Amendments! What is your personal favorite?

I hope your board member will keep an eye out and a finger on the 911 buttons if this happens again. If not, I suggest those dear squirters that spray water when they sense movement. At this time of year, a blast of water would be pretty uncomfortable and pretty detectable.
If you have suspects, I would contact the police ASAP. Rose gardens are property and teens are pretty easy to catch. Maybe you could offer to give them their Vodka back if they lay off the roses.

I have a question about compost. I plan to, if nothing else, just rake all of my leaves into a big pile and leave them to compost themselves. What would vegetable water do to the pile? That is, the water I boil my potatoes, broccoli, carrots, etc. in? I would think it would help, but I'm a newbie, what do I know?

Vegetable water would be great if it contained no salt or butter. Salt will kill bacteria and stop the rotting required for compost. But vegetable water is good to save to replace plain water in cooking rice, or making soups or any recipe that requires water or broth ( boiling potatoes?). It is full of nutrients that should not be wasted. Just don't put anything in your compost that contains animal fat or salt.

I actually don't put salt in my water when I boil vegetables.

I'm guessing that watering plants with vegetable water would be beneficial, too? And here I've been tossing it.

i would say it would be fine on any OUTDOOR plants. I would be concerned about odors on indoor plants. We eat lots of cruciferous vegetables.....LOL

If you don't put any salt or butter in the water, vegetable water would be very nutritious for the plants or you. Consider using it for both. When you cook veggies in water, many nutrients disolve in the water. Vegetable broth is the result. It is an item for sale in most grocery stores at 1 or 2 $ per can. I say, use it for your self, but any water will be great for your plants.
Here in New Mexico, we have another way of providing water to our plants. We put a bucket in the shower when we shower. Lots of water goes on us but plenty falls in the bucket as well. Collect that water and put it on your beloved plants outside. They will be grateful.
Betty

The compost piles love a bit of hot veg water. I started mine up last winter with it. I think the heat helped a bit as well...
Betty, a bucket for company in the shower is not as nice a plain ol' grey water plumbing, but I think only Steve has that luxury among us.

Re: the bucket in the shower bit. I've thought about that, but I don't use biodegradable or organic soap or shampoo. I'd be concerned about what regular shampoo and soap would do to my soil and plants.

I've tried to collect drips from my faucets, but inevitably Cocoa gets into the sink and knocks the glass over.

Don't worry too much about what gets into the shower bucket. The substance which flows into our waterways from non-biodegradable soaps etc is phosphorus which is a needed nutrient in the Rockies. I once had a washing machine with an output hose which could be put out the window. I did so and the grass around the output of that washer was the best in the yard. Besides, the shower water that you collect mostly doesn't have soap in it. It is mostly what doesn't fall on you. Or I suppose you could use biodegradable soap and shampoo, but I don't thing there is much that is harmful in soap and shampoo in the quantities of one household. It is more like, what if it all goes into the Platte River. By the time water reaches the water table from Aurora, Colorado, all that stuff is filtered out, especially by the roots of plants that crave it.

And I used Wisk, not anything biodegradable. For collecting drips, use something with a wider base that Cocoa can't knock over, such as a wide bottomed plastic container.

Or just a cat water-dish...

Good idea, Kenton. Let the cat drink then throw the rest on the neediest plant.

I've a number of pictures of Cocoa in sinks. I can see where in summer the cool porcelain would be welcome in the heat, but now?

There's actually a website dedicated to cats in sinks. http://www.catsinsinks.com

What a wild website. I didn't know cats liked sinks. In fact, I would have expected them to hate them. I guess they see them as perfect cat-sized beds. What would Cocoa do if you put a wide dish in your sink.

I've seen everything.

http://kittenwar.com/kittens/losers/

Kittenwar is addictive! I can't believe how cute those cats are.

I can't believe how bleeding ugly the "loosers" are.

(Edited to add:)
If I owned one of those ugly beasts, I'd startle myself every time I turned a corner or looked over my shoulder and saw it. One dozy night, I'd probably make a mistake and shoot it, thinking it was an intruder...

