humanure, lists and sprouts

Man-soil update/specs

Here's the information paper that the Sewer district provided for us. I think it's very cool that they voluntarily provide such good information to the community. Particularly since people are using this in their gardens. I won't personally, This all went on our back yard lawn,but as you can see from the breakdown there's nothing really to worry about. For me it's a mental block, just being honest. When we picked the soil up and spread it on Friday, it was a kind of spur of the moment thing. It worked out to our advantage though on Saturday when our lawn aeration guy showed up and did our yard. I had him go over the backyard twice to really open it up, and the compost and "humanure" was quickly filling in the holes just like planned! Today it snowed a good 3-4 inches so hopefully it will really work the soil down into the ground where it needs to be. Good timing huh?

One of the reasons that I wanted to at least take advantage of this free resource was due to the interest in it while I was teaching the Gardening class last weekend. So many people were interested in how they could build their soil, and a lot of them needed to do it "on the cheap". There were a lot of people curious about this product and I have little to no experience with it. This is a chance to get familiar and at the same time green up the back yard. The information pamphlet will go into my Master Gardener folder and will be used to answer questions in the future.

To-Do List
Renee from The Garden Desk mentioned that she was interested in seeing my task list that I had talked about last week, so I dug into my far too full desk drawer to pull it out for her. I mean, I wouldn't want anyone doubting my sincerity after all.This unkempt low-tech scribble is the actual master list, if you will, that A~ and I are whittling away at as the year goes on. It's really nothing much to look at, but is the result of some serious thinking and discussing.

We made a list of everything that we really wanted to get done throughout the year, big (like building a greenhouse) and small (like hanging some bookcase lights), and then we sat down and went through it to decide what order of importance we thought they should have. This process was a combination of trying to work out if maybe we had to have one thing done before another for any particular reason and haggling for our own personal preferences to get started first. I had to dig the list up because, while we still reference it to check things off and to see what else we had planned, we generally make up week specific plans on the fly throughout the year. If we have plans for the weekend we work around those, If some opportunity comes up that is time sensitive, things get jockied around. The biggest part of making the lists is so that you've identified what needs to get done at some point. You've put it on the radar. From there it's just a matter of working it in to the week to week routine. Hope this helps/clarifies. Good luck!

Sprouts
I thought I'd leave you with a quick update on my sprouts downstairs. These are the cold season sprouts. Kohlrabi, cabbage, kale, broccoli, lettuce and chard.They're generally coming along good, but the kale, chard and kohlrabi are doing great. My broccoli and lettuce were older seed and are not germinating like I would have liked. I planted a lot of them though so I'll be fine!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Catch you tomorrow. Oh yeah, any questions or suggestions. Anything your wondering about maybe. I just thought I'd ask in case one of the lurkers out there wanted to chime in.
Yes, I can see you out there...it's OK, you can comment ;-)
P~

Weekend update

Alrighty then...could I have really gotten that much done this weekend? In a word, yes.

I didn't have the Master Gardener class this week (Furlough...damn economy!), so I was able to get my hours in early and get out of the office on Friday around noon. We used that afternoon to get organized for the weekend. That meant cleaning out all the crap that was located on my front side yard like the kids old 1/4 pipe skateboard ramp, some old wooden boxes and a few planters that I was given last year. It also meant moving the old boat that was parked in out drive way right next to the side yard so that I could get in there the next day. Then I dug into the back edge of the side yard and connected into my main irrigation pipe to add a spigot to it. After all this, A~ and I ran over to our local nursery to pick up some seed potatoes, since after all, that was the point of this whole exercise. Our newest addition....The potato garden!

I mentioned last fall that we had plans to expand the garden further this year, and so we have! This newest garden will not only give us an additional 200 sq feet of garden area, but it will officially move us "out of the closet", err..."out of the backyard" that is. It's in the front of our house, albeit on the side front, but the front nonetheless. Besides the obvious goal of producing more of our own food, I hope to keep this garden looking interesting and nice enough to maybe let my neighborhood see that growing food isn't just a backyard sport.

