This spring was my first experience using my compost that took 2 years to mature. I have since realized that mowing/chopping my autumn leaves before putting them into my compost speeds things up tremendously. See, last fall I started a new pile before my old pile was finished. I didn't want to add new leaves to a nearly mature compost pile and so much to the chagrin of my neighbors, I had two monstrosities going simultaneously. With this new pile I have turned religiously every weekend and have the smaller leaves and it is already nearly at the stage that the 2007 pile was in by 2010. This spring I used my mature compost to spread around all my planted trees and shrubs which all needed a boost, and I used the rest to start my vegetable garden. Fun thing: I ended up with lots of surprise seedlings around my front yard bushes. I didn't pull them right away like I would other weeds because I was suspicious (and was right) that they were tomato plants! So looking carefully in the photo below, around a boxwood are 3 or 4 tomato plants.
I also ended up with a mystery squash or melon plant growing from my compost in the veggie garden. I still haven't figured out what kind of veggie or fruit it is, but I'm patiently waiting to find out. Another fun thing about my compost is that the results were quite amazing when my neighbor asked why the two cabbages on the far right are twice as big as the others. they were all the same size when I planted them, but the only difference was the two cabbage plants were growing in my compost and the rest were growing in the store-bought compost. I didn't have enough homemade compost to fill up the whole garden so only about 1/3 of it is filled with my compost. I might have converted my neighbor who was till that moment my biggest critic for the unsightly compost piles. She started asking me the particulars of compost-making.
The big project for the spring was this vegetable garden and the fun addition of a rain barrel. I bought one that is the most unobtrusive that I could find and hooked a soaker hose to it and a special rain barrel timer (that can run without any pressure). 
This setup, along with a rainy spring, has kept my garden watered self-sufficiently until the last few weeks when I needed some more aggressive watering due to the heat wave we had. The garden has gained a few neighborhood fans who come and admire the rain barrel operation. So I have to keep it well tended and weeded so as not to disappoint the fans.
I also ended up with a mystery squash or melon plant growing from my compost in the veggie garden. I still haven't figured out what kind of veggie or fruit it is, but I'm patiently waiting to find out. Another fun thing about my compost is that the results were quite amazing when my neighbor asked why the two cabbages on the far right are twice as big as the others. they were all the same size when I planted them, but the only difference was the two cabbage plants were growing in my compost and the rest were growing in the store-bought compost. I didn't have enough homemade compost to fill up the whole garden so only about 1/3 of it is filled with my compost. I might have converted my neighbor who was till that moment my biggest critic for the unsightly compost piles. She started asking me the particulars of compost-making. The big project for the spring was this vegetable garden and the fun addition of a rain barrel. I bought one that is the most unobtrusive that I could find and hooked a soaker hose to it and a special rain barrel timer (that can run without any pressure). This setup, along with a rainy spring, has kept my garden watered self-sufficiently until the last few weeks when I needed some more aggressive watering due to the heat wave we had. The garden has gained a few neighborhood fans who come and admire the rain barrel operation. So I have to keep it well tended and weeded so as not to disappoint the fans.Another great thing is that the rain barrel can't easily be seen from the front of the house. 
1 comment:
OH MY Gosh!!! Congrat's and best wishes!!!! Trish
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