What did you do in the garden today?

[pennyJo1960]

Great looking peeps Oldhen they are so much fun my hatch of three all cockerel will go by the mexicans let them know there are birds for sale no auction anymore

 

[igorsMistress]

Wish I could have a compost heap. I tried with the tumbler, but... I live in town - the neighbor is within 50 feet of my coop and compost tumbler- you know, the kind you turn every few days and then in a few weeks, dump out rich black soil- well, I had it pretty full with leaves, grass clippings, veggie debris and chicken poop. I turned it like I was supposed to and one day, decided to dump the black dirt onto a tarp so I could shovel it up and move into the garden. I can not tell you how many -hundreds- of large water bugs- palmetto bugs- cockroaches( the name for those is regional) fell out of that thing and scattered. HOOOO!!! I was really horrified, the chickens were delighted. I got rid of the tumbler, called the orkin man (noticed the orkin man in the neighbors house behind mine about a week later). Now I just use a bucket with a lid and only use it to transport poop to the garden and I bury it immediately.

Perhaps too much green and not enough brown in the tumblers, I add shredded cardboard and such to mine.

 

[igorsMistress]

Good morning gardeners. The sun isn’t up yet but I’m headed out to move the last of the mulch and pull a few weeds this morning. Tomorrow will be adding dirt to the garden and getting ready to plant some seeds in the next week or two. Here are a couple of pics from yesterday. Have a great day all.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. We've finally got a good amount of rain. Right now it's 2 inches or more. Still not enough to put a dent in our severe drought, but welcome just the same. It will be Tuesday before I'll be able to tackle more chores outside, but I should be able to finally get in the garden and clean it up. That's a little confusing about the compost tumbler @oldhen2345. I have a tumbler close to my house that I use for kitchen scraps and the only thing I've had growing in there is sprouting seeds from spoiled produce. I don't put bread or citrus peels in there or meat bones, just vegetable scraps, washed eggshells and leaves & paper. It smells like compost. I get bugs in my big "cold" compost piles where I toss the pine shavings and poo from the chicken coop. But the resident chipmunks do a good job of keeping them under control. Good luck with that. The green house is looking great @Compost King. I am looking forward to seeing how your ginger grows. Have a great day everyone.

 

[Acre4Me]

I get bugs in my big "cold" compost piles where I toss the pine shavings and poo from the chicken coop.

My pile houses some impressive spiders!! I went to turn it when it was still warm, and there were some impressive spiders that scattered- these are the ones that are more lateral movers, rather than climbers, dark in color, easy to spot due to their size. My kid calls them wolf spiders - might be, not sure. All I know is that I wear my tall boots when I've got to mess with the pile. But, spiders are pretty ubiquitous, so it isn't surprising. Warm weather produces some flies, but we try to keep them at bay by covering new additions and the flies haven't been too bad.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

I don’t count spiders as long as they are outside. They eat smaller bugs. But I haven’t noticed any bugs in the tumbler. The piles are a whole different thing. That’s why I don’t add food scraps to them.

 

[BReeder!]

Wish I could have a compost heap. I tried with the tumbler, but... I live in town - the neighbor is within 50 feet of my coop and compost tumbler- you know, the kind you turn every few days and then in a few weeks, dump out rich black soil- well, I had it pretty full with leaves, grass clippings, veggie debris and chicken poop. I turned it like I was supposed to and one day, decided to dump the black dirt onto a tarp so I could shovel it up and move into the garden. I can not tell you how many -hundreds- of large water bugs- palmetto bugs- cockroaches( the name for those is regional) fell out of that thing and scattered. HOOOO!!! I was really horrified, the chickens were delighted. I got rid of the tumbler, called the orkin man (noticed the orkin man in the neighbors house behind mine about a week later). Now I just use a bucket with