So then, Saturday we were off to the green waste recycling center (located at our landfill) to pick up a truck load of their overwintered compost. The stuff was still steaming when I got it!! All told it was just shy of 4 cubic yds of compost and A~ unloaded most of it herself. What a woman!! No I wasn't just sitting there drinking beer and watching, I was tilling. We were able to borrow a very nice tiller from a neighbor who is adding a garden this year and had gotten it from a friend.It worked great! Whatya think? It seemed like it'd be a perfect place for an additional garden so why not. Just to the left of the picture, we have a couple of large rocks, a small aspen tree and some flowers just along the sidewalk, and with the half fence to the back it's a natural little nook right there. But wait...there's more! (I always wanted to say it like that...sounds so carny doesn't it?)

While we were on the way home from getting the compost, we spied some sweet salvageables at one of the homes I was telling you all about before. The ones being torn down for construction reasons. We were able to get a bunch of nice red brick pavers that were part of an old patio. I ran into the guy in charge of the salvage operation and asked him about them and he said I could have them. I cannot overstate the importance of asking before salvaging. You can see them along the top edge of the tilled garden area on the picture above, but here's a better picture.They aren't lain permanently yet, so don't leave me comments on how bad my paver laying is OK? We just wanted to make sure we had enough.

We also picked this baby up on the way home from getting compost. It's been a long time coming too let me tell ya. I don't think I've ever shared my current 'barrow with you, but suffice it to say that it was a found, salvaged, last leg one ten years ago when we got it. This was a well earned investment! And oh can it cart some compost!

There's one last thing. We also were able to get a hold of another bit of very good salvage material that will really finish this area off perfectly. Any guesses? I'm gonna make you wait until tomorrow to see it. So make sure you come back by. I still haven't made it through Saturday yet, I'm telling you, it was a BUSY weekend!

All the best to you.
P~

Garden layout, coop location and such.

I've gotten a lot of interest lately in my chicken coop and more precisely about the location of it and what I do with the manure. Being the visual sort that I am, I've been trying to take advantage of Bloggers video feature more lately. I was pretty happy with the way that the chicken coop design video came out, so I thought I'd expound on that and just give ya'll a personal tour of the back yard gardens. (edit: Blogger video feature was not working tonight so the video I planned on posting will have to be posted at a later date. Sorry for confusion.) I do need to preface this, however, with an apology for the mess that is our back yard. Spring and Fall are our busy seasons for yard projects. Expanding beds, building new structures, moving things around to get ready for next year. The garden may be sleeping in, but I haven't been. Most stuff has been sorted out, but it's still kind of a mess. Oh well, it's my mess!

(Pictures substituted for blogger video. I'll repost when I can get the darn thing to work)

So, Whatcha think? It's nothing grand, but we've tried to find a balance between maximizing space for the gardens, with still being able to give my kids a safe place to play. As they play less and less in the yard, we'll no doubt expand more and more into the yard. For now, it's all about maximizing the growth potential per square inch.

To answer the questions directly about the chicken manure. Yes, Renee, I do put the chicken poo in the compost bins. I also have put in the garden directly, but don't recommend it unless it is in the fall, or in the early spring for a summer garden bed. Chicken manure is a very "hot" manure when it's fresh and can easily burn your plants, particularly young ones. I did add a large amount of the chicken manure to the compost bins though when I first set them up. I do sometimes add it directly to the garden beds, but I sprinkle a little agricultural lime in with it. This neutralizes the PH of the manure, and "sweetens" the soil. My basic philosophy with the manure is this; All kitchen scraps go to the birds, (moderate strong veggies like onions, garlic and peppers.) all bird droppings are composted, all compost goes to the gardens, garden waste go to birds...etc, etc. I have also used the "aged, and not actually composted manure directly on some of my lawn areas that were having a hard time. It worked very well!

To answer another question, left by Amber, regarding the use of old newsprint in lasagna beds. It is the rare exception that does not use a soy based ink in the newspaper industry anymore. Nearly all newsprint can be successfully composted or used to smother. I personally had access to a lot of heavy cardboard so I used that instead. You'll have to check in next spring to find out how the lasagna beds develop over the winter.

That's all for now folks. Sorry for the video not working. I'll try tomorrow.
Till then...
P~

Yeah I'm a scrounge...So what?!

