Compost

You got yourself a whole mess of compost pictures and videos here today. It was a nice afternoon , so I cut out of work a little early and headed home to play in the dirt. Quinn and I stirred, turned, chopped and piled the compost. It was absolutely amazing. All the books told me not to use leaves and not to use wood chips in my compost. Well this pile is just about nothing but leaves and wood chips - layered with mushroom manure. Let me tell you it couldn't have been cooking hotter. Steam was just cascading off the pile as I dug and turned it. The whole pile looks beautiful. Keep in mind this contains an entire winter's worth of cardboard boxes, paper bags, rope, banana peels, avacodo cores, apple cores, jimmy johns cups, and even two "compostable plastic cups" (see photo). Just about everything was broken down. Even the compostable cups are well on their way to decomposition.

This isn't my first foray into composting. I have had a couple smallish piles for years, but these two 25 cubic foot bins are an operation unlike any that I have ever had before. First off the quantity is astounding. After my work this afternoon, I have one completely full bin. Inside this bin are 2 full truck loads of wood chips, two full truckloads of mushroom manure, an entire fall worth of raked leaves and an entire winter worth of kitchen scraps. That is an amazingly big pile! I actually think we are going to have enough compost this year. The other astounding thing is how quickly this stuff is breaking down. Keep in mind these piles sat dormant and frozen for most of the winter. Only three weeks ago on 3/7 did I activate them for the first time by layering in manure and stirring them. Now on 3/27 they are just burning up, and breaking down. It is utterly amazing. I said in my last post that I thought we would have compost by June. Well that seems ridiculous to say today. Heck we can start pulling compost out of this finished pile in a couple weeks if we need it. All we need to do is wait for it to cool down a little. Check out the video above of the steam coming off of the compost pile.

I did some planting today also...

1. buttercrunch lettuce seeds approx 30 in chimney garden
2. romaine lettuce seeds approx 30 in traditional cold frame
3. spinach - approx 15 transplants, and 10 seeds in cold frame
4. 5 red cabbage transplants in cold frame
5. 3 buttercrunch lettuce transplants in cold frame
6. 2 brocolli transplants in cold frame
7. 14 onion transplants in cold frame

I also fashioned ribs for the cold frame out of some 1/2 pvc piping that I had laying around the basement. These ribs should help allow the rain to cascade off of the cold frame and not puddle. They also give the plants a little more room as they start to grow.

A little later in the evening I did some indoor seed starting...

1. 12 california wonder (shumway 2008) bell peppers
2. 12 serano hot peppers
3. about 10 aneheim chili peppers started in wet paper towel and plastic bag to see if they have any life to them at all.
4. transplanted one delphium to a larger pot
5. transplanted one foxglove to a larger pot

Rain

The plastic drop cloth approach to making lids to the cold frames isn't very good. They don't hold up very well to the rain. The water pools on them and smushes the plants. We had a lot of rain the last couple of days. I might have lost some broccoli, lettuce and onions because of the smushing. When I am off for the baby this summer, I am going to build some permanent lids for the big frame.

The rain barrels are full. Both compost piles are letting off a ton of heat. That mushroom manure certainly is the key to getting those things fired up.

It's Alive

Yesterday we finally had some seeds sprout outside and in the cold frames. The radishes that were planted on 2/27 outside (chimney garden, no cold frame) sprouted. I saw two of them poke above the surface. I also saw one of them sprout inside the sq foot garden cold frame (planted 3/2). Inside the traditional cold frame, we have about 4 spinach sprouts poking up (planted 2/26). As you might imagine, I am very excited for these developments. That is about two weeks from seed to sprout for radishes and spinach. I took a look at last year's book just for comparison. Our fist outdoor planting last year was on 3/20 (no cold frame - peas, spinach and lettuce). It took last year's peas 22 days to poke above the surface. The lettuce and spinach came up a little sooner than that, but I didn't mark the exact day.

One of my garden goals this year was to extend the season. I think I am making strides in that area. Here are some random comparisons 2008 to 2009.

