Sunday, September 16, 2007

Composting and growing bamboo indoors

Composting renewed, at least at our household. We have had a compost bin that we purchased some time ago. We originally used it for grass clippings leaves, etc. We largely let it sit unturned and ignored and got mixed results. As of late we have really began to try to incorporate sustainable practices in our household. Pretty consistent and diligent recycling practices, have led us to really look at composting as a way to reduce waste. The results are quite amazing.

With doing the obvious, like recycling newspaper, glass, aluminum, plastic; along with things like cardboard from food boxes (like cereal boxes, etc.) we have reduced our can load from full every week to now 3/4 to 1/2 full every week. For us, our efforts have paid off, at least as far as our conscience.

The other to seriously reduce waste is composing vegetable and fruit food scraps which has really made our compost bin quite productive. Rich and black compost like I've never seen it. Plan on using it to top dress my bamboo plants over the winter (to feed naturally and protect against frost).

Curious... any advice on composting from readers of this blog... please do share.

I recently was posed the question, is there a bamboo that you can grow indoors. The books I have read have all reported sparse success. In Paul Whitaker's Hardy Bamboos, he cautions against it, but if you insists he offers the following suggestions:


b. mulitplex (all species)

bambusa ventrosica (pictured to the left)

chusquea (all species)

drepanostachym falcatum

himalayacalamus falconeri

pleioblastus forunei (dwarf)

pleioblastus pygmaeus (dwarf)

pleioblastus shibuyanus "Tsuboi"

pseudosasa japonica

shibataea kumasasa

All experts I have read, suggest direct light and you may have to place it outdoors from time to time. From my readings, most bamboos react to low light conditions by dropping leaves after several months and weakening. Any stories from readers on experimenting with growing bamboo indoors?

Till next post!

Cheers!

Sean