Why I Oughta...

A few days ago, I posted a photo and the backstory of our new three-bin compost setup that I've created out in the back of our property and talked about how I plan on using the new setup along with my existing compost tumbler .  The biggest issue I've had with the tumbler is that I've learned that composting is a 'batch process'.  I get a great batch of compost out of the tumbler, but I usually don't get it fully done until about June of each year. To document the timing of it this year, I am sharing the photo at the top of this post.  This is what the material in our compost tumbler looks like right now.  You can see it isn't quite "Black Gold", but it is getting there.  The carbon material has almost fully broken down and the material has a loose consistency where you can put your hand in and it doesn't come out muddy but rather the stuff mostly falls right off.  It is rich and almost fluffy at this point.  Good, but NOT great.  The

A couple of weeks ago, I brought home a three Gold Cone Junipers from Menards and shared photos and details from them here .  I ended up getting two of them in the ground this week and have the third still in the cast iron urn in our front yard.  Above you'll see one in the ground and the other one is kind of staggered behind it. These are generally in the vicinity of where I planted the small Hemlock last year (that died!) and should serve as a nice multi-layered look of conifers once I get the Hemlocks in the ground.    This is an area that gets plenty of morning sun and since it is on the northside of the property, it gets some decent oblique sun throughout most of the day until about 2 or 3 pm in the afternoon. The Gold Cone Juniper is a columnar conifer that is billed - per the tag - to only be four to five feet tall, but there are a few photos on the Web that show something more on the order of eight to ten feet tall?  I'll be happy with cute little four feet tall

We've been composting in our yard since 2009 when we bought a Lifetime Compost Tumbler from Costco .    We've been filling it each Fall since (except for the two seasons we lived in Equation Boy/Man's house in Elmhurst) and by late Summer, we have a nice batch of black gold.  In the ten years that I've been composting, I've learned that composting is a 'batch process'.  Meaning....you have to build up a full 'batch', get the right mix of nitrogen and carbon and then wait for it to cook. That 'batch process' I'm talking about is the big part of why our current setup (with a single large tumbler) isn't working hard enough for us.  What we currently do is during the Spring cleanup and all through the early part of the Summer, I collect material and just kind of pile it up next to the tumbler.  Why?  Why not *in* the tumbler?  Because it is still FULL from the previous batch. About June or so, after we've had six or more weeks

Yesterday, I shared a couple of photos of some Elephant Ear bulbs that I am planning on putting in containers on the patio this Season .  Today, I'm sharing two more sets of bulbs - or in this case..."Tubers" is what they're actually called - for this Season.   Dahlias can be grown in the garden or in containers.  I think the pros put them in the ground/garden and then in Zones like ours (5b), pull them out of the ground in the Fall to store them over Winter.  But...they *can* be grown in containers.  Why do I think that?  Because of this article on the official site of The American Dahlia Society .  It walks you through how to grow them in pots.  (Hint...start them low and gradually add soil on top of them as they shoot up.) I think I'm going to try a little bit of both - putting some of our Dahlias in containers while putting others directly in the landscape.   So far we've bought two varieties of tubers.  First, a Dinnerplate variety called &q

Last year I added some tropical flair to our patio containers by planting a series of elephant ear bulbs in the pots.  They complemented various flowers and we mostly had good luck with them.  Here's a look at the bulbs - 12 of them - that went in .  I ran out of room in containers, so I put a couple in the ground, too!  By July, they were starting to help fill in our containers .   By August, they were in full form and provided a beautiful, almost trippy look in our containers .  I was really happy with them and figured I'd use them again in our containers.  So, I picked up this three pack of standard Elephant Ear bulbs.  These are smaller than the ones we put in last year, so perhaps the leaves will be smaller?  But, why just redo what we did last year, right?  I had one "Black Magic" Elephant Ear in a container with some Night Queen Mini Dahlias last year and it seemed to grow nicely despite being constrained for space.    This year, I wanted somethin

Last October, at the time I planted 50 Tulip bulbs in our front yard, I also planted five Allium bulbs in the same bed.  Here's the post showing those bulbs going in .  I planted these Purple Sensation Allium bulbs behind the boxwood hedge but in front of the hydrangeas that are right in front of our porch.  This is the second set of Allium bulbs that we've tucked into our yard with the first ones going in the Fall of 2017 in our backyard .  Those made quick work of themselves and emerged and flowered in their first season.  Just like the front yard tulips that popped up this Spring , these Allium bulbs have sprouted, too.  If you look at the photo at the top of this post, you'll see all five of them have arrived, but the first two on the left seem the strongest and the middle one is a little behind and has just emerged and is still yellow.  I've always liked Allium bulbs, but they're Nat's favorite bulb.  She seems to be drawn to them more than tulips o

If you spend any amount of time on YouTube watching lawn care videos, you've certainly come across Milorganite.  The fertilizer product is being evangelized by the loudest/most-popular voices across the YouTube Lawn Care Nerd community .   Recently, I was talking to my folks about how I was going to try this organic product on my lawn and my Mom instantly recognized the name Milorganite.  Turns out, my grandma was an organic gardener and she used the stuff back in the 1980's and 1990's. I went off to find the stuff at Menards and was unpleasantly surprised to only find eight bags in the whole store.  I asked around and the guy there said there was a shortage.  This was all they had.  A quick Google search turns up this post from last Summer where the team at Milorganite said they were experiencing a shortage indeed . Could this be bad news?  The product is impossible to find and I only have eight bags to my name.  Each one covers 2,500 square feet.  That means, I hav