I know, I know, everybody's sick of all the comments and conversations about New Year's resolutions.... But I think anything "new" is another chance to look at yourself and something you do, and try to make it better! I've been doing a lot of reading lately, mainly gardening books by Gayla Trail (check out her AWESOME blog here:
http://www.yougrowgirl.com/) and the inspiring blog of
Cannywomen.com, and both have inspired me to DO more with the great things I already have this coming year. So, with all that in mind, I've decided to spend more time upgrading the garden this year. Of course, we also have goals not related to my garden addictions, but what fun is that on a gardening blog? ;)
So, today I started an experiment in composting. Now, I need to backtrack a little here and give you the pre-story. We've been composting since we started the garden in 2009, with a recycled plastic composter I found for cheap at Home Depot. But despite multiple attempts my yields have been small to say the least, and with all that we've added to the garden over the years, the need for great compost has only increased. After much research into the world of composting and some additions to the equipment over the years, I still wasn't having much success. This year for Christmas the hubby bought me a beautiful standing composter, and it's given me new motivation to make my own plant food, so thus the experiment.
I'm starting this year with three composters, all with the same materials in them, to see which ones yield compost and when. Now of course, I expect the best results from the new one:
This one stands about waist high, with two chambers in it, a sliding door or lid, and the ability to spin it to aerate the contents. This baby states it'll make usable compost in as little as 14 days with the right conditions! But the unusual cold we've been having here will defiantly slow that down, so we'll see.
This one we made last year from 2X4s, with three chambers in it. We actually made it to store excess yard materials that I was using in my compost, but I decided to fill one chamber with composting layers and see how it does out in the open uncovered and all.
And of course, I refilled the older one, this time all the way to the top with layers to see how it does cold composting with the cover on it (vs. the uncovered pile in the wood bin.)
All are filled with layers of straw, leaves, pine needles, grass, and the kitchen scraps and little bit of compost that the bin had finally created.
I've already started the garden plans for spring, with possible new boxes for the hubby to build, so hopefully one or more of these produces some great compost for us to plant in! I'll keep you updated! Here's hoping!
