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Garden Geeks thread

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Re: Garden Geeks thread

Bob Gray said:
Finished putting together my composter yesterday. Bought it at Costco. It's the Lifetime brand one with two 50 gallon containers that you can rotate. Now is the fun of figuring out exactly what to mix in it. Hoping to use some shredded newspaper and grass cuttings and probably a few other lesser inputs from around the property. Anyone do much composting?
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have mixed leaves with grass clippings. takes longer than I'd expect to get usable dirt, even using a composter powder mix that's supposed to aid the process. also it's ugly and ungainly. hard to find a location that's convenient to use it that doesn't also result in an eyesore somewhere.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Bob Gray said:
Finished putting together my composter yesterday. Bought it at Costco. It's the Lifetime brand one with two 50 gallon containers that you can rotate. Now is the fun of figuring out exactly what to mix in it. Hoping to use some shredded newspaper and grass cuttings and probably a few other lesser inputs from around the property. Anyone do much composting?
Click to expand...
Opposite experience from Mr Fish- never use newspaper or starter. Use shredded leaves from the yard, all of our peelings, coffee grounds, egg shells, grass clippings, weeds (yea I know people say don't do it but I do anyway) and dirt from pots in the fall. I use a bin on the ground. Get great dirt once a season. dig off the top layer into a bin next to the first one, sift and viola. Dump the chunks that aren't siftable in with the rest of the stuff and start again.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

leswp1 said:
Opposite experience from Mr Fish- never use newspaper or starter. Use shredded leaves from the yard, all of our peelings, coffee grounds, egg shells, grass clippings, weeds (yea I know people say don't do it but I do anyway) and dirt from pots in the fall. I use a bin on the ground. Get great dirt once a season. dig off the top layer into a bin next to the first one, sift and viola. Dump the chunks that aren't siftable in with the rest of the stuff and start again.
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That's how I do it, except the weeds. :)

I built two 4'x4'x4' compost bins of wood and they sit on the ground, side by side. The walls are 1x4 pine with horizontal 1" spacing between each board for air flow. The front is the same, but the boards are not nailed in so I can easily remove them to get at my compost. I attached a spacer to each board to keep the 1" gapping and they slide on top of each other in a channel. I have a hinged roof over each bin so I can control the amount of water going in. They are framed with 4x4 corners for sturdiness. They look like bee hives and are still going strong after 20 years. Wish I could post a picture but I don't know how.

One bin has fresh grass/leave clippings and as it breaks down, I transfer it to the next bin to finish composting. Bin #1 then gets fresh grass/leaves. If I work at it, I can get two batches of compost per year, one in spring, one in fall. It takes a good balance of carbon/nitrogen/moisture to get it to compost quicker. Here's a great site from OSU on composting. It gives you the carbon/nitrogen ratios of different materials and is a very useful site. My bins are similar to the 5th diagram down (turning bins) at this site. Have fun!
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

My chickens compost everything for me, scraps from the kitchen comes out composted within a day :)

My dad was the king of composting, he taught classes all over about it.

Put the water to it while building it if you want to get it going. Weeds should be ok if you get the pile hot enough.
 
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Re: Garden Geeks thread

walrus said:
My chickens compost everything for me, scraps from the kitchen comes out composted within a day :)

My dad was the king of composting, he taught classes all over about it.

Put the water to it while building it if you want to get it going. Weeds should be ok if you get the pile hot enough.
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This made me chuckle.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

I gotta get me some chickens. :)

A big horse farm in the center of town leaves mountains of horse manure mixed with bedding straw and chips at the end of a field, just off the road. It's there for the taking. I load up big barrels and add it to my bins. If you dig into the pile deep enough... ooh yea. ;)
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

FiveHole12 said:
I gotta get me some chickens. :)

A big horse farm in the center of town leaves mountains of horse manure mixed with bedding straw and chips at the end of a field, just off the road. It's there for the taking. I load up big barrels and add it to my bins. If you dig into the pile deep enough... ooh yea. ;)
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I wanna keep cats out of my yard so our stupid cat doesn't "claim" the window for his own if you catch my drift. Is there some kinda **** or **** mixture that will make it happen?
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Finally going to get the garden rototilled tonight. Snow was all gone last week but now it has dried out enough to be tilled.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

On Saturday morning about 9, took a stroll through the vegetable garden and one strawberry had two little flowers on it. Took another stroll Saturday around 1:30 PM, and there were three more flowers on two more. Yesterday there were 18 little flowers open.

In a way, we're glad it has been a relatively cool spring so far because the sequence of plants and shrubs that flower can unfold in a stately manner. Last spring, there was a heat wave, and all sorts of different stuff started to bloom all at the same time. it was a little bizarre at times.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

owslachief said:
Great for raccoons & squirrels - but I don't want the stupid cat's stupid owner *****ing at me or poisoning my tomatoes
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I have a big pellet gun that I use to get squirrels and woodchucks. I use a pump BB gun for cats. They jump but don't bleed.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

theprofromdover said:
I have a big pellet gun that I use to get squirrels and woodchucks. I use a pump BB gun for cats. They jump but don't bleed.
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I wonder how airsoft guns and plastic pellets would work? my son left all his airsoft stuff behind when he left for college. Hmm...
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

I planted corn, Tomatoes, and peppers last week when it was 80 degrees. Tonight (Sunday night/Monday AM) there are frost warnings in So. Wisconsin. Crap!
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

I, m glad I didn't plant any warm weather crops, frost possible this week. My tomato seedlings are getting kind of leggy and need to be transplanted though.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

MadTownSioux said:
I planted corn, Tomatoes, and peppers last week when it was 80 degrees. Tonight (Sunday night/Monday AM) there are frost warnings in So. Wisconsin. Crap!
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I don't know, maybe I'm perpetually late, but the first week in May seems awful early to be putting out tomatoes and peppers. Granted, we've had a few warm days, but overall it's been a long, long winter with a late spring, and I would have thought the soil temps were still pretty low. I've always waited until at least mid-May, and usually a week beyond that. At any rate, I sure hope you escape the frost. There's a warning again for tonight. :eek:
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Carter said:
I don't know, maybe I'm perpetually late, but the first week in May seems awful early to be putting out tomatoes and peppers. Granted, we've had a few warm days, but overall it's been a long, long winter with a late spring, and I would have thought the soil temps were still pretty low. I've always waited until at least mid-May, and usually a week beyond that. At any rate, I sure hope you escape the frost. There's a warning again for tonight. :eek:
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Yeah, I know. It's a crapshoot. Is the last frost past? Do I wait and have later tomatoes? i'll cover them as best I can tonight.
 
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