Alright, it's out there. I'm a scrounge. I am, I admit it. Well, I guess in all honesty anyone who's ever read this blog for very long already knew that. There were the window frames I picked up a last year, the concrete urbanite that graces so much of our yard, and most recently all of the grass clippings other organic materials that I added to my lasagna beds. So I guess it won't strike anyone as a shock that the weekend before last, while driving through Salt Lake Cities older east side and seeing all the bags of leaves left out for the city to collect for people, that I threw a bunch in the back of the truck!
I Love freebies! Especially freebies that reduce landfill waste, give me lots of ammo for the compost pile and some really good mulch for next year! I'm hoping to stock up on a bunch more leaves this fall to add to this. They're really one of the best kind of "browns" to have available . I really liked these particular ones because of their size. You can see here that they're a good medium-small sized leaf, not like Maple or Sycamore, and will break down into the beds very well. I'll be turning these into the raised beds this fall and then topping them with more for the winter. I'll be adding them to the compost pile when I rotate it for the last time in the next couple of weeks (I need to relocate it first, but that's a future blog.) and will top off my lasagna beds with some for the winter too.

So, where else could I get leaves if I can't get more from people putting them the curb? City parks, think about it, they have to pay someone to deal with them and then just toss them in the trash anyway. I will be loaning my blower/vac to a friend to help him make it easier to clean up his leaves in return for the bags of leaves when he's done. Or maybe I'll offer to help an elderly couple clean their leaves up and just "take care of the leaves" for them. The point is, even if your house is like mine with no real trees to speak of, you can still have plenty of leaves to use in the yard.

Think outside the box, and keep an eye open to the world around you. There's so many opportunities if we'll just be open to them, and maybe put a little ego on the back burner.
Good luck
P~

Cooking in the yard

Well, it was not one of my shining moments, but in the interest of full disclosure, I aired my dirty side yard. It's one of those catch all places that I just kept "dumping" everything in during projects. I'm proud to be able to say that I think I may have beaten the beast! Trash: removed, pallets and lumber: re-purposed into a two bin compost pile and scrap cut and placed into wood hutch, compost tumbler: relocated, watered and close to being ready. Big sigh......Ahhhhh!
And here's the bin all stocked and loaded up. What's in it? Oh, just about everything. It's got kitchen scraps of course, but also copious amounts of chicken manure/sawdust mix, probably 20 lbs of coffee grounds (courtesy of Starbucks "grounds for your garden" program.), leaves, garden cuttings, lawn clippings, straw, basically all the good stuff watered down well and cooking nicely. Wondering what you ought to see if you want to know that you're compost pile is cooking well. Here you go. (down below) Yeah, that's steam coming out the top. I can place my hand on top and even through the damp leaves I can feel the heat coming off it. It's probably the hottest pile I've had. That's the thing that sterilizes the pile, kills off disease and weed seed and makes it break down quick.
And honestly, I'm just garden geek enough to just love seeing it! It's like a bit of Mr wizard right in my own backyard.
And finally, the good ole compost tumbler from last year. I neglected it quite a bit this year, but the stuff inside it is almost done.
So there you go, "Compost central" is all caught up! Oooooo, next years garden is gonna ROCK with all this good stuff! It's not too late to get yours started too if you haven't already. All the garden waste from Autumn can go right back into the ground next spring!
P~

A little progress, and a failure.

Here's what I started with. Yeah, it was that bad. Even worse actually, I had already started to clean up a little before I took this picture. Those old chicken feed bags are actually full of sawdust and chicken poo that needs to be composted. The old pallets, well, their gonna be the compost pile. At least I was able to work in the shade for a while. I couldn't breathe worth a damn, at least I didn't have to cook in the sun too!

And here, is the end of this afternoon. It shouldn't have taken so long mind you, but it did. I had to take some breaks and catch my breath, and kept getting side tracked. But I think it came out pretty good all in all. Should have good air-flow, and is made out of all recycled materials so it only cost about $1.50 in nails. It started raining pretty hard this afternoon so I got pushed inside, but hopefully I can get the compost piled in there tomorrow and get it "cooking" so it can get mostly done before winter.

