Homesteading in the City

And not just any city: Las Vegas, Nevada. As both of you have already read, that is where I am struggling to transfer my operation to after years of life in the Eifel region of western Germany, and the difference could not be more stark. Now that I have been here several months, and am in a house, I have gained an acute awareness of the difficulties that lay between myself and my goals of self-sufficient vegetable-ism. Or at least producing enough of my own food that I don't feel like a schmuck the next time I am forced to used canned over fresh because the store didn't have any good looking whatevers.

The main challenge I face, as would any pioneering woman in the desert, is the unspeakable dryness. Though the yard my family is inheriting is far more lush than many in this city, the ground is still hard as a rock, and the earth is white and crumbly and completely void of any nutrient. So what is the solution to growing plants in a soil that will not support them? Enrich it with natural fertilizer, of course.

In addition to the dryness, there is a distinct lack of dirt-residing decomposers. In fact, during the initial dig-in of my yard, as I was cleaning out the flower beds and ripping down some intrusive ivy, I found only one single wormie. I lovingly scooped him up and removed him to a section of my yard where he could not be hurt. One precious worm.

And those two things together (along with a slew of common sense) led to the decision to make a compost pit.

The first step I took in making my pit was finding the perfect location. Because the ground is so dry, I wanted a place that would be shaded to help the material stay moist. I wanted to encourage the decomposers to live there, so I also made sure the chosen location was far away from the house doors or where my daughter might play, so as to not agitate her intense phobia of bugs. The place I ended up choosing met those requirements, and has the added bonus of being near enough to the pomegranate tree to receive a bit of a sprinkle each night when the automatic waterers come on. It is beside the shed, shaded by the tree, and out of the way. There is water, and thanks to the bed of fallen fruit from seasons past, there was already a network of roly-polies and other critters decomposing away in the vicinity.

The hardest part about making a compost is actually digging your hole. For this I have a husband, but if it weren't for the cement-like hardness of the earth here, I wouldn't have needed his help at all. He made for me a hole approximately two feet by three feet, and about eight to twelve inches deep. I added back most of the dirt from the hole and mixed in a small bag of pure horse manure from the garden store. Then I added all of the table scraps from the previous week or so which had I had been saving up in an old coffee can. I mixed everything around and made sure nothing raw or rotten looking was exposed, and left it. The first evening and most evenings since then, there has been water added from the sprinkler, but in most scenarios I can see that being completely unnecessary.

Since the first day the maintenance has been low - dig to the bottom and turn the entire thing over once or twice a week, and bury fresh bug food in there often. I have added much yard-rakings and even the natural pine litter from the kitty's box. I added my worm, the poor sickly thing, and at first I though I kept digging him back up, but now I see there is a worm party starting there - I will see one almost every time I dig. But for what the worms are missing there are plenty of roly-bugs and they seem to like decomposing just as much. It is remarkable how quickly the little buggers turn our waste into something so vital and useful. And here are a few glorious pictures:

Yes, this picture is terrible, but the sun was unstoppable. You can see the nice rich soil brimming with fresh yard-clippings, and the shadow of the shed keeping everything cool...
And here is another picture, in which you can see the difference between the hard and compacted sides side of the pit and the fluffy, loose soil inside. Yum, a shovelful of goodness.