Easy Composting the Right Way

 

Approximately 92% of household food waste still goes directly to landfills, where it anaerobically decomposes, expelling methane – a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide - into
the atmosphere.  Don't be that jerk - rather compost kitchen scraps the right way in your own garden!  It saves not only the environment but also money in your purse...

You can easily improve your flower garden with compost, top dress your lawn, feed your growing veggies, and even mulch your planting beds with compost.  Once you get your compost pile started, you will find that it's an easy way to repurpose kitchen scraps and other organic materials into something that can help your plants thrive. 

Common misconceptions of home composting are that it's too complicated, it will smell funny, and it's messy.  This may be true if you compost the wrong way, but composting the right way is actually quite simple.  Just layer organic materials, add a dash of soil and a splash of water, and wait for this mixture to turn into humus

What Goes Into the Compost:

• Fruit and vegetable scraps
• Coffee and tea grounds
• Crushed Eggshells 
• Grass and plant clippings
• Dry leaves and small dry branches
• Finely chopped wood and bark chips
• Shredded newspaper and office paper
• Straw and paper egg cartons
• Small amounts of ash from your fireplace
• Sawdust from untreated wood
• Lint from your dryer
• Hair and nail clips, dog or cat hair
• Spent soil from indoor/outdoor flower pots
• Yard trimmings and grass clippings 

Keeping a container in your kitchen, or even better a large paper grocery bag, and piling your kitchen waste onto some sheets of newspaper, wrap it and place it in this device until filled up.  If you collect it this way it doesn't small.  I practice this for years!  In summer I place the whole paper bag into a hole that I dug in my flower beds,  and then fill and top it with soil.  In winter I collect it in my garage until it is warm enough to dig again.

Start building your compost pile by mixing three parts brown with one part green materials.  If your compost pile looks too wet and smells, (which doesn't happen if you pack kitchen scraps into the paper) then add more brown items. Aerate the pile every ten-day. If you see it looks extremely brown and dry, add green items and water to make it slightly moist.

Add about 4 to 6 inches of compost to your flower beds and into your pots at the beginning of each planting season.  Or even better: compost directly into the soil instead of a (god forbid plastic) composting bin in your garden.

It works like this: decide a spot where you want to plant in a couple of weeks.  Dig a hole at least one foot deep and wide.  Throw a couple of dry branches (ca. 8 inches long) into the hole, then add your collected compost items to fill it half, add a thin layer of garden soil or composted manure (chicken, cow, or sheep), then fill the hole with more compost, and on top again a layer of soil.  Add some water to moisten it and use a thin metal stick to aerate the 'compost bin'.   Should you have lots o squirrels or raccoons in your area, place a flat stone or a flower planter on top for the first two weeks to deter them from digging.  Within three or four weeks you can plant in this compost-improved soil.

Sources:

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/how-to-garden/no-dig-gardening/

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/gardening/advice/a23945/start-composting/

https://www.gardenary.com/blog/the-basics-of-composting-in-your-own-backyard

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/compost/how-to-compost/

https://facty.com/network/how-to/how-to-compost-at-home

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/compost/9-common-composting-mistakes-you-may-be-making/

https://gardensbybarby.ca/

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Basic Garden Design - Not Only for Beginners

 

Many garden owners are tempted by the displays or by special sales in garden centers and carry home whatever they find attractive. Often only a single plant of each type. Don't buy plants indiscriminately. One of everything will end up in a visual mess. Save your money until you know what you need.

First Things First
Building a house starts with the foundation!  The same is true for building a garden.  Prep your soil with lots of compost and rotted manure. Unless you are lucky to have fantastic soil, amend it first before planting anything. 
Good black soil is the safest thing to use. Lay a couple of inches of compost at soil level and dress with mulch after you've finished planting.  It will suppress weeds, keep the moisture, and even out temperatures in summer and winter.  From now on the soil should not be disturbed. The first year your garden must be watered deeply twice or three times a week.

Evaluate Light and Sun
Which way does your garden face? Calculate where you have sunny spots for 4 to 6 hours a day and apply this information to plant research.  Read the plant labels carefully and research each plant on the Internet.  Don't bother with vegetables unless you've got sun for more than 6 hours a day, and you are willing to water and weed on a daily basis.  Examine all the contours of the garden and enhance any humps by building a berm — piling up soil and covering it with compost.

Create sections or "garden rooms" 
Have an overall vision of what the garden should look like from specific parts of the house.  Now it's time to choose your trees, shrubs, and plants, and lay them out for maximum visual impact. Avoid planning them too narrow.  Find out the maximum size plants and trees will reach. 

Every garden needs a focal point
It can be a structure, a gazebo, a patio, a beautiful birdbath, or a spectacular plant.  Evaluate the volume of the plant at maturity: how wide and high will it get? Don't forget at least one to two feet of space around it.  Read the plant tags and take them seriously. 

Big structural trees come in every shape, size, and color — they are the most thrilling creatures to plant — never be casual about them.  Trees are crucial for screening, privacy, beauty, as well as creating a vertical element. 

Create layers 
Once you know what trees will grow well, look for large shrubs or small trees as the next level down (2 to 3 meters in height). We often forget this important aspect of design: eye level. You should have the feeling of walking through plants.

Create a mix of both evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs throughout.  We need the evergreens for winter interest, as well as for bird and animal habitats.  If you want to attract butterflies, for instance, get Buddleia (Butterfly bush), Eupatorium (Bonesets), Ninebark shrubs, Weigela, or a small Hydrangea tree. 

Perennials and annuals add color to the garden  
Get plants with similar hues in the bloom to achieve a drift of color.  Plant hundreds of small naturalizing spring bulbs. They will provide the soil with cover and feed early spring insects.  Their amazing colors are a bonus.  This way you will have something blooming in every season.