The other thing that I did get done was my first attempt at homemade sauerkraut. A~ swears I tried it once before at our last house, but I don't recall it. Who knows? (honestly she's probably right!)
I sliced the cabbage and salted it with some of the homemade Salt Lake Local-Salt that I made not long ago and then packed it into a couple of containers. In total, I used 5 lbs of cabbage and followed a recipe that I found in "The Joy of Pickling". We'll see how it works.
So, two things I wanted to do got done, at least mostly. One however, was a failure. The sourdough no knead bread. I don't think it's the starter, I have great confidence in it. It's just hitting a year old this week as a matter of fact. Having been "born" to our family last September.
I mean take a look at that. Those bubbles are from yeast. Not wild, we tried that and weren't happy with the quality of it, but no doubt influenced by it through it's time exposed to the air during "feedings" such as this one. We generally have sourdough pancakes on Saturdays, and this one, I took an extra cup of starter out to use for the dough.
A close-up of the bubbly goodness that is our "pet", the sourdough start.

At any rate, the dough did leaven to a degree, but I think either I didn't use enough start, or the weather was a little to unsettled and the temperatures too low to really get it to mature as a dough. I didn't waste time with baking it, it would have been a brick, but I'll try again. That's just how it goes doesn't it. We try things, tweak them, learn from our failures and progress. What more could I ask for.
Till next time.
P~

New Additions

I got a package about a week and a half ago. When I opened it, this is what I saw.

Inside was a thin muslin bag...Interesting. What could it be?

WORMS!! About 1000 of them (give or take); I bought them from Uncle Jim's worm farm the week before and had just received them. I had been wondering why they waited nearly a week before mailing them, I ordered them on the Wednesday before, and they still weren't showing as sent on the web site so I called. Well I jumped the gun, they just hadn't updated the status' yet but the wigglers had been mailed on Monday. It seems this is the standard practice, mailing on Monday that is, so that the worms don't get held up over the weekend and dry out and die. Very considerate worm farming isn't that?

So anyway, I got out the compost crock from under the sink which had a bunch of "goodies" in it and got ready for a feeding. I've been using this crock for almost a year now. It's lid broke toward the end of summer last year, so I've been just placing a small tea plate over it. If you empty it regularly, it doesn't really even stink (too badly). I need to find a new one. It was just an old second hand cookie jar that I found at the thrift store.

Before I got the worms out of the bag I had put together a new home for them. I shredded some old cardboard that I had available, and added some peat moss that was also lying around to act as bedding. I wet the whole thing, and then squeezed it out till it was about like a damp sponge. I added this bedding material to a 15 gal. Rubbermaid tote that was one of our old book boxes before the library was finished and that I had drilled holes around the bottom and lower sides of for air flow.

So far so good. I received them not last Wednesday but the one before that and they seem to be adapting very well. Just tonight I went out to feed them and they are all densely packed around the scraps from the other night. The main reason I got them, apart from the tales of amazing nutritive properties of worm castings, was that I had a very tough time last winter with composting through the cold. This way I hope to have built a large enough colony of worms to accomplish our composting needs throughout the winter, and provide an occasional treat for the chickens.

Anyone else out there, worm farming? How's it working out for you?

P~

Why we don't "wait till later"

As I stated on a previous post, my wife plays a huge part in our gardening process just by way of her ability to get me moving when I am lacking motivation. More that once, it has proven to be to our benefit. This weekend proved the point again. I get home early on Fridays most of the time, and this Friday was no different. We planned for me to run to the landfill to pick up another load of compost. I got that done with no problem, but when I got home, I was a little...well...lacking in direction. In other words I was kind of thinking three things and acting on none of them. (A common state of affairs I assure you.) Here's where A~ stepped in and we both got on task.

Above are a couple of pictures of our work at the end of the day on Friday. We were able to dig in and turn over the recycled concrete planter beds around the front of the house, add multiple wheelbarrows full of compost, and pull the weeds that germinated early in the spring. We aren't finished yet, there's still some planting to go in, we're planting edible herbs and some other edibles throughout these beds, and mulch to put down, but that will come a little later. So, why don't we "wait till later"?

Well take a look at these pictures. This is what the yard looked like this morning and for most of the weekend. In other words, the weekend would have been a total loss had we not buckled down and got on task on Friday.
This is what Spring time is like in Northern Utah and in many places in the U.S., and with climate change happening, who knows what the weather will do. The lesson is, when you have lemons, make lemonade. And by gosh when you have sunny spring days, get work done.

