CUTE COMPOST IN A RAISED BED

Last week we found some free give away windows & french doors just down the street!

I took it as a ‘sign’ & we brought them all home.

I am now preparing a space to build my long awaited

greenhouse/playhouse/tea house/shed  (final result is not actually pictured yet:)

which will be right on top of my former compost pile location.  Once the building is finished – the compost bins will be reorganized near its back wall, but right now it is not possible to have my working compost at the west side of the garden.

Just taking a moment to breathe deeply & offer gratitude for the beautifully rich soil we made this year from our kitchen waste!  Here is a picture of a tidy pile of last year’s magically transformed garbage (rich humus)  – now being placed around our small fruit trees, veggie beds, rose bushes & grape vines as we put them to bed for a long winter’s nap.  We are putting a generous shovel full (or 2) around each plant, then adding a layer of leaves on top to seal the warmth & goodness in.

So – how am I making my winter compost?

I am  starting to throw kitchen scraps into the empty northwest bed, and yesterday – on a whim, made a cute “frontage” for it – as it is seen constantly from the street by each curious passerby. This is due to my interest in edible landscaping, and desire to be surrounded by beauty & grace.  How can we make our practical kitchen gardens look fun & beautiful too – so that our neighbors appreciate the good looks as well as the practicality of the harvest?  I like to challenge my self with this thought as I recreate my garden space over the seasons.

Check out the picture of the frontage on this cute compost pile.  The lattice fence, flowering planters, glass globe & cabbages are seen by my neighbors.  Why bother?  I want us all to think about making things that we use daily as fun & beautiful as we can, while also being practical & time saving.  it offers everyone a moment of happiness & peace of mind.

This cute compost pile should be matured by mid spring, when I plan on using the area for successive plantings of “cool crops” such as spinach, lettuce & other greens.  I will turn the bed over in late winter, let it rest, spread straw over it, and after a few months – will plant it with early peas if possible, then greens over the summer.  it is shaded by the western tree line, a perfect place for leafy green crops.

Anyone can make a cool garden bed that doubles as a compost pile…just build yourself a raised bed, use it during the summer, and then – after you have harvested your yummy annual crop of veggies, you can clean up by piling all the tomato cuttings, cuke vines, squash leaves & tree leaves, straw & other dry carbon sources onto your chosen bed & begin to add your kitchen waste over the next few months.

I keep a shovel or better yet a pitchfork nearby in order to dig easily into the pile.  I also start in a corner & work my way around the bed clockwise adding fresh garbage into a new place each time.  That way the pile gets a chance to begin to heat up & compost nicely, and each fresh waste garbage addition finds a home with no other garbage surprise, but instead – is sandwiched & layered with carbon rich dry matter.

Now – if I add some worms, it will be an awesome worm bin!!!  Walk on by, and admire my cute compost pile…be sure and mention it to me too…

Keeping warm in these early winter frosts,

-Annie dirty jeans

PS I found a picture of this cute mini-greenhouse – isn’t it just adorable? And useful too…Creative projects with used windows…now that is another blog post for the future.

Garden Bed Composting

Annie’s Garden Bed Composting Method

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!