THIS MORNING AT 9AM, I CHECKED THE TEMP – OUTSIDE AIR TEMP WENT DOWN TO 30degrees LAST NIGHT.  THE GROUND SOIL TEMP MEASURED 40degrees AT 9am IN MY EXPOSED SOIL BEDS.  BUT, 6″ DOWN, INTO THE BALES, IT WAS 90!  THAT IS THE BIGGEST DIFFERENTIAL I HAVE NOTED YET, a 50 degree DIFFERENCE!

THE BALES ARE NOW ENCLOSED IN THEIR COSY “GREENHOUSE” MATERIAL, LIGHTLY CLAMPED ONTO A PIPE CLOCHE, OPEN SLIGHTLY AT EACH END TO OFFER VENTILATION.  AS I STUCK MY HEAD INSIDE ONE END, I NOTICED A PERCEPTIBLE WARM AIR SPACE.  NICE WAY TO WINTER SOME VEGGIES.  LET’S SEE HOW THEY DO FROM HERE ON INTO COLDER WEATHER.  I WANT TO GET A SET OF THERMOMETERS & DO A BETTER JOB OF MEASURING THIS PHENOMENON.

THE SECOND BED HAS BEEN RIPPED BY RJ’S CHAIN SAW & IS READY FOR SOME MANUAL REMOVAL OF STRAW CHUNKS, THEN I’LL PUT IN MY SPINACH BABYS & SOME OTHER SEEDS.  BRAVING THE USUAL ADVISEMENT ON WINTER PLANTING, LET’S SEE WHAT THESE BEDS WILL DO!

THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN AT THE FREY WINERY TODAY -

IT IS AN OLDER STRAW BED, MAYBE A YEAR OLD,

NICELY COMPOSTING INTO SOIL.

AN EXCITING EXPERIMENT!

MORE LATER,

ANNIEGREENJEANS

When I compost directly in a garden bed,

I follow this procedure:

1- Make a small hole or depression in the soil & cover the waste with a bit of soil
2- Use a shovel to cut through both the soil and garbage several times…this cuts up whole cabbages, bad lemons, moldy squash, wrinkled apples, etc into smaller pieces ( naughty me for wasting such good food!)
-& mixes the soil into the old food mass, which lays a pattern of bioactive microbes into the center of the garbage. They do the work for you, even in the cold of Northern California Mountain winter ( it gets down to about 20 degrees here)
3- I also pile loose straw on top of the whole thing…then walk away from that area once it is pretty full, and use another part of the bed or even another bed…this takes a month or 2…
4- By spring the straw is still whole and dry on top, but has started to compost where it touches the soil, that gets mixed into the bed when I turn it and dig it…

Now, if you want to be a “no-dig” gardener, (Ruth Stout was my hero!)…this method does not work more than once for each garden bed…so, I am doing it only to start new beds, as I am a lazy gardener and want to double dig (John Jeavons style) only once, and then never re-dig the bed again!!!

There are 2 schools of compost style -
I am a compost “mixer, not a piler/stacker”…as mixing seems to speed it all up, reduce smell, etc…although I am now trying a stack method inside of a “box” made of old pallets this spring…using layers of yard waste, cardboard, newspaper layered with my kitchen scraps, I‘ll report on that in a few months!