I learn so much from the garden. It is forgiving, yet so demanding. It rewards us for our effort and our forethought, and punishes us for our procrastination or our sloth. Is it any wonder that the Bible uses the garden and plants in so many of the parables we learn from.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Matthew 7 : 15-16

Maybe some time in the future I'll learn my lessons well and finally be able to get motivated myself. Until then, I have the garden to guide me and A~ to poke me in the butt when I need it.

P~

Tomorrow... sprouts are popping up.

2008 Garden update

After church this afternoon, we came home and spent a pretty relaxing most of the afternoon around the house. The kids of course ran right outside to skateboard and I, of course, off to deal with some gardening. I planted a bunch of seed that had germinated into some re-used 6 pack planters that I held over from last year. If you buy perennials, don't just rip the containers apart, you can keep them for the next years plantings. They nest inside each other too so they take up very little space.

The existing garden that is being held over from last year consists of 6 raised beds and part of the back property line planter bed. Together this all totalled 282 sqFt. This year we are increasing this by prepping and using a formerly unused area next to back of the house, as well as by using the remaining piece of the back property line planter bed. The total sqFt being added is 112, bringing the total of dedicated planting beds to 394 sqFt (78.8 sqFt per person.) This is for the dedicated planting beds. In addition to these, we will be planting other edibles around the decorative beds in the front yard as well. This is a pretty big deal here in suburbia, but I think our neighbors have gotten in the habit of stopping by when they see us in the yard to see what new stuff we have going on around the house, so I hate to disappoint.(we do not have a fenced yard and we are on a corner lot so it's pretty regular to see us in the yard.) To the front yard beds we plan to add all of our edible/aromatic herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, lavender etc. as well as some new garden items that should work well in the front such as tall flowering okra, edible flowers such as Johnny jump-ups, pansies and nasturtiums and we plan to add some "tufts" of carrots here and there to fill in the gaps with their greenery and who knows, maybe surprise a neighbor kid with a summer carrot from the front yard. (By the way, neighbor kids are a great way to break the ice about talking gardening and home food production. You'd be surprised at how excited moms get seeing their kids excited about eating veggies.)

Tonight I got a few cool season plants into the ground. I planted a 4-pack of cabbage that I picked up at the nursery late last week on a whim, I don't know if they'll make it or not based on the weather swings, but I have some seeds sprouting indoors that certainly will. I also planted a few rows of beets, some head and romaine lettuce, a single row of arugula (rocket) and sowed some mesclun under the A-framed pea trellises I talked about a couple of days ago. The idea with that is that right now while the peas are just sprouting, the weather is cool enough to let the mesclun get full sun. Later when the peas have grown up the trellising, they will leave just enough shaded area under them to keep the tender greens shaded and cool. It's another hunch, I'll keep you posted.

Finally I wanted to state something just for the record. My wife, although a excellent homemaker, chef, baker, etc, etc, is not particularly big on the outside. More particularly she just doesn't like dirt. This is of course the polar opposite to me who on any given day has some form of dirt wedged under my nails or in my shoes, or in my hair (what hair I have that is.) by the end of the day. She does her best and to her credit is always right there with me working her butt off, wearing elbow length gloves, to make our goals a reality outside. She just doesn't love it like I do. Anyway, that said, I have to say that she is one of the main reasons for us having a successful garden at all. I am a dreamer, a planner, an envisioner extraordinaire; but a "get on with it and get it done" type... not so much. This is where we compliment each other. She'll drive me nuts with her lists, and schedules and her "HONEY, you have to get this done if we're going to ____." but you know what? That's what gets the job done. If it wasn't for her ability to see the big picture, I'd never get things planted in time, I'd forget to water for a couple of days or who knows what else. I wanted to get that out there for the record. This year looks to be shaping up to be a great summer, and likely it'll be because she got me moving when I was slacking about.

(Oh man, I'm gonna hear about that admission forever.)

