Getting Prepared!

Getting Ready for Dirt.

Man, we had a georgeous weekend here in North Texas! Unfortunately, I had to work all day on Saturday, but we made up for it on Sunday. My goals for the weekend were to get the four new Squ Fts built, finish the compost bin, and start some seedlings. Check, check, and check!

I designed a compost bin that was inspired by Renoir's three-compartment composter. For my composter, I wanted a slow composter that would provide complete material once a year in January to add to my Squ Fts. I have a bad back and regular turning of the compost pile sounds like a bad idea. The front is open and faces the side of our house. I thought that would make it easy to layer the compost pile and also allow air to flow freely. So here's the scoop: 3x8x3 with four 2' compartments. The first three are seperated by chicken netting and the fourth is seperated by cedar slats. The first three are for the composting: one for dirt, one for compost, and one for manure. I have been juicing again this year and I am also running all my vegetable kitchen scraps through the Breville, which leaves a nice vegetable pulp all ready for composting. I'll sprinkle the veggie pulp in the compost bin, sprinkle some manure, the top off with dirt and a spritz of water. I think I'll also ask my lawn service to leave me some grass clippings once in a while as well. That's the plan with that, we'll see how that works. My non-gardening friends said it sounds revolting and smelly and I replied that according to the texbook literature, if it is smelly, I'm doing something wrong. The last bin is for gardening tools and what-knot to keep things handy near the Squ Fts.

I did have some anxiety about what my neighbors might think about the compost bin, I mean - an 8 ft. box in the yard might be frowned upon. Sure enough, the only neighbor I really thought would complain (the bin is next to his fence) happened to come outside right at the moment that Greg and I were hauling it out to its resting place. No complaints ...... yet.

The Squ Fts were a breeze to make! Mine are comprised of 4x4 1/2" plywood, 4 boards of 1x6x16 pressure treated deck planks cut to 47", and black tarp plastic. I cover the plywood with plastic and stapled to the back. Then I screw the boards into a square frame with a consecutive overlapping pattern (one end overlaps the next, then repeat clockwise). Finally, I screw the bottom onto the frame with the exposed plywood facing up. Last thing is to take a razor blade and make several slits in the plastic, then with a large drill bit, drill holes in the plywood to allow for drainage. Below are two old Squ Fts with left over collards and arugula and two new Squ Fts behind ready for dirt.

The first three are about three years old. The dirt mixture prescribed by the book did not work for me at first because of the large amount of peat. I noticed that water just sat on top and did not penetrate down to the roots. My mother told me that was because I did not saturate the peat before adding it to the beds. I plan on dividing up the existing dirt between all seven beds, so each one has some peat, then add dirt/compost/manure for the rest.

And for my next trick! I charted out what will go in each square foot of the Squ Fts for the spring garden and then charted out seedlings for the four black plant trays I borrowed from Calloways. Oh, the agony! trying to decide how many tomatoes vs. peppers, will we really eat bok choy? are two green bean bushes enough? I finally got things charted out and seeds planted. I followed the recommended two-seed-per-plant and I used a seedling potting mix that had quite alot of peat, so I doused it with water and mixed it in before filling the trays. I had read about some seedling hotpads, and other contraptions, but I figured if those seeds need so much help to germinate, they will never make it through a Texas summer. Even then, I know it is irrational, but I have already checked them twice tonite.

Greg had his own projects today. He trimmed back the cattails by the pond, chopped some firewood, and various other outdoor chores. The last thing I did was to prepare a couple of trellis nettings left over from last year, but I will need several others. I sure hope we don't get another wicked hail storm like we did last summer ..... but I guess a real farmer would say "Welcome to my world."