Home Grown Fun

Interviews with Cindy Rajhel of Home Grown Fun

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Host Mike Podlesny of the Vegetable Gardening Podcast talks with Cindy about innovative school gardens and making your own fertilizers and soil amendments.

Transcript

Thank you for tuning in to this week’s vegetable gardening podcast. Today we are talking with Cindy Rajhel and she is the author of the book 50 HOMEMADE FERTILIZERS AND SOIL AMENDMENTS, Cindy welcome to the show!

Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your gardening background?

In my late 30’s I was knee deep in workflow diagrams, project management, software development and proposal writing. Pulling an all-nighter wasn’t the exception. It was a weekly thing. When kids came along I negotiated a telecommuting agreement and work became even busier. Up at all crazy hours on conference calls around the world, coordinating with clients from many well-known companies.

I got into gardening out of necessity – not to grow my own food but to slow things down a bit, stay sane, and interact with my kids without being distracted by the Blackberry. I could write multi-page documents on those things back then, in airports, way to dedicated to my job!

I live in Southern California with a cramped backyard, so I was desperate for nature out my back door. I grew up in Maine, ice skating to the store and cross country skiing to my grandmother’s house. I couldn’t believe the postage stamp backyards everyone had.

My backyard morphed into an entertainer’s nightmare, kids toys, bags of soil, composters, worm bins, and all kinds of things growing out of all kinds of containers from burlap sacks to old bureaus. That might sound familar to lots of people…

I saw in your bio that not only are you a veteran of our armed services but you were airborne and jumped out of planes… I have to ask, how did that all come about?

Before corporate consulting I was a poor college student in Brooklyn, NY at Pratt Institute. After graduation it didn’t feel cool anymore to be broke. My Dad struggled with Lymphoma and unfortunately lost that battle at age 50. I moved home to Maine to help my Mom with her business and then one day walked into a recruiting station.

Have you ever felt like taking yourself out of your comfort zone – sort of shock your system? That’s what I did. I needed a new beginning and going back to New York alone to start over would be tough so I did the most logical thing any art school graduate would do. Join the Army!

Because I already had a college degree I could go the officer route but this was not ROTC. I went to basic training when I was 26, then officer candidate school and then airborne school – to the surprise of all my peers.

My first duty station was Panama, Central America, post Noriega. I lived downtown in an apartment and drove my jeep on base every day. I just want to quickly say big thank you to old Army friends and all past and present veterans.

Once back in the US I FELL IN LOVE and decided to leave the service. That’s when I went back to school, got my masters and moved into the corporate consulting work I mentioned a few minutes ago.

My husband is an engineer and ironically, is on active duty NOW.

Where did you come up with the idea for your book and what was your motivation behind completing it?

Like going to college in the “projects” in Brooklyn, and joining the military out of the blue, I like to experiment with life and that includes gardening techniques. Over the years I learned what worked in my garden and also learned how to avoid synthetic products. I had all this information piling up in a binder and a friend encouraged me to write a book. I first wrote a blog post featuring 10 homemade fertilizers and realized the topic was fairly popular so I delved into it even deeper and distilled all my research and experience down to about 230 pages. Why not put together a nice collection of easy recipes that anyone, of any experience could use to recycle materials, fertilize plants and amend soil.

At my house, no egg shell or banana peel ever goes to waste. The only problem is the view when you open the refrigerator. Brown banana peelings, bags of food scraps, watermelon rinds for the worms…it’s cute, my kids ask me after dinner, do you want to keep this for the worms?

There are many materials in our house, out in the yard and nearby that we can use in the garden.

Take spent beer grains for example. A local brewery gives them to a farm for animal feed but if I catch them at the right time and they’ll give me a big bucket full. Spent Beer grains are the hulls, seed parts and plant tissue leftover from the beer-making process. They’ve got protein/nitrogen in them. But a word of caution. They stink, like a really dirty, wet dog and they wreak even worse if you don’t lay them out to dry or if you overuse them. I use spent grains as a compost accelerator and it gives the compost and soil a fluffy texture. Maybe your listeners brew their own beer or have a friend that does – free compost ingredients and mulch.

All the shells, crab claws and smelly shrapnel from the beach that my kids would bring home – drove me crazy- until I found I could turn them into plant food and soil amendment.

Neighbors have stale pet food, no problem, I’ll take it.

I would say fish, seaweed, alfalfa and worm castings are my favorite but there are many more materials that we can repurpose in the garden.

Why is it so important for gardeners to amend their soil?

Soil gets depleted. If there were a theme song for soil amendments it would be Stayin Alive by the bee gees. Garden soil must have organic matter in it to retain and move water, maintain structure and feed microorganisms, fungi and bacteria. Organic matter keeps the soil “alive”.

If your soil has ample amounts of organic matter in it, then it should have most of the macro and micronutrients it needs to support healthy growth – as long as moisture and environmental conditions are good.