P~

outsourced compost

Although I do actively produce compost at home, and it is of very good quality, I simply can't make enough of it to bring my very clay rich, soil to the level and quality that I want it to be at. Because of this I have, over the last couple of years, taken to buying compost from our local waste management facility. i.e. "The Dump". I did this last weekend, and wanted to share it with

you sooner but with being sick most of the week, I just hadn't gotten around to it. You can see I was kinda running against the weather clock here. Luckily I got up at a decent hour and got an early start, but even at that, the weather was coming down the mountains so I had to get going.
Now when I said I got the compost from the dump, some of you probably cringed, however, the facility and the quality of the compost that I've received from here is, I have to say, very high. Above you can see the pile of the sort of green waste that is collected. Gardeners, lawn care, tree trimmers and such dump their "waste" here under constant supervision. Anything inappropriate is removed and only compostables are allowed to be processed.
Throughout the summer and winter, long (100+ yard) piles of compost 5 feet high are lain out and mechanically turned and watered with agricultural sprinklers to maintain optimum moisture and temperature conditions. This facility also produces three different grades of mulch, from essentially chipped and shredded wood. I've used this before, also with good results. But today, compost was the order of the day. If you click on the picture for a larger image of it, you'll see that I am only paying $20.00 per yard, a VERY good price, (The mulch is only $5.00 per yard.) and a yard is a healthy amount of compost. They are figuring about 1600lbs with it as wet as it is right now. You can see the dump bucket below, it basically fills the bed of my truck.
After getting it home and waiting till the next morning, (That's weather in Utah, snowing one day, and blue skies and clear the next) my backyard neighbor let me back up into his yard to dump the compost straight out of the back and into my back garden bed (Below). I was pulling some weeds at the time, but with the help of my strapping young boys and the lure of a couple of dollars, I got the compost unloaded and the garden prepped. At least part of it.
Below is the area I've chosen to plant my peas in this year. I'm trying a new technique this year; it's trellising, but with a twist. Rather than just go straight up and have my peas in a row, I decided to try something new to optimize the planting area. You may be able to see that the steel trellising is not vertical, but A-framed.
The theory is that when the peas get to a point where they are reaching the top of an A-frame, I can either add another A-frame on top between two frames (Like a pyramid), or simply run some twine between the frames and let the peas run on them. It's a new theory, so we'll see how it works. I'll detail my thoughts on this more in a later post.

Well, that's how I outsource my compost. Do any of you have similar things available to you?

potting prep

Well folks, If I'm going to get anything from the backyard for my 100 ft diet this year I need to get my sprouts going, and first things first, it's time to get the potting soil ready. I build a pretty basic potting soil, nothing fancy or gimmicky, just good water holding materials like peat and vermiculite, and some dark rich homemade compost. This is the compost that I finished in September last year, I placed it in a 30 gallon tote with holes on the sides for air and drainage, and covered it with a wide piece of plywood to protect it from getting snowed on over the winter. It over-wintered well, and now is dark and rich and truly lives up to the moniker "Black Gold." I want to try to slowly move away from peat whenever possible since learning more about it and how unsustainable it is. For now, however, the peat that I am using this spring is what was leftover from last year, as is the vermiculite. I hope to be able to eventually find a good source for coir fibre to use in it's place, but thus far have only managed to find it in small quantities.
I mix all three parts together, using equal parts of peat and compost. For the vermiculite, I am adding slightly more that an equal third. This is because I will be primarily using this mix for starting seeds and as such want to encourage moisture retention in the short term. Our seedlings have a tendency to dry out when they start to fill in a bit, both because of the small amount of grow medium they are in, as well as because of Utah's naturally dry weather.

Whatever mix is left after I start all my plants, will get added components to bring the mix to an equal 3rd's proportion and will be used for some of our potted plants. Last year our petunias did much much better in this mix than they did the previous two years in miracle grow potting soil. And it was much cheaper!Try making your own, your plants will love it, you'll save some $$, and learn a solid gardening skill. Good luck will everyones sprouting.

P~

Hands in the dirt / Utah Weather

I was finally able to get my hands in the ground today as it turned out to be nearly the warmest day of the year. I "stoked" the compost pile with some grass clippings that I saved from the last mowing of last year, some coffee grounds from Starbucks and some chipped up straw. I want to get it cooking again so I can have it finished by May and add it to the beds for the main planting that goes on around Mothers day. Also, I had gotten most of the plants out of the ground at the end of the growing season last year, but there were a few leftovers that were still in the ground around the beginning of December last year when everything got covered with snow and I never had a chance to get them out.

I was able to get into all 6 raised beds. I pulled the greens that were left in them and turned all of the soil over to allow it to get deep hydration and some air in there before I plant the early season stuff in them. I pulled some other stuff out too, but I'll post on that tomorrow.

