Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted photos of how I'm attempting to overwinter some Dahlia tubers in the ground and in a couple of those pics, you might have peeked at the chicken wire cages next to the piles of mulch on the dahlia tubers.  Those chicken wire cages are full of fallen leaves and are set on top of the three Disneyland Rose crowns along the southside of our house. See below for a couple of photos showing how I set up the ring of chicken wire and filled it with mulched-up leaves: These roses struggled this year, so here's hoping this little bit of extra Winter protection is going to help them get through the cold.

In October, I turned my compost over.   That meant pulling out the 'black gold' in the tumbler (that's where I finish the compost each year) and then re-filling the tumbler with more-finished (than the rest) of the compost from the right bin.  Then using a compost fork to pull out and move the stuff from the 'middle bin' to the 'right bin' - where it was properly mixed.  And finally...taking the storage bin - the 'left bin' which is mostly leaves and kitchen scraps and mixing it in the middle bin.  That left the 'storage bin' on the left empty. For like 10 days.   Here's what it looks like today - below.  The left bin (with the 'feed me' sign) is filling up with leaves that have come off our lawn and out of our gardens: There is A LOT of air in this bin, so these leaves will compact/compress to about 1/2 of the bin height.  I'm going to give it a pause for a week-or-so, then come back and fill it back up with even more leaves...

Last Fall, I extended (what I call) the IB2DWs (In Between Two Driveways) bed to reach down along the property line, all the way to connect to the small sidewalk-adjacent bed.  In it, I planted a number of conifers ( Conifers Should Come First) , transplanted a few divisions (Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and Serendipity Allium ) and tucked in a few other things.  When I made that bed, I was converting it from turf and that meant that I used a combination of techniques:  removing the turf, smothering the turf with cardboard and just leaving some of it in place.  I planted everything in biosolids and then topped the bed with even more biosolids.   But...I mostly focused on the planting.  And left the bed in a not-so-finished state.  That meant that grass was poking through in spots, the edges weren't clean and I applied arborist wood chips.  The chips were intended as an initial attempt to both retain moisture and (hopefully) improve the ...

Like everyone that I know, I've been a bark mulcher.   For my entire gardening existence.  That means that every year, we get a big load of hardwood mulch (usually 'fines') that is spread out on top of all of our beds to serve as a mulch.  It is the exact same thing that everyone on the block does:  make the beds look 'pretty', provide a bit of weed suppression, retain moisture and make things look uniform.   But, over time, I've learned that those hardwood bark mulches aren't exactly what I've been aiming for in our garden and this year, I just skipped the application.  Instead, I applied a mix of compost in some areas and biosolids in other areas.  And, in a lot of the garden...I applied nothing.  No new mulch.  The beds have had a couple of years of bark mulch application, so in most spots it isn't like there's nothing on top of the soil, so I figured I could get away with a year off of the mulch.  And, I chose this past year (20...

My compost bins grew this Fall - from two bins and a tumbler to three bins and a tumbler.  I've long wanted to add that third bin, but it took this Fall's leaves to compel me to act.  Below, you can see the new third bin - on the left - and this photo serves as an 'early winter' snapshot of our three bins (in terms of how full they are) as the composting process slows down with the temperature drops: The new bin (on the left) is almost exclusively leaves.  The pumpkins that you see in the middle bin are there (for now) as I break them down into chunks and layer them in every time I add more leaves to the new 3rd bin.  I put in a bunch of leaves on top --> chop up chunks of pumpkins --> layer them on top of the leaves in the 3rd bin.  I've done that for the top 12-inches-or-so and as that bin continues to compress I'll keep adding leaves.   One other thing to note:  on the bottom right, there are two white plastic garbage bags that are laying...

That appears to be a wrap on composting this growing season.  I have all three spots filled - the tumbler (with partially-processed mixed compost from the bottom of the mixed bin), the mixed bin on the right below (with a blended batch of greens/browns and *some* passive aeration pipes installed) and a (mostly) carbon storage bin on the left.   You can see the two bins in the photo below and how they're filled right up to the top of the railing with the belief that we'll see a little settling and compaction this Winter: The last time I checked in on these bins was in early November when I had rounded up a bunch of leaves and filled both of these bins in a 'heaping' fashion .  In the month since, I've seen a bunch of settling in the left bin and was able to re-fill it up.  And some compaction from the bin on the right with the large mound in the middle compressing down.  I used my mower to collect the leaves in the carbon storage bin this year and as such, I...