Last, but not least: No Plastic in Your Garden!

Plastic is creeping in heavily for years into our personal landscape: Sitting on a PLASTIC deck with a PLASTIC canopy or awning, using a PLASTIC watering can, PLASTIC garden hoses, PLASTIC garden fence, PLASTIC trim edges for the lawn, PLASTIC garden tools, PLASTIC flower pots, and planters…

Mother Earth is precious for all living organisms - and that we need to protect the environment and do something against the thread of a climate catastrophe that is upon us and our children.  Instead of calling for the governments to do something, we should start to add our part.  Fossil fuels, plastic, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides — all that should be banned from our daily life, our families — and our gardens!

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17 November Garden Pleasures & Chores

Even if your garden is already sprinkled with snow, there are still garden tasks waiting: last-minute bulbs to plant, leaves that should not go to waste or roses that need some TLC. Early winter is a great time to evaluate your garden layout. You can clearly see the architecture or bones of your garden.

Leaves: 
Rake to eliminate thick accumulation in flower beds and borders (an invitation to voles and mice in winter, and also an obstacle next spring to emerging plants).  Try to prevent a matted buildup of leaves on the lawn.  Recycle them into mulch and soil-improving compost.  Never send leaves away from the garden to the “trash.”
Make great leaf mulch when adding back as organic matter to beds.  Start a leaves-only compost pile, and use it as mulch next year.  Running over dry leaves with the mower to shred them will speed its breakdown.

Composting: 
Pile up composting material as you cut back faded plants, following Lee Reich’s easy plan (video how-to included). First, extract finished compost and top-dress your vegetable-garden beds with it, getting a jump on spring soil prep.  Add organic matter to your flower and vegetable beds.  Cover the compost heap so that rain doesn't flood it and leach the nutrients.

Birdbath:
Unfrozen water is the number one thing you can do in support of birds and other wildlife - so birds and other animals can have a drink (or a splash).

Seed-Saving:
Start at planting time in spring, what seeds you will save.  But even this late, some garden harvest—including the last beans, or winter squash—may hold hidden treasures.

Bulb-Planting:
Many Spring garden bulbs can go in the ground surprisingly late, even up North.  Get those bulbs in now - and even purchase more on closeout sales, if you have time for extra digging.

Clean-Up: 
Do it with a focus on prevention–of pests, weeds, and general chaos in the coming year. First hit things that show signs of disease, weed or insect infestation, in case weather curtails your cleanup before you get to everything.  Minimize weed woes for next year.

Trees & Shrubs
Add more woody plants that show off in fall. Plan to do so for next year–many can even be planted this late in autumn if your nursery or a mail-order source still has stock.
Clear weeds from around the trunks of fruit trees and ornamentals to reduce winter damage by rodents and rabbits.  Hardware cloth collars should be in place year-round, sunk an inch or so into the soil, and standing 18 inches high.  Use half-inch mesh or smaller.  Clean up under fruit trees, as fallen fruit and foliage allowed to overwinter invites troubles next season.

Pruning:
Prune dead, damaged, diseased twigs in trees and shrubs. This is especially important before winter arrives with its harsher weather, where weaknesses left in place invite tearing and unnecessary extra damage.  Remove suckers and water sprouts, too, but don’t do aesthetic pruning now.

Herbs:
Parsley and chives can be potted up and brought indoors.  A few garlic cloves in a pot will yield a supply of chive-like (but spicier) garlic greens all winter for garnish.  Harvest your green herbs, wash them, and cut them.  Store the herbs in your freezer for winter use.

Flower Garden:
Protect roses from winter damage in cold zones by mounding up their crowns with a 6- to 12-inch layer of soil before the ground freezes.  After all, is frozen, add a layer of leaf mulch to further insulate.

Cannas and Dahlias:
Tender bulbs need careful digging for indoor storage.  Once frost blackens the foliage, cut back tops to 3 inches and dig carefully, then brush or wash off soil and let dry for two weeks or so to cure.  Stash in a dry spot, like an unheated basement or crawl space, around 40-50 degrees, in boxes or pots filled with bark chips or peat moss, or just newspaper.

Deadhead Spent Plants:
Shake seed pods around the mother plants before removing plant carcasses. Nicotiana, poppies, larkspur, sage and many others fall into this group.  So do plants with showy or bird-friendly seed heads, like grasses and coneflowers.
Mulch your strawberry plants with a couple of inches of straw.  Let asparagus foliage go brown on its own; don’t cut back till later, or even in early spring.

Prepare New Flower Beds: 
For future planting by smothering grass or weeds with layers of recycled corrugated cardboard or thick layers of newspaper before adding soil, then put mulch on top.

Houseplants:
Start a pot of paperwhites or amaryllis in potting soil or pebbles and water, and stagger forcing another batch every couple of weeks for a winter-long display.  Or force some hyacinth bulbs for blooming.

Garden Tools:
Clean shovels and hand tools, maybe oil them a bit and place them into a bucket filled with fine sand to keep them dry during the winter.  Bring your lawnmower for service after the final mowing, rather than in the spring rush, then store without gas in the tank.  Run it dry.  Drain and store watering hoses.

Outdoor Christmas Tree:
If you're planning on buying a live Christmas tree with the intention of planting after Christmas, dig the hole now, while the soil is workable, and cover the soil with burlap before the ground freezes.  Remember to keep the soil around the tree-covered so that it does not freeze before it can go back into the hole.

Planning for Next Spring:
Make your next-year garden resolutions. Plan how to extend your garden’s season. Get more creative with the use of spring and fall bulbs. Or start a rock garden. Whatever you do, gardening in cooler temperatures is more enjoyable.
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