I also was able to get my four dwarf and semi dwarf fruit trees (apple, pear and two cherry trees.) pruned. I usually get out to prune the trees a little earlier in the season, but this is the first chance that I've had. I didn't cut too much on the trees this year, just the basics of thinning and selecting branches. I hope to transplant the trees next year to a better location. Currently they're at the south end of our yard and regularly get in the way of the boys playing in the yard, or get messed with by the neighborhood kids since they sit right along the unfenced end of the yard near the sidewalk. I want to move them to our other unfenced area of the yard that is between ours and our neighbors yard and begin training them in the espalier method. I think it'd look nice, conserve space, and make a nice natural break between out yards; this would also reduce the ugliness of the vinyl fence that will no doubt be put up between us eventually. (Don't get me started on those.)

Last but not least. Right after I had finished in the yard, the wind began to kick up. I finished cleaning up and went in side and took the picture on the left. Not fifteen minutes later and the rain started. Here's what it looked like a half hour after that. Utah weather... Don't like it, wait a minute.

Compost Day

Thought I'd spend a little time on compost today, there were a couple of things that I'd cover. For one, I learned recently of a program that Starbucks Coffee has in place. It's called Grounds for your Garden and it's something they put in place to help take care of the some of there coffee grounds waste. All you need to do is go into you're local Starbucks store and ask for their old grounds for your garden and you will get one of their old bean bags filled with used grounds.

Now, what do you do with them? I'm putting mine into my compost pile, of course. With the nitrogen to carbon ration that they have, mixed with a healthy bit of carbon rich browns, in this case straw, I should be able to kick up the heat in my pile and help it to break down faster and more completely.

If any of you are new to composting, or are thinking about getting a pile started, which I heartily encourage, then one thing I have learned is that getting the pile "cooking" is one of the most important things you can do. Getting the heat turned up inside your pile cooks the seeds, sterilizing them. It also helps the organic material inside the pile break down more completely and more quickly. Getting this heat turned up comes from having a good balance of greens and browns, nitrogen rich plant material and carbon rich dr material such as dry leaves, straw, or dried grass clippings. So far I have found straw to be the most consisent material that is easily gotten in my area. When you have this mix in the right proportions you'll need to turn the pile regularly to make sure the organisms in the pile can breath and make sure it stays moist. Not wet, but moist.

Once you have all this in line, you'll be sure to have your pile cooking like a pro. In the little video I made, you can pretty easily see that there's steam coming up out of the pile, this is a sure sign you're on the right track. I hope to cook this pile pretty well through the rest of the fall and into the winter and then finish it off in time for spring planting. If you haven't cleaned out the garden yet, or can still get a last mowing of the lawn, I encourage you to get those greens and some good dry browns together and get cookin'!

P~

Finally got some work done

I got out into the yard again today to get working on the garden area and here it is. I pulled almost all of the plants from the garden during the week to get ready for today so that I could concentrate of getting the work done, or nearly so.

You may remember a list that I posted a little while back with so much to do and so little time; I thought I'd update you to the progress. I know it helps me to see others posting their goals and how they go about accomplishing them, perhaps I can inspire one of you.

• Pull the summer veggies that are now, thanks to an early and hard fall, dieing.
Check. I pulled all the squash, pepper, tomato and other plants that were still left in the garden beds.

• Pull the annuals from the front beds.
Check. Petunias and other annuals pulled, potted plants pulled and soil sifted to remove roots. Next spring I'll add some fresh compost and vermiculite to re-energize it and get it ready for a new planting.

• Dig out, split and replant the Rhubarb so we can have more next year.
Check. Look at this thing! I thought it looked like some kind of strange alien life form, I know, time to lay off the star trek huh? I dug out carefully around the outside of the crown and root ball. For those of you that are not familiar with it, the crown of a plant like rhubarb or strawberries is that area at the top of the root ball that sits generally at the soil level. It is where all the growth of the plant comes from. After I had dug out the whole plant, I used a flat shovel to split the crown into three pieces each of which a bit of rootstock still attached. I gave one to a neighbor that was interested in growing some of her own. The two I kept were added to part of the new area of garden that A~ and I cleared out last weekend, right between where my raspberries and strawberries are growing, I thing I'll call that the pie stretch of garden from now on.

