the Composter APRIL, 2016 Volume 65 Number 8 In This Issue UPCOMING EVENTS: APRIL MEMBERSHIP MEETING: AQUAPONICS BOARD MEMBERSHIP RAFFLE PRIZE WINNERS MEMBERSHIP MEETING REVIEW A FRONT PORCH GARDEN A RECIPE: ALMOND ROCCA GENERAL MEETING INFO COMPOSTING DVD REVIEW HOME GARDEN TOUR CALLING OLD COMPOSTERS GETTING KIDS INTO GARDENING SOIL FOR SALE UPCOMING EVENTS: Your TOG Board 2015-2016 APRIL 19 MEMBERSHIP MEETING Brandon Merchant- SUBJECT: President The ABC's of Aquaponics: Brendan Wo ltman of Bridget Barber - Vice EcoGro Garden Center President We've all heard about that "other" form of Rich Johnson - Editor gardening, you know, the one where there is NO soil. Well, Brendan will be on hand to demystify Mary Sabatini - the whole process and teach us how to raise Treasurer veggies in a self- sustaining system that has the side benefit of fish for dinner. Deb Jacobson - Volunteer Where: Coordinator St. Mark's Church, 3810 E. 2nd St.--northeast Mohyeddin corner in the Geneva Room Abdulaziz - Member at When : Doors open at 6:45PM large Q & A at 7:15 Speaker starts a 7:30 Marilee Mansfield - ----------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------- Secretary WORKSHOPS AVAILABLE AT THE Val Schaffer - COMMUNITY FOOD BANK's GARDEN Education and Outreach Sustainable Design FRI Apr 8th 9-11 am Charlotte Weltjen- Soil and Compost Membership FRI Apr 15th 9-11 am BOARD MEETINGS Planting a Healthy Garden ARE HELD THE FRI Apr 22nd 9-11 am FIRST Tuesday OF EACH MONTH AT Building Soil Fertility, SAT Apr 9th 1-3 pm, with 6:30 P.M. Brandon Merchant from Southwest Victory Gardens THE TOG SHOP Fruit Tree Care, SAT Apr 23 1-3 pm NEW : Walls-o-Water 3-pack $12 Gardening with Ollas & Self Watering Repair kit $5 Containers, SAT May 7th 9-11 am NEW : Home Composting DVD $5 Spin diggers $6 Compost cranks $40 Price reduction!! (Heavy-duty tool to mix compost) Compost Bin $40 Planting Guides $7 Frost cloth 12' wide $1.00/ft Shop by appointment or at the monthly meetings. BOARD MEMBERSHIP It's that time of year again, time to seek out and find replacements for the board members who will be retiring this spring. If you like what you get from your membership with TOG, perhaps it is time for you to help guide the future of this most worthy group. Without a board of volunteers there would be NO TOG. The board is the glue that holds things together and has perpetuated what the late Tarke Sweet started in 1971. Contact any current board member or write to [email protected] to throw your hat in the ring for a term on the board of directors. It's painless, often fun, and you'll feel a sense of accomplishment for everything you contribute to the effort. Come be a part of a 45 year institution in Tucson!! ELECTIONS WILL BE HELD AT THE APRIL MEMBERSHIP MEETING THE WINNERS OF OUR RAFFLE AT THE SPRING FAIR!! 1. EcoGro $25 Gift Certificate: Reggie Smith. 2. EcoGro $25 Gift Certificate: Vanessa Galloway. 3. EcoGro Pot: Sandra Gaskill. 4. Scottish Tray: T. Robison. 5. Thistle Towel: Flo Jasiak. 6. Tomato Planter: Janet Gillard. 7. Fig Tree: Nancy Day. 8. Rabbit Poop: Lexie Escalante. 9. Moringa Tree: Emily Rockey. 10. Tank's Green Stuff: Peter Dooley. 11. How to DVDS (Garden Goddess): Stephanie Keenan. 12. Joy Rock (Joanna Taylor): Nancy Day. 13. 2.5 gallons Worm Castings: Morgan Goldberg. 14. Maya Renewable Energies 55 gallon Drum: Kathy S. 15. Newspaper Pot Maker: Nancy S. 16. Scrambled V'eggs: Penelope. 17. Echeverria Plant: Don Breckenfeld. 18. Compost Crank (Lotech): John Newman. 19. Desert Wallflower (Dreamflower): Paul Finney. 20. Lavender Rose Perfume (PLART): Katherine Mullaugh. 21. Compost Tea (bag): Emily Rockey. 22. Prize (Intrinsic Alchemist): Efren Martinez. 23. Westwind Seeds (4 prizes): B Kuelbs, Meg, Brenda, Melinda Daniel. 