• Peas - Planted 3/20/08 vs 3/2/09

• Spinach - Planted seeds 3/20/08 vs. seedlings (cold frame) 3/1/09 these were started indoors as seeds on 1/24. Direct sowed seeds (cold frame) 2/26/09

• Radishes - Only fall crop last year vs. 2/26

• Lettuce - 3/20/08 vs seedlings (cold frame) 3/1/09 and seeds 3/1/09

• Beets - 4/11/08 vs 1/11/09 - I started beet seeds inside in January, transplanted them to a large planter in mid February, and moved them outside under the traditional cold frame on March 6th. They are absolutely thriving.

• Carrots - same as beets. The only difference is that a little critter played around with them and killed about 1/3 of the pot.

• Green Onions - 4/11/08 vs 3/7/09

• Broccoli - 4/6/08 (lowes nursery stock) vs. 3/6/09

• Cabbage, Pak Choi, onions are all new spring plantings for us. We either didn't grow these in the past of did them only as fall crops.

• Tomatoes, Peppers 4/11/08 (seed starting indoors) vs. 3/9/09 (indoors)

So basically across the board I am one month earlier on average with my plantings. If it all works that is certainly successful season extension - thanks to the cold-frames. Much of the thanks also must go to the fact that we have so many more planting areas ready to go this year. Last year we didn't have any of the soil "shovel ready" to steal a recovery funds phrase.

Another goal this year is successful succession planting to keep the harvest slow and steady. One example of my attempt at this is by looking at my various spinach plantings.

Spinach - first seeds started indoors 1/24. Seedlings planted in cold frame 3/1/09. Seeds started in cold frame 3/1/09. Seeds started in sun garden 3/7/09. Another indoor planting started 2/24. Another cold frame row of seeds started 2/26. So this is a lot of spinach planted both as seeds and seedlings, in various places at various times in small little plantings. I'll probably just get in the habit of dropping a few seeds in the ground every weekend throughout the season. As spring turns to summer, I'll make my plantings in the shade of other vegetables or intersperse them with some flower plantings on the north side of the house. My fall plantings will be back in the cold frame to gear up for a winter harvest. Spinach is a great crop to succession plant because it can grow in cold weather, doesn't take up much room, can be eaten when still small, and freezes well.

cooling off

It is 28 degrees at 5:30 am. High supposed to be in the mid 30s today. Both cold frames yesterday were at 60 when I came home from work. There are some little seedlings popping up in the cold frames, but so far nothing can be confirmed as a seed. Most of them look like weeds. It is possible that I saw two radish seedlings appear in a patch that I sowed outside on 2/26. I'll confirm later. While the cold frames have kept stuff alive (for the most part), things certainly aren't moving quickly inside of those mini greenhouses. All the seedlings that I planted look basically the same as the day I planted them. There isn't a whole lot of distinguishable new growth - and no new seeds. I think the real value of a cold frame is in extending the harvest in the fall and winter by covering already mature plants. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations from the late winter/early spring plantings.

Team Stacy

This morning I got a little company for my seed starting. Sarah and I rose at 5:20 and worked together on our little project. She did flowers. I did veggies. I even invited Aimee Mann and Norah Jones into my Pandora music mix to make her stay:) Here is what we did...

1. 40 black plum romas (shumway 2008 seeds)
2. 18 bell pepper carnival mix (burpee 2007 seeds) - don't save these - likely hybrid
3. 12 grape tomatoes (origin unknown) These are seeds we saved from last year
4. 6 brocolli (shumway 2009)
5. 12 serano chili peppers (2007 ferry morse) - don't save these - likely hybrid. I think these are the ones that made our wonderful pickled hot peppers last year.
6. 12 california sweet bell peppers (shumway 2008) - these are our main pepper crop. The ones that are supposed to get huge and red, but always end up green and small.