This message was edited Oct 22, 2006 10:44 PM

But that's the fashionable thing -- being so skinny you're bony.

I still don't get the "famine victim is beautiful" mindset. I want to grab those girls and yell, "eat something!"

I guess that makes me "fashionable."
Neato! That doesn't often happen.

Ever since I hit middle-age, I'm more Kathy Bates than Keira Knightley. Haven't been that fashionable in a long time.

Hey- If I were stuck on a boat with either one of them, I'd rather it was Molly Brown (Kathy Bates in Titanic) than a pirate accomplice (Keira Knoghtly in 'Pirates of the Carribean.')

Just a comment on grey water on the flower beds. Wow have I gotten more bloom and I think brighter colors. That phosphorous in the soap and shampoo has been wonderful. Though I only sprayed each bed a couple of times cause the grey water deposits on the leaves and tends to stop transpiration. Maybe I'm just too worried cause I did not see anything but spectacular output. Right now we have had a dozen freezes and the flowers are still blooming. I just had a new bloom open on my hollyhocks. All that compost keeps the soil warm and going.
I don't get kitten wars. Is my computer not doing the whole thing. I only see pictures of Rex Cats.

Hey kids, I left a quarter under my pillow and what do you know the Compost Fairy brought me another pile of horse stuff.

No joke. When I got home from work there was another pile 2x as big!

Greenjay,
You must have been leading a good life to receive such a blessing. Of course, I remember when a similar gift was placed in front of the WTO in DC and the officials thereof didn't receive it as a blessing. Nevertheless, if they wanted to help poor and underdeveloped countries they would have had a better attitude toward this gift from heaven or the tooth fairy.
Betty

The Compost Fairy only shows up for goody twoshoes types like myself. WTO doesn't qualify. heh.

You have all the luck! More than the WTO!

Kenton, you take whichever one you want, or both. I'll keep Orlando Bloom from getting lonely. ;-)

Maybe I should take the potato water I just got from boiling the potatoes and pour it in my vegetable beds?

OK I want to know does the compost fairy fly with wings or just have fast feet with boots? I am picking up my compost dude trailor and I have to fill it myself but who cares. Not too many fairies flying around Montana. Well done Greenjay! God rewards those who are kind. Steve

Compost Fairy works days too -- when I got home there was ANOTHER trailer load, right beside the last one. This is going to be one long weekend....LOL

Wow! You must be a true saint to deserve this deluge of wealth. Congratulations! I am glad to know you. I spent the day, spreading leaves I got from friends last year on my compost and then topping it with freshly grown grass clippings, the watering both. This is what one does if one is not on the delivery list of the Compost Fairy.

My neighbor also has some land down in NM. I will try to discreetly find out if they have any Fairy Dirt to spare, next time they go down there....

Nothing would make me happier, well, almost nothing. I will assist in anyway possible. B.

Mmm. I can almost smell it.
Stop it, you two! You're making me all sentimental... Plus, I can't rationalize a nice weekend out at the stables having a good scoop.

I started a new compost pile yesterday -- sorry Kenton -- but it was all hand work for me -- watering what is already there. Adding sacks of leaves, mowing the lawnlet to pick up grass and pine needles, making another layer then watering again. I am also hurrying to finish planting, vote and deal with FEMA over farm before departing for Mexico this weekend. Yippee!

You're so mean.

No, mean is having 2 (!) piles of stable compost, each 5' high and 10' long, sitting under 15" of snow, that I can't do a thing with until Friday evening.

Did you have 15 inches of snow in Centennial? Wow. We had just a few flakes. Not enough to help our plants -- or our compost.

We are situated right on the ridge between balmy Aurora and frightful Douglas County. Whenever they mention "foothills" in the forecast, I know it will happene here, even though we are a good ways E. of the actual "foothills"

Mix the snow in, eh?

The snow is so wonderfully heavy and wet that it is mooshing down the beds that we have already formed with layers of leaves | compost | leaves. Now I can pile more on and have a more realistic idea of the height of the beds after compaction before I put in the rock edging.