Today was the first cool day after a series of wildfires blanketed the city in smoke. I can feel myself being re-energized by the cool weather, planning lessons, getting back to reading my stack of books I bought at the start of summer, and planning heartier meals.
The sugar maple in the front lawn dropped a few dozen leaves for the first time this year. I've setup a large compost pen (10' by 4') in the backyard, and I'm hoping to use a good part of the leaves from the maple as compost in the spring. Last fall I would guess I filled about 25 of the 65 gallon lawn waste containers, and about 10 of the paper landscape bags. I'm hoping to reduce that down to 20 of the 65 gallon containers, putting the rest into the compost. I've read that wet leaves aren't the best for compost, so I'll make sure to dry them out... In fall, in the Pacific Northwest... It may be a long process.
I also setup a small (~30 gallon) container on the side of the house to be a high-nitrogen compost, composed of kitchen scraps mainly, and some of the mimosa tree's droppings as a cap. Two days ago it was actually hot in the container, putting my hand below the cap was very warm. However I forgot to put the cap on, and today it was not as warm. I'm hoping with a little water, more kitchen scraps, and putting the cap on it'll heat up again.
My plan is that once the leaves are down off the maple, I'll put this nitrogen rich compost in the middle of the large yard waste compost, and then let it bake for the winter. I plan on tarping the compost after all this, with some holes for some amount of rain.
We're still debating the raised beds and how we want to build them. Mimosa looks great in the summer sun. Bamboo stand is a bugbear, but it is nice to not have to pay for long straight pieces of wood. Front strip looks really good after laying down more rocks, and planting a few new plants. We will likely lose one of the lavenders, but we have a backup. This weekend I want to build the front corner planter box as a test of the raised beds. However we have a fair trip planned on Sunday, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm reading a book about companion planting, trying to organize the list of what we want to grow and those companion plants. I also found OSU Extension Catalog, and they had this resource on raised bed gardening: https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/fs270.
The sugar maple in the front lawn dropped a few dozen leaves for the first time this year. I've setup a large compost pen (10' by 4') in the backyard, and I'm hoping to use a good part of the leaves from the maple as compost in the spring. Last fall I would guess I filled about 25 of the 65 gallon lawn waste containers, and about 10 of the paper landscape bags. I'm hoping to reduce that down to 20 of the 65 gallon containers, putting the rest into the compost. I've read that wet leaves aren't the best for compost, so I'll make sure to dry them out... In fall, in the Pacific Northwest... It may be a long process.
I also setup a small (~30 gallon) container on the side of the house to be a high-nitrogen compost, composed of kitchen scraps mainly, and some of the mimosa tree's droppings as a cap. Two days ago it was actually hot in the container, putting my hand below the cap was very warm. However I forgot to put the cap on, and today it was not as warm. I'm hoping with a little water, more kitchen scraps, and putting the cap on it'll heat up again.
My plan is that once the leaves are down off the maple, I'll put this nitrogen rich compost in the middle of the large yard waste compost, and then let it bake for the winter. I plan on tarping the compost after all this, with some holes for some amount of rain.
We're still debating the raised beds and how we want to build them. Mimosa looks great in the summer sun. Bamboo stand is a bugbear, but it is nice to not have to pay for long straight pieces of wood. Front strip looks really good after laying down more rocks, and planting a few new plants. We will likely lose one of the lavenders, but we have a backup. This weekend I want to build the front corner planter box as a test of the raised beds. However we have a fair trip planned on Sunday, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm reading a book about companion planting, trying to organize the list of what we want to grow and those companion plants. I also found OSU Extension Catalog, and they had this resource on raised bed gardening: https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/fs270.
Comments
Post a Comment