I also covered the entire cold frame to prep it for a weekend of seed planting and hardening off of various seedlings. I just ended up doing something pretty low tech - stretching plastic over the whole thing and holding it down with weights at one end and wood lath and screws at the other end. I reassembled a little seed starting shelf for one of our south facing windows to accomodate our expanded flats. The one that I had orginally built used termite infested wood scraps from our now defunct carport. Termites in the house - nice job Chad!

Sarah started...

1. 25 coleus (target 2009)
2. 6 strawflower (shumway 2009)
3. 6 sweet basil (burpee 2007)
4. 12 cilantro (saved from last year - origin unknown)
5. 2 cleome (saved from Ryan and Kate - origin unknown)
   

Lettuce seeds

I planted two 8 inch pots of mesculan salad mix from Shumway this morning. I used garden soil and planted them indoors. I broadcast seeded them.

It is about 30 degrees outside and each frame is close to 40. Some seed activity has started in the traditional cold frame, but I think it may be weeds. Some critter got into my carrot planter yesterday and messed it all up. Probably killed about 1/3 of this mini crop. Supposed to be cold and rainy today, so I am going to leave everything covered up. I laid a sheet of plastic over the outside geraniums I have going. I brought all the pots inside that I had taken out over the weekend.

DEATH!

After surviving the last couple of nights with the outside temps in the single digits, the cold frames took some serious heat yesterday. The square foot garden frame took the brunt of it, reaching 90 degrees at 2 pm, when it was 55 and sunny outside. The other frame was already in the shade at that point and only registered 62. When it hit 90, Sarah removed the two ends to give it a little air. By the time I got home from work it was back in the 60s.

I spent some time in the garden after work, exposing the sq foot garden for the first time since I planted it about a week or so ago. As the headline to this post suggests, we had some death. The cabbage is the worst off. We lost at least 3 possibly 4 of the 6 cabbage seedlings. The lettuce also took a hit. One of the Seedlings ripped off when I was removing leaves. The spinach and onions look great. There was no sign of any seeds making their way to the surface. I will likely replant the dead squares this weekend. Question: What killed the cabbage? Was it the cold or the heat. I am guessing heat. The cabbage in frame #2 (only got to 62 degrees) looks just better, but still not beautiful.

The other frame didn't have any death. The stuff in there looks pretty good. It is possible that I saw one pak choi sprout, but that is as of yet unconfirmed. May be a weed. But something sprouted, which should be celebrated regardless of the plant.

I moved all the finished black gold compost to the sun garden, in anticipation of some serious compost reshuffling this weekend. The black gold looks ok - still pretty chunky, but plenty good enough to spread. The middle section of the compost bin needs a redesign. My little funky temporary center support to hold it together is not working as I hoped. I will have to screw a middle support permanently in place to hold it all together.

Early morning activity: My rowing plans were cancelled by some rough water, so I worked in the yard this morning. I planted 4 romaine seedlings in the sq foot garden to replace a dead cabbage. I replaced another dead cabbage with 16 radish seeds. Two other dead cabbage were replaced with Brocolli seeds. Two cabbage seedlings remain in the sq foot garden out of an orginal planting of 6. They are sickly looking, but may survive. I am willing to give them a couple more days.

In the back yard cold frame, I did the following:

1. Brought out Beet Planter and Carrot Planter, burried the pots a little in the dirt and surrounded them with leaves. It is mild (55 degrees) and cloudy today, so I thought they could start to harden off outside. I added one beet seed to this planter, which had a vacant spot.
2. Planted 4 geraniums.
3. Removed leaves from inside of cold frame, added good soil and planted 35 onion seedlings.

I left this cold frame with a 4 inch air gap at the top to allow for some air flow today. The sq foot garden, I left uncovered. I watered everything I planted today with compost tea.

On my way to work I hit Sandy Creek Supply for a 1/2 ton of mushroom manure and one cube of peat moss. It is amazing to me that peat moss costs almost as much as musroom manure. I probably shouldn't have bought it, but I do want to make my own seed starting mix for next year, so I need it at some point. I plan to add finely screened compost to it and put it in a black plastic bag to cook over the summer. Should be sterile seed starting mix for next year.