24. ARBICO Worm Castings: Mohye Abdulaziz. MARCH MEETING REVIEW OLLA BALLS!! WHO KNEW? The idea that a buried clay pot (olla) filled with water could weep enough water into the soil to keep a plant alive was a wild concept to me 2 years ago. But now that I have been using a few 2-gallon sized ollas in my garden for 4 seasons, they have proven their viability as an alternative watering system. Some drawbacks that I encountered include having to manually fill the pots every few days in the summer (every 9 days in the winter), not wicking the wa ter very far to the side of the olla; dirt, mulch and bugs getting into the pots, and high expense for each olla. This was turning out to be one of those concepts that looked great on paper but wasn't panning out so well in real life. So at the March membership meeting I was more than a little skeptical of J.C. Mathews' claim that a 2-½" clay olla ball could sufficiently water a vegetable plant for an entire season. Making it all the more amazing was that his system was fully automated so that I wouldn't have to manually refill the ollas. Just plant the ball under the plant-start or seed, connect it to a small water reservoir set a few feet above ground, regulate the level in the tank with a float valve from a swamp cooler, connect to city water or a higher rain barrel and walk away. It just couldn't be that easy, could it? Now I know you're skeptical of a salesman's pitch for a new product, even one based on a simple technology that is thousands of years old. JC knows of your skepticism so he introduced Jim Peebles, a non-affiliated user of olla balls, to speak about his experience with olla balls at the Food Bank's urban farm called Las Milpitas in southwest Tucson. In an apples-to-apples comparison of growing 25 cherry tomato plants with olla balls vs. 25 of the same cherry tomato plants irrigated with drippers, the olla patch used 215 gallons of water throughout the March to October season while the drippers used 1300 gallons. That's an amazing 84% savings of water!! And as if that wasn't amazing enough, his patch produced 50% more tomatoes than the other patch. So how about them apples?!! In another patch with broccoli plants and olla balls, each broccoli plant did well with only ½ cup of water a day being distributed to the plant through the clay ball. OK, enough of the golly-gee-wow numbers. What makes this thing work? The trick is in the constant low pressure release of water into the soil directly below the plant. Keeping the pressure between ½ and 2 pounds per square inch (psi) is the sweet spot. At this pressure the ollas weep at a rate that keeps the ground from over saturating, the plant's roots find the water quickly, there are no wet and dry periods, the surface soil never gets wet so there is no evaporation at ground level, and the plant is thrilled to be getting the water it needs at a rate it needs it. It's incredibly simple. I'll fill in the rest of the details in a Q&A format, hopefully hitting all your burning questions. Q: How many ollas per plant? A: 1 Q: How deep do you put the ball? A: The bottom of the ball will be 5-8 inches below the surface and the top will be one inch below the new plant start's roots. Q: What about planting seeds? A: Put the olla at the 5" depth but plan to surface water for a short time till the roots get to the olla. Q: Do I need to surface water the new plant starts? A: Just a few times. Q: What about mulching? A: Mulching is a great idea even if the surface dirt doesn't get wet because mulch does so much more than reduce evaporation. Mulch reduces weeds, breaks down and fertilizes the soil, provides great habitat for good bugs, provides a wind break for smaller plants, and moderates the soil temperatures during our extreme weather. Q: How high should the reservoir be above the ground to deliver the right pressure? A: 4- 6 feet is best but slightly lower will work. Q: How big a reservoir do I need? A: 1 gallon is enough but a 5-gallon bucket is more common. Q: How many balls can I have on one system? A: There is almost no limit. For example, one system was done with 108 balls on 500' of 1/4" tubing. Q: Doesn't the length of the tubing effect the flow of water to the ollas? A: Not really. The flow is so slow that there is no pressure drop through the tubing. Q: Can I use my rain barrel to supply water to the ollas? A: Yes, that is a very good use of your rain water barrel. Just be careful that as the water level drops in the tank (assuming you don't have city water plumbed into the barrel also) you don't lose pressure which would happen if the barrel is sitting on the ground. Q: What happens if my reservoir is too high? A: The higher the tank, the more pressure is pushing out on the ollas so more water weeps through. This causes unnecessary water consumption. Q: What about plants in pots? A: You can run the tubing up and into a pot if the pot isn't too high above the ground. Remember, you need pressure to make the water flow and that means you need some elevation between your reservoir and the height of the olla.