this is the generally recommended cue to empty it. If many worms remain and/or if there is a significant volume of recognizable material present, leave it in the system for further processing. Castings often look like compost, and the appearance can differ depending on the feedstock and bin environment. Trying to determine what is a worm cast and what is a pile of decomposed organic matter that did not pass through the worm gut by simply looking at it is usually pretty tough. While it is sometimes possible to differentiate casts from compost, it is certainly not typical that we can, thus, as is so often the best course of action, let the worms be your guide. Avocado skins often remain for extended periods in worm bins, not because worms dislike them, but because they are highly resistant to microbiological decay. Because bacteria and fungi cannot readily degrade them the peels are not fragmented into sufficiently small pieces that they can be ingested by the worms. Further, it is the microbiology associated with decomposting orgnanic materials that supply the bulk of nutrient in the worm diet, not the organic matter itself, thus any orgnanic material not highly biologically active will be of little interest to the worms. The outer fiber of melon rind, corn cobs and husks, and citrus rinds are all materials that often remain unprocessed in the bin for extended periods for these reasons. As to eggshells, earthworms have a high requirement for calcium, thus having recognizable bits is recommended in all systems. It is not required that they are crushed however. Microorganisms will extract calcium from the shells and pass that calcium to the worms when the microbes themselves are later ingested. The worms do not necessarily need to ingest the shell itself to obtain the calcium. Some vermicomposters use crushed shells to supply grit that aids worm digestion, but the addition of grit is not always necessary. If the bin is set up with leaves or other organic materials that have been in soil contact there is typically sufficient grit to keep the worms happily digesting. Further, a handful of simple garden soil is all the grit a worm bin needs and does not require that you resort to mortar and pestle for egg shell grinding. If grinding the shell is something that appeals to you, however, there is certainly nothing wrong with doing so! Using castings is the payoff for self-management of home kitchen waste. The casts contain a rich consortium of microorganisms and concentrations of chemical compounds that significantly benefit plant growth and productivity. Casts are also, however, high in salts by virtue of the fact that they are the manure of an animal (we all concentrate salt in our wastes). It takes only a small volume of castings to demonstrate maximum impact, while using too much can actually stress plants due to salt toxicity. The generally recommended application rate is for castings to comprise between 5 and 20% of any potting medium. Now, it's important to understand that this is a general recommendation, not a hard and fast rule. You may well read that some folks use castings at higher concentrations to good effect (some coffee growers in Mexico, for instance, use castings as nearly 50% of their starting medium to get maximum benefit). What all of this means is that 1) more is not always better, and 2) start with the accepted application rate, but feel free to experiment on your own. Because no two worm systems and no two batches of castings will be identical, there are few hard and fast rules in vermicomposting. Personal experimentation is highly encouraged! If your system has produced more castings than you can currently use you can send them to me ::grin:: or simply store them in a container that will not be decomposed by the micorbial life ( no paper or cardboard, for instance), and keep them in the dark. They can be stored for upwards of three years with no loss of "potency". Kelly S