It's Not Work, It's Gardening!: compost

Showing posts with label compost. Show all posts

What a mess -- or is it?

>> Monday, November 28, 2016 – cleanup, compost

Now that Thanksgiving is in the past, I'm no longer working long, long days at the bakery. It's amazing how many people want pies for that holiday (and how many people show up or call on the 23rd trying to order a pie!), but things are back to normal now. We peeled so many apples, it's crazy. Since the organics bins were filled to the top, I brought home four big boxes of peels on Tuesday (or was it Monday?):

Not wanting to make the trek back to the compost pile in the dark, I just left them on the driveway. I knew I would get to them on the holiday or over the weekend at the latest. Somebody got to them first!

Question: What's better than compost?

>> Thursday, April 3, 2014 – compost

Answer: Compost made from food waste! Sure, as gardeners we routinely save kitchen scraps and add them to our compost piles (you are doing this, right?) and if we're a little bit more motivated might even find a local business or two that can collect buckets of scraps for us.

If you've been reading INWIG for a while, you may remember that my wife is a baker and would often bring home heaps of banana peels and other nutrient-rich organics that were destined for the dumpster. How can this procedure be expanded though, as most bakeries, coffee shops, restaurants, and grocery stores don't have employees willing to cart buckets of scraps home?

Eggshells

>> Friday, December 7, 2012 – compost

It's been a while since I've mentioned eggshells.

It's difficult to ignore them right now though. This one is on the driveway, probably as a result of a curious raccoon. What was he curious about?

Who likes compost pile fruit scraps?

>> Wednesday, July 27, 2011 – animals, compost, turtle

I've mentioned before that my wife brings home lots of fruit scraps from the baking company. Banana peels are the main fruit refuse, but recently peach peelings have been added to the mix.

Whenever I add somewhat edible fruit to the compost pile, I make sure I add it toward the front, and low down near the ground. Why?

Onions get a new bed

>> Saturday, April 9, 2011 – compost, moles, vegetables, weeds

My veggie garden area is pretty small -- the fenced area that is safe from herbivores is 13' x 13'. You may remember that I recently created some new raised beds in this area: 3 beds that are 4'x6', and one that is 4'x4' for a total of 88 square feet of planting area. That's not a lot of space, so to give me more options I plant veggies in containers but also use the area just outside the fence, planting things that rabbits, deer, and woodchucks don't eat.

Chives, horseradish, garlic chives, basil, and onions. These are all pretty safe from the critters, so they live in the "wilds" outside the protected area. The chives are perennial of course, as are the garlic chives -- which I've got zillions of now -- and the horseradish. The onions I'm planting today.

Banana: How much is too much?

>> Saturday, March 12, 2011 – bananas, compost, fruit

So you're a gardener. You have a compost pile, right? You're diligent about collecting kitchen scraps for the compost pile, even through the coldest part of winter. Coffee grounds, eggshells, tea bags, orange peels, apple cores, that half head of lettuce you left in the fridge too long and it started to turn -- none of this goes into the trash bin. It's all valuable and essential to the future health of your plants, so onto the compost pile it goes. What do you do when you produce a lot of kitchen scraps though? Like, banana peels maybe.

What if you have a couple of bunches worth of banana peels -- do they all go onto the pile? What if it's more than a couple of bunches worth... maybe 10 lbs of peels. Is that too much? What about 40 lbs?

The prettiest compost pile ingredients

>> Sunday, November 21, 2010 – color, compost, fruit

We save kitchen scraps for our compost pile. I know that technically the peels, eggshells, and other degradable waste really doesn't make any difference -- how much difference does a banana peel really make in a compost pile that's already 6 feet in diameter and just had a few tarp loads of leaves dumped on it? Still, we collect the scraps in a bucket under the sink, then dump the bucket when it's full.

Sometimes it fills up faster than others, for instance if we have a lot of potatoes to peel -- but it typically fills slowly. Recently though our kitchen scrap production has gone through the roof. My wife has been bringing home the scraps from her baking classes! She usually announces it with an energetic "I've brought you a present!" when she walks in the door -- dozens and dozens of crushed eggshells, buckets of fruit peels -- typically in larger quantities than we could ever generate ourselves.

Mulching stage 1: compost

>> Monday, October 25, 2010 – bamboo, compost, mulch

I'm going to be mulching most of my in-ground bamboos and some of the other planting beds in a month or so, to provide them with extra winter protection. The wood chip mulch also helps to condition the soil, adding organic matter as it slowly decomposes. I always mulch my planting beds. Except this year, when I didn't add any new mulch. The old mulch was there, but I never got around to adding the fresh stuff.

For my bamboos, the first step in mulching is to add an inch or two of compost. This isn't really necessary, but I like to baby my bamboos, and compost is always welcome in my garden.

Veggie garden gets some love

>> Tuesday, May 11, 2010 – compost, mulch, vegetables, weeds

I'm pretty bad with neglecting my vegetable garden at various times of the year. You've seen what it looked like at the start of the Spring, and even though I've been getting some seeds in the ground, I've let the weeds take over somewhat:

Time to make amends with some weeding and thinning!

Some front yard mulching

>> Monday, May 10, 2010 – compost, mulch, weeds

I spend so much time in the backyard gardens, I tend to forget the front yard. It needs "a bit" of tidying. The main problem is this bed under the maple:

The mulch is pretty much gone, the soil is really dry, and the weeds are taking over. Time to do some weeding and freshen up the mulch!

A truck of muck

>> Sunday, May 2, 2010 – bamboo, clouds, compost, super-whitey

After a pretty dry start to Spring in St. Louis, the rain has started coming more regularly. Thursday and Friday we had strong, gusty winds all day long, then Friday night a line of scary, severe storms came through the area -- as they did across most of the central part of the country. The worst parts of the storms missed our neighborhood but we did get a large amount of rain. This morning started out fresh and sunny though.

I'll be doing a lot more weeding today, but there is something more pressing that I need to do.

It's Not Work, It's Gardening!

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What a mess -- or is it?

Question: What's better than compost?

Eggshells

Who likes compost pile fruit scraps?

Onions get a new bed

Banana: How much is too much?

The prettiest compost pile ingredients

Mulching stage 1: compost

Veggie garden gets some love

Some front yard mulching

A truck of muck

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