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to create the chicken wire ring to help protect one of our Disneyland Rose bushes (They are a Floribunda Rose) on the southside of our house.  I picked - at that time - the middle one of the three to protect.  I've done this a number of years now and I'm NOT certain that it does anything really.  But...it doesn't take much effort and I'd hate to lose these flowers, so I decided to do all three this year.   That's what you see below:  all three Disneyland Rose bushes now protected by a ring of 2' tall, 1" chicken wire.  Then, filled with leaf litter to help create (hopefully) an insulation blanket for Winter.    I still have a tiny bit of leaf collection/pickup/mulching to do, but I'm hoping these 'settle' a bit so I can put more leaves in the bins. 

Just a couple of days ago, I posted the first photo of my compost bins with an initial pile of leaves from our yard in the storage bin .  The leaves just don't stop.  At least, until the trees drop them all.  So, my approach is to try to stay on top of them with repeated cleanups in the backyard instead of waiting until the end when there's one big cleanup.  I've tried that....and found that the job is TOO MUCH if I wait. So, I sent about collecting (and mulching) even more leaves and storing them in the compost bins.   Here, below, is what the bins look like just a few days later: The bin on the left - the carbon storage bin - is now heaping.  And the bin on the right - which is properly mixed - has settled to just below the frame.  So, I put a bit of leaves on TOP of that pile, too.  If you look at the foreground, you'll see that there is a layer of mulched-up leaves scattered in FRONT of the bins, too.   The carbon storage bin wi...

The last time I checked in on our compost bins, I was looking after some of the settling that was taking place post a full turn in both bins and our tumbler.  This was in late September when the bin on the right was still 'over full' and the bin on the left was about 1/8th full .  Below, is a photo showing the current state of the same two bins.   The one on the right has settled even further.  The bin on the left has just started to be put to work with the initial pile of leaf mulch piled in that side. The pile on the left will continue to be filled and settled.  I also am planning on insulating the Disneyland Roses with leaf mulch again, so those chicken-wire rings will be full of material this Fall.  Once I get the bins mostly stuffed full, I'll then just simply switch to mulching-in-place the leaves on the lawn.  That's the process I used last year and the material was broken down by the time Spring arrived. I haven't gotten around to adding ...

I started my lawn feeding program this year (2021) with a granular bio solid product called e-Corganite (from Menards) and I'm finishing off the year with the same 40# bags of e-Corganite for my late Fall/early Winter dormant feeding.  I had three bags of this fertilizer on hand and threw it down heavy this weekend.  I'm PRETTY SURE that I did the same thing (an early December feeding) last year, but I don't have it posted on the blog.  Here's a post from early December 2019 showing how I used a few bags of Milorganite on the lawn as it was dormant and cool .   Many folks will tell you that this late Fall/early Winter dormant feeding of the lawn is the *most* important one you can do - and if you were to do JUST ONE feeding per year, this one might be the one to choose.  Penn State's extension office says the benefits of feeding your lawn this time of year include a good 'green up'.  From PSU : Late fall fertilization should take place when shoot gro...

These are the days for filling up our compost bins.  Each Fall, the leaves in our yard drop all of their annual leaves and I use the mower to mulch them up and pick A LOT of them up off the grass .  My process is actually a little nuanced in terms of mulching vs. bagging.  I use my Ego leaf blower to clean out the beds and push all the leaves to the middle of the yard on the grass.  From there, I use my mower - with the bag attached - set to the lowest level to begin to mulch-up and vacuum all the leaves.   However, I don't immediately clear the mower bag once it is full.  If you've done this (like I do), you know when the bag is full because you start to see dust and little leaf parts flying around because there's no place for them to get ejected into the bag, so they kind of fly out the sides.  I'm doing that on purpose - so I leave a little bit of leaf litter (mulched up, mind you) behind on the lawn to feed the soil. But, after doing that for ...

Last month, I began to prep some parts of our yard for winter with the addition of chicken wire protection to keep the rabbits away from nibbling on the evergreens all Winter.  I started with the Canadian Hemlocks and also wrapped our Weeping White Spruce columnar tree , too.  In those posts, I mentioned that I was planning on trying to protect a couple of our Disneyland Roses using a similar technique - wrapping a ring of poultry netting around them - but this time, filling them with mass to protect from winter frosts. Below are a couple of photos that show the currents state of our two sideyard Disneyland roses.  First, the eastern-most one.  The chicken wire is wrapped around the rose and filled with mulched/chopped-up fall leaves to provide mulching protection.  I also threw down wood chips around the bottom to keep critters from getting inside:  The more western one - below - is the larger of the Disneyland roses.  This one, too, was wrapped in c...