Composting Experiment - Update

So as I'm sure everyone else is experiencing, we've had an unnaturally cold winter this year, which took a dip south on the temperature gauge shortly after the beginning of my experiment.....

I'll admit that I haven't done much with my compost since I posted the beginning on Jan 7th. I have rotated the standing one every time I've added to it, but I'm ashamed to report that I've only braved the cold about once a week to add to it, only to find after the second week of additions that the whole thing had frozen solid!
As far as progress goes, you can't see much out there. The freestanding composter has finally thawed out, so I'm trying to mix the contents every other day. But other than that there's really nothing happening in any of the three locations.
Here's hoping the weather warms up soon as we start making some progress! I CAN'T WAIT FOR SPRING!

Composting Experiment - the beginning

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!

New growth for the New Year!

Amid the weeks of rain and chaos going on in our house as we try to finish the concrete floor in the great room, I found a wonderful surprise in the garden: the onions and garlic we planted to over-winter in the garden are sprouting! They range up to maybe three inches, and I can't believe how many are growing already! So excited to see things growing in this cold weather. Just goes to show you, mother nature is always working, even when it looks dead and bare out there :)

The hubby got me a great new camera for xmas, with a zoom lens like I wanted so I can take many more pictures of the garden plants and wildlife that show up in our yard ;) expect plenty of colorful posts in 2013! Hope everyone had a great holiday season, we're looking forward to all the things we can grow this next year, the garden plans are already started............

Getting the garden ready for winter

So believe it or not, I actually think I'm done with the garden for the season! Besides getting the citrus trees planted, we've also finished cleaning all the plants out of the garden and planted the onions and garlic for next spring:

This is the first year we've planted things to over-winter, but after tiny onion crops and much research, I think it'll be the best way to get enough to last us through salsa making next year. Since it's not common enough for people to plant veggies in the fall, we ordered some bulbs online from Grow Organic (http://www.groworganic.com/) and planted two rows of onions (top of box) and one row of garlic (bottom of box.) This year we're trying Stuttgarter Yellow onion sets, and Purple Italian Garlic bulbs. Both are types that over-winter and start growing early in the spring, so with a little care we should be harvesting in early June!

Finished "One of those projects" :)

I finally finished the raised bed for the citrus trees! Seems it took forever, but it's finally full of dirt and all three trees are planted! All in all, it's basically done, now I just need to maintain the trees and eat the fruit :)

Part of that maintenance means deciding if I'm going to build a bed cover to help them make it through the winter, or continue to lay the cover over the trees and remove each day. Citrus trees can't handle temperatures under freezing for more than a few hours, so here in East Tennessee that means we'll have to cover them anytime there's a frost warning. But I have an Agribon AG-50 frost cover that I think would work great, I just need to sew it together to make it wide enough, and use some of the spare bamboo poles to frame it up at the ends. Then I could leave it up until the last frost, and not have to worry about removing it each day. Its on the project list ;) lucky for me the weather's supposed to be warmer this week, so I still have some time....



 

Cleaning up the Garden Projects

With all the cold weather we've been having in East Tennessee lately, the hubby and I have been spending our weekends prepping the yard for winter. With all the loose ends tying up around the yard, I figured it was time to post an update and some new pics :)
We got the box for the citrus trees built, and one tree planted, just need to visit Out of Eden for more dirt (putting that one off till next weekend).
We transplanted the potted Mums to the flower bed around the sidewalk, and laid a soaker hose through them (see the rain barrel it's attached to).

The solar lantern we made from the cast iron lantern we found at the habitat re-store is finally hung up in the tree in the back yard (next to the recycled windchime I bought from the License Plate guy at the last Blount County Recycle Day).

The flowers in the rain garden have been dead-headed:

The scrap wood pile has been burned up:

And the Greek Oregano that was taking over the garden box has been safely moved to a wood barrel planter (did you know Oregano is perennial? I didn't, but it was a great pest repellent this year, so I opted to keep it):

Whew! We might get the rest done before November ends! I'll keep taking pictures :)

Update "One of Those Projects"

So it's taken a few weekends, but I can see the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel." It took us an entire day to dig out and level the first row:

But from there, the other three rows were "easy peasy" ;) Just lay the glue and set the block. 

The "finished" product! Four blocks high, 20 foot by 2.6 foot. 

Now we just need the dirt and we're ready to plant!