Cleaning up and building a compost.
Hi there! Welcome back to our Edible Garden Project 2015, part 2. If you want to know what this is all about, please have a look at my first post which explains everything 🙂
This week has been all about cleaning up and harvest the remaining crops before planting a few new vegetables for our fall and winter garden next week. We have a ton of apples and lots of beetroots, some salads and of course the entire freezer full of courgettes (zucchinis). I also finally managed to get in touch with the handyman who is suppose to come with his excavator to dig up the awfully looking and weed-infested gravel path leading to the garage. Hopefully he’ll be able to fix a tap close to the growing area for the garden hose. At the moment I have to drag the hose aaaaall the way around the house and into the hallway! Not the best solution… Anyway, I’m so exited to get rid of all the gravel and to deep dig (adding well-composted horse manure and compost in deep trenches) or make a “lasagna preparation” of the soil for some serious planting next spring.
I have managed to clear out that horrible space behind the garage with promised bruises, nettle burns and thorn cuts as a result. But so totally worth it! Next week I’m heading to Brico (Belgium’s store for gardening and building tools etc.) to buy mi’self a fence for that area. I need to keep the neighbours dog blind for the chickens, plus save them from an ugly compost area. I found so much trash all over the place, I also need to take a trip to the recycle station to get rid of some wood planks and rusty tools that I found on the ground. I also found a metal structure that will be perfect for my cucumbers next year!
This week I also build us a seriously big and useful compost! I used two old pallets against the wall of the garage and I will ask my nice husband to nail them down in the ground with some poles later on. I like the idea of having the compost open in the front. The chickens will use the compost as a playground when they are out and about foraging, hopefully they will poop on it a lot to speed up the composting. Having the front of the compost open will also help when turning it, which is something you should do pretty often. I find the above image useful for knowing what you can and can’t compost. I should actually print it out and put it in the kitchen 😉 I also decided to give that wet and gooey old compost a chance to recover. I’m sure with a little balance of more dry material (cardboard, straw, dry grass, dry leaves etc.) it will be alright and soil nutritious.
Finally I have been hanging out with this little lady: introducing my 2 month old daughter Alva! After all my hard muscle work in the garden, it’s seriously nice to sit down for a while, nursing her and laughing at her toothless smiles. Can you tell I’m completely in love? She is helping us in the garden by watching us work from her stroller and by sleeping so good outside, letting her parents work undisturbed. If she wakes up in the middle of a nap, all I do is starting to whistle or sing (or talk embarrassingly loud to myself!!) while working. Digging and stomping around very loud next to her also works… she falls back asleep straight away. Neat trick, huh? 😉 All kids really want to know that we are close by and that they are safe, right? Anyway, next summer she’ll probably be crawling around in our edible garden, getting dirt on her knees and straight into her mouth, and taking her first steps of course!
raori 