• Decide which large perennials we will leave where they are and which we will move and then actually move them.
Check. A~ and I got this done last weekend, and opened up a good sized area of our back planting area for future gardening. We've decided that the front is largely for show and the back is for food. Works for me.

• Cut up and consolidate all of the pulled greens from the garden for composting.
Check. I also collected the bagged grass from the last lawn mowing (yeah our lawn is done for the season.) I've found that our gas lawn mower works great as a garden waste compost prep device. That's a really technical geeky way of saying that I can chop the heck out of all the greens and browns collected in the garden before adding them to the compost pile. This makes the breakdown of the compost go much faster and the finished product much finer. Speaking of compost, My wife thinks I may have become a little, well, let's just say she says I've gone a little overboard when I referred to this area of the yard as "Compost Central". You can see behind the bags of grass clippings that I've added an area for an actual pile to sit over winter. I haven't added all the clippings and greens yet, I need to get some straw to make sure I get adequate carbon to nitrogen mixture and that I have enough room for air movement. This is what keeps the pile from smelling and gets it hot, helping it to break down quicker.

• Prune, thin and support the raspberries and strawberries.
Yes, check. I finally got around to doing this. This year my strawberries really went crazy. I got a decent amount of berries from the small patch (4' x 5') that I had last year. Then after harvest, they began to drop runners and new growth. Whoa, they spread like fire. I pulled a good bit of the old growth to allow the new plants to come up better and thin the patch. I also made a distinct edge to the spreading patch. final size of the patch is about 4' x 8'. Not quite twice the size, but with the thinning and some care, I hope to get nearly twice the harvest next year. As for the raspberries, I learned this year that raspberries will only fruit on the second year growth but not thereafter; I cut out the two year old growth and strung up and supported the one year old growth, hopefully I can get my two plantings on the same schedule from here on out. Last year one of them gave a lot of fruit, this year the other did; if I can get them both producing together I'll be a happy sorbet eating man!

• Weed some of the bad areas of the yard to get a head start on next year.
This part is an on going project. I am trying to get a handle on weeds overall, the grass looks good, but I still have to weed and till the new garden areas before winter sets in.

I hope your garden chores are coming along. This is that time of the year when it is so easy to neglect the garden, but at the same time is one of the most important times for prepping and putting the earth to sleep before winter. I'm really pleased with my progress so far this year. I spent much of the spring this year going through the beds and getting them ready for planting. I hope to be able to get seed in the ground much earlier next year and enjoy a greater and earlier harvest. Don't throw in the trowel yet, there's work to do. (Yeah I stole that line from Mother Earth News, it was just to perfect I had too. LOL)

Namaste
P~

Compost Day

Well it's that time again. Compost Day!!!

The last time I screened out my compost and collected it was on August 8th. Today is (or was) the 27th of September. That's 7 weeks and 2 days. This was even faster than the 2 1/2 months for the last batch. I can only assume that it was due to the new container, the metal one, that holds in the moisture and the heat better. You can see by the black gold in my hand that this batch was much more moist than the last. Strangely, I didn't water it nearly as often as I had in the past and I also had quite a bit more in the metal barrel that I did in the first model that was plastic. After screening it I finished up filling one of the 20 o 30 gallon totes (I don't remember the actual size but it is in the background in the movie clip below.) and having enough left to fertilize the winter greens. I was wondering, anyone of you have any suggestions on whether I should add the compost to the garden and let it sit there over the winter, or should I bag and save it until the spring?

I built myself a new peice of composting equipment today that I thougt I'd share with you. It's a screening basket, or at least that's what I'm calling it. I picked up some 2x2 rabbit wire from the ranch store this afternoon. (That's rabbit wire with a 1/2 inch spaceing between the wires, or 4 holes per sq. inch.) I attached it to some left over oak strip from the flooring project, you will probably see a lot of this in the future, and bent in the ends to make it a basket. My 12 yr old and I then scooped out about a half basketful of compost and shook the heck out of it to screen out some of the big clumps, sticks and incomplete items. I took another movie of it to show what we looked like to the neighbors, oh yeah and show you how well it worked.

So what do you think? I've already got the metal barrel nearly filled with the stuff that I'd started collecting while this was cooking. We'll see, maybe I can get one more batch done before it's too cold. I can try!

P!