What are some first steps they should take before they even consider making any amendments?

  1. Evaluate your soil, but this doesn’t necessarily mean a lab or strip test.

I use a simple 5-step process loosely based on concepts from both Cornell University and Washington State. I call it the 5 Its (yes, my term, not very pHdish. We practice the 5ITS at school. Too

  1. Scoop IT: 5” deep hand trowel
  2. Examine IT: Look for life: spiders, insects, worms? If you see at least 5 creatures then you probably also have beneficial bacteria and fungi. If you don’t see life, add organic matter .
  3. Smell IT: Take a good whiff of the soil. Does it smell funky or like the forest floor. Soil that smells spoiled needs carbon-rich materials such as dried leaves or straw. OR Compost that is fully decomposed.
  4. Squeeze IT: If you squeeze some soil into a ball and then poke it with a finger does it stay together or does Iit crumble? If it falls like sand, add – you got it, organic matter, if it won’t budge, organic matter will increase aeration and drainage.
  5. Wet IT: Put the soil in a cup that has a hole in the bottom and a coffee filter inside. Pour a glass of water over it. If the water sits on top or soaks in but doesn’t drain, your soil could be clay heavy. Does it flow out too quickly? Sandy.

I learned from reading and my own experience that soil pH can also be regulated with compost. Studies show that soil with adequate amounts of compost remain in a range that support smost plants. If you amend your soil with a well-balanced compost, (made from a variety of materials) your pH has a good chance of balancing out to the magic range of between 6.0 and 7.0.

pH is an indicator of not only how acidic or alkaline the soil is but more importantly it tells you how available certain nutrients are to your plants.

What is the best material to amend the soil

Compost or organic matter that fits your specific scenario: the plants your growing, climate, conditions, goals.

Natural and organic fertilizers and soil amendments encourage growth of beneficial fungi, bacteria and other organisms. Most contain multiple nutrients and trace minerals that benefit soil and plants. They feed soil organisms.

Natural nutrients are usually not a “quick fix”. They tend to release nutrients slower than the synthetic version.

Plants might not be able to tell the difference between synthetic and natural nutrients. But that doesn’t mean using a fertilizer made in the lab is just as good as one derived from nature.

Although synthetic fertilizers are not generally accepted in organic gardening, they are used by commercial farmers and home gardeners because they are convenient, reliable and produce fast

Synthetic chemical fertilizers usually do not increase microbial activity in the soil. They have one or just a few nutrients, act quickly and produce vigorous growth.

The down side is that they are potent and tend to be over-applied, increasing the chances of root shock, soil contamination and environmental pollution.

FIRST BREAK

I want to switch gears a bit in the second half and talk about your involvement in school gardening. How did you get started in school gardening and can you give our listeners a little background on that?

I had this crazy idea at one school to organize a composting fair! Yep, no carnival games or stuffed animals. Compost stuff. I wanted to show the kids how neat composting was and how important it is. So I built an interactive, outdoor composting carnival.

I had a giant landfill about 12 feet high, with a cartoon bulldozer pushing real garbage toward the group of students. They saw a tiny squirrel drinking water at the bottom of the pile and we talked about ground water contamination and all the things we could take from the landfill and recycle, so we did. They got to touch and see the different stages of compost and interact with different composting systems, a tumbler, pile and worms! Little did I know back then that worms would be the star of the show.

I made a display on the chain link fence of all the things we could compost, separated into brown and green and the DONTS like meat, cheese and dog poo.

I also invited the principal out for lunch and as I distracted him, I let the kids inspect what was on the table and snatch up his scraps for the compost.

I also now conduct a soil lab that includes a simulation of how humus is made in nature. We all stand in a circle and put organic items in the middle. Then time goes by, hundreds of years, lots of weather and I surprise the crowd by spraying water wildly on the pile and throw ice on top of everything. The kids are half thrilled and half wondering who is this weird woman doing this to us? Then I have them close their eyes and I tip toe in and steal the top layer exposing a humus like substance. …

What are some of the things that you chose to plant in the school garden and why were those items chosen?

We have just two raised beds and 500 students. But there are plenty of ways to get hundreds of kids involved in gardening even in a small space.

Over 75 students have planted potatoes above ground in burlap sacks or inexpensive polypropylene grow bags. We have milk jugs hanging from the fence with different varieties of lettuce. Kindergarteners plant Asian greens in smaller grow bags and love to pronounce the names: tatsoi, mibuna, mizuna. Really mustard greens…

I saw your video Mike about starting tomatoes with cuttings, we do that to at the school.

We expose all ages to new and exciting veggies and herbs such as amaranth, its history as a staple grain with the ancient aztecs and the weird-looking kohlrabi. They love it and we can’t grow enough but did you know the leaves make great chips, just like kale?

So we built a large solar oven to bake kale and kohlrabi chips. 30 minutes once preheated.

Were there any obstacles you faced in getting and maintaining the school garden and how did you overcome them?