8 degree differential

7:30 am: 18 outside and 26 inside both frames. Supposed to get pretty hot and sunny today - I may need Sarah and Quinn to vent the square foot garden cold frame in the afternoon.

I unloaded a full truck of wood chips from sylvan into the compost pile this morning. The "green compost" bin is overflowing. I want to get a load of manure on Friday to rebuild the compost piles and get them burning again. The problem with compost bins in the winter is there is an abundance of carbon ingredients and absolutely nada in the way of nitrogen. That plus the cold temps meant that my compost sat pretty stagnant this winter. It is supposed to get warm this weekend and if I can get them fired back up with a load of mushroom manure (nitrogen), and some good layering of the two, I think I may be able to jump start them back into action. I think there is probably also a couple cubic feet of finished compost at the bottom of my "green pile" which I need to expose, remove, and prepare for use. I may even get a chance to work the soil in the "sun garden", removing the green manure (wild rye and white clover) and spreading a thick layer of finished compost.

Can supply update: Last year we canned approx 125 jars of various fruits and veggies. As I have said in some of my earlier posts, our 2008 garden produced an abundance of black plum roma's and hot peppers. Therefore most of our cans included these two ingredients. We had a ton of spaghetti sauce, salsa and chili. While we are definately getting tired of spaghetti sauce, our canning work in fall 2008 has served us very well over the winter. Here is an update of what we have left.

• 11 qts spag sauce
• 2 qts cabbage soup
• 7 pts apple sauce
• 2 pts pickle relish
• 2 pts pickles
• 1 qt pickles
• 5 pts salsa
• 1 pt spicy beens
• 1 pt beets
• 2 pts carrots
• 5 pts various jellies

Total of 39 jars of stuff remaining. The chili went the fastest and was definately the most popular. The hot peppers were fantastic and a big hit. I never, ever thought we would eat all of those. Those peppers were excruciatingly hot when fresh, but when canned they became much more mild. I add them to everything. Of course my seed starting was so bad last year, that I am not even sure what kind of peppers those were. The pickles were also a pleasant surprise. All of our friends seem to love pickles, so they made for nice little gifts. The kids also eat them, so we used them much quicker than I imagined. I definately struggled with finding a variety of recipes to can last year. I was in a spaghetti sauce rut. This year I will be more creative. Sarah is copying recipes from a nice canning book as we speak. We also overdid the vinegar in most of our recipes last year, becasue we were concerned about spoilage and safety. I think our second canning year will be much better due to our experience in year #1.

still cold

7:00 am 10 degrees outside, 20 inside both cold frames.

Here are some photos of the compost bins.

1:00 pm update: 31 degrees and sunny outside, 54 inside both cold frames. Shade is just starting to hit the backyard frame, but the sq ft garden remains in full sun.

4:15 pm update: Wow - the afternoon sun makes a world of difference. Sarah tells me that it is 68 degrees in the sq. foot cold frame and 36 in the other.

friggin cold

Outside: 7 degrees - 5 wind chill. 20 degrees inside the traditional cold frame, 25 inside the square foot cold frame.

I shoveled and hauled a full truck load of wood chips from the Sylvan Canoe Club. They chopped a couple of trees and ground down the stumps. I hauled the stump remains - basically a pile of 2 inch wood chips mixed with sawdust and dirt. This is the second truck load of wood chips I have added to my compost pile this winter. I just read a book last night where the author doesn't recommend adding wood chips or saw dust to compost because of the time needed for them to break down. Whatever dude - go put some tofu in your little whimpy compost pile. My pile will compost body parts if you leave them in there long enough.

I forgot to mention my compost tea in yesterday's post. Quinn and I cut a 2x2 section of burlap, filled it with compost, tied it tightly and dropped it into my rain barrel. Had to break through the one inch of ice at the top of the barrel to let it find it's home on the bottom of the barrel. I am excited for compost tea. Several books I read this winter (yes I did nothing other than read gardening books), speak of compost tea as being the transplant elixor. Water with it when you transplant and all your garden worries will disappear!

