Fertilizing a Garden Bed, Horse Play, and Daily Bread No.3

This bed in the back of the garden (to the West, underneath the trees)  is a new one. I added it this Spring. I wasn’t happy with what grew in it this season. The reason could be the lack of sunlight, or poor soil. About the sunlight there is not much I can do at …

Winter Hot Box with Horse Manure

(Wow, three entries in one day!) I have lights specially fitted to the bed up front, so it can easily be converted to a cold frame. I’ve successfully grown lettuce in it in April. Now I was thinking of growing something there  from November to March, the coldest months. The hotbed, finally! ~ A, the …

Neighborhood Pumpkin Composting

On a cold, gray day Amie and I composed, copied and colored in our yearly let-us-compost-your-pumpkin fliers. Today, a wonderful day, sunny, blustery, just about nippy, Amie and I took a walk to deliver them. It was lovely to talk with the neighbors and hear their enthusiasm for the project. They usually leave their pumpkins …

Compost Compost Compost, 1 – 2 – 3

I’ll just come right out and say it: of all the garden work, I love turning and sifting compost most! Yesterday was Amie’s first extended day at Kindergarten and the weather was glorious to boot. That left me with five (5) whole hours in the garden. I filled milk bottles with rain water as biomass …

Compost Bin and Smoker

I like my two Earth Machine composters in that they’re contained and so inaccessible to animals, which makes me unafraid to throw in meat, cheese, bones, etc. They’re also, of course, portable, and not too bad to look at. But for those reasons they’re also a pain to turn, and just the two of them …

Yes, Of the Same, Again

The garden, that is. DH and I worked on the backyard the entire day: grading it with sifted soil, evening it out, then adding 1 to 2 inches of our composted cow manure. We still have about 1/3 to do, and I’ll try to finish that by my lonesome tomorrow, because DH needs to go …