Before we moved to the Camarillo area in Southern, CA, my kids were at a beautiful new school near San Diego. I wanted to help them get a garden started. It was really tough. We couldn’t get it off the ground because it was death by committee – lots of meetings which facilitated lots of red tape, which meant no acting on the ideas. I proposed burlap sacks and grow bags and that didn’t appeal to them.

Our school now, and we’ve been here for two years, has about 500 students, many children come from military and blue-collar, working class families. Class sizes are large 24-35 students.

Because lots of our parents are military, it’s sometimes hard to get the volunteers and the donations.

So the approach I took, because grant dates had for the most part passed, was to get creative and become a catalyst, inspiring others by doing.

We started on the hot tar, in Southern California. Our motto then was no raised beds, no problem. I recycled my jeans into pots, we planted lettuce stumps, avocado seeds, and obscure herbs such as borage. I made up games like tomato bingo.

A year later, all the amazing experiences inspired more support from the principal and teachers.

I finally lobbied to repurpose a dry area in the middle of campus about 30 feet square and drew up a plan. Yes, the space was small but I was going big. We would have a butterfly garden, 6 foot herb wheel, strawberry patch, two raised beds, extra long benches for lots of students, a succulent garden, huge planting table to accommodate an entire class and a zen garden where kids that are having a rough day can come and rake the sand. All on a shoestring budget, it would cost at least a few hundred dollars that I was prepared to scrounge up somehow.

Craigslist is a great place to snag free stuff. I have loaded up the truck with boulders, garden furniture and slide projectors. My youngest daughter hates Craiglist. I wish it was never invented! Slide projector carosels into fence garden art. I painted them different colors and added a CD in the middle to scare off birds. Braided rope for stems made them look like abstract flowers all along the fence. Talk about a morale booster. Lots of smiles.

In terms of community involvement and sponsorship, I was in Home Depot one morning estimating everything out and started talking with one of the employees. I told him what I had accomplished so far and they ended up supplying the manpower and materials to build the table, benches and two raised beds I designed. And then a local recycling company, Agromin, donated 7 cubic yards of their best organic soil. Yes, for sure soil is the biggest expense. If you can get quality soil for free, wonderful!

I had applied for grants but there’s a lot of competition and due dates for a lot of them had passed. Whatever money I earn (and it’s not very much) goes back into the garden and I’ve also received a few donations from website visitors and discounts from a local garden store, the DO-It Center.

Plant donations from the Univ of Ca Hansen Trust come in from time to time and we use whatever they can throw our way.

A beautiful stone birdbath was donated two weeks ago by the Conejo Valley Audobon Society.

So what can one person do? One person can forge the way for a team and community effort.

What is the ultimate goal of the school garden?

We’re not setting our sights on feeding the community or integrating with the lunch program. We have a mission to inspire young people to enjoy nature and experiencing new things. Remember, lots of kids don’t have their Dads or Moms around because they’re deployed or working weird hours.

The ability to relax, reduce stress and eat healthy foods is key.

Our mission also integrates in a way with a new program at the school called Communication Lab, where students learn how to better interact with eat other and deal with potentially stressful or confusing situations.

When a student comes to school and tells me they picked up some kohlrabi at the farm stand, it makes me smile and know that the 3 days a week I spend out there interacting with kids and teachers, will make a lasting impact.

From my own experience and from talking with others who work with school gardens, one thing they run into all the time are school staff members, teachers etc., that are a little hesitant to incorporate the school garden into their curriculum. Have you found that out as well and if so, what, if any, have you done to make it easier for them to see the vital role that a school garden can play?

Each school is different. The dynamics can really modify how and if things can get done. Our teachers are so busy I didn’t ask them to integrate anything into their curriculum. But as they walk by after recess with their class and mound up their potatoes with straw or see the kale chips roasting in the solar oven they start to come to me with ideas and I throw a few out of my own too in a more casual setting.

You know that saying, It’s easier to get a job when you already have one, well it’s easier to motivate people to get involved when you’ve already got stuff growing and ideas already in play. It only takes one class to visit and it then becomes the domino effect.

Even short bursts of garden time make an impact.

The support of the principal is everything.

Teachers here are so open to creativity and if I make their life easier or their students happier and better behaved or more productive because of it, then I’m doin ok.

If you had one wish for the school garden what would it be?

Since we’ll be moving to Texas in the summer to a new duty station, my hope for the garden would be that the teachers, principal, new volunteers, students and returning garden club members feel confident enough next year to keep the garden alive and create their own experiences that make school and even life at home just a little better.

That the school and parents that will still be here will not feel intimidated by the garden. They don’t have to repeat all of the activities to have a successful garden.

Customize the experience and the meld it even a little with the goals of the school at a high level first.

To keep it going and realize it doesn’t have to be perfect to make a lasting impression.

I hope teachers bring their classes outside to the garden for a lesson, that teachers get a few minutes to take a break by the bird bath.