1:30 pm temp update (Thanks Quinn): 21 outside, 39 in cold frame (part sun), 57 in sq foot garden (full sun). Yep - my cold frame is in absolutely the wrong place. I need to think about moving that, but where? Not much sun hits the escarpement in the winter.

still surviving

Quinn and Sarah checked the temp inside the sq foot garden frame for me today while I was at work. The outside temp never got above 20 today but it was sunny. The temps inside the frame at various times throughout the day were 32, 40, and 52. After work I bought a thick canvas painter's drop cloth and another thermometer. Quinn and I removed one of the ends of the frame and looked inside at the plants. It was fun to see some steam escape when we opened up the little greenhouse. This is the first time I have seen the seedlings since the temp dropped so drastically. They all appear to still be alive. The cabbage, onions, and spinach look just fine. The romaine lettuce is not so spry, but they still appear to be alive. They are just kind of laying down a little. Then Quinn and I spread a thin layer of leaves over the seedlings. The thought here is that they will provide a little extra frost protection and possibly soak up some heat during the day and release it at night. Then we sealed everything back up and laid the canvas drop cloth over the whole thing. The way the wind was howling - that drop cloth has to help.

Cold frame #2 looked pretty good as well. Nothing dead. We followed the same precautions here as we did in #1. Supposed to go down to 8 degrees tonight and 12 tomorrow. Not sure whether the seedlings will survive this extended cold snap. I'll keep you posted.

Inside seeds - First pepper sprout noted today. Nothing major to report - everything seems to be coming along fine - which is a huge improvement over last year. Photo: Alphalpha sprouts for those "winter salads".

Yikes

3/2/09

10 degrees outside and 20 inside my sq foot garden cold frame. I didn't have a blanket big enough to cover it last night. I need to get myself a big painting drop cloth to drape over it. I don't have a thermometer inside the other cold frame, but the ground looks slightly frozen in there as well. The seedlings look unhappy, but not completely dead. 20 is definitely the coldest it has gotten inside one of these frames since I planted in them.

Nice applicable quote from Jeff Ashton's The 12-Month Gardener:

"As you experiment with season extension, you'll inevitably lose plants because of freezing. This isn't failure. If you don't lose plants occasionally, it indicates that you're not taking enough risks. Embrace your failure as a personal learning curve. Seeds are cheap, and success is the promise of great veggies from your garden while the neighbors are eating supermarket produce."

random photos

Three pics: Completed sq foot garden filled with cold weather veggies and seeds. Seed starting set-up - two shelves, two lights and three windows on the east side of house. The photo with the soccer ball is my standard cold-frame.

Square foot garden

Here is a photo of my son Quinn standing next to my 4 ft by 6 ft square foot garden. I planted this on 2/28 and covered it with plastic to form a mini cold-frame. This is what I planted.

1. Early Garden Peas (soaked and innoculized) 8 squares
2. Spinach seedlings - started indoors mid Jan - one square 9 seedlings
3. Romaine seedlings - started indoors mid Jan - one square 4 seedlings
4. Red cabbage seedlings - 6 squares - 6 seedlings total
5. Onions - started from seed mid jan - two squares - 32 total
6. Carrot seeds - Early Nantes - 16 seeds
7. Buttercrunch lettuce seeds - 2 squares - 5 seeds in each - 10 total
8. Green onion seeds - one square - 16 seeds
9. Spinach seeds - one square - 9 seeds
10. Beet seeds - one square 9 seeds

I know it is way, way early to be starting stuff outside. I know all this stuff will either die or not germinate. But I just couldn't help it. I spent all winter reading books about 4 season harvests, and extending the season, and I just got a little frisky. The great thing about the sq foot garden approach is that it is very easy to turn into a nice little cold frame. Yesterday my sq foot cold frame got up to 70 degrees on a 30 degree day. At night it is getting into the high 20s. Let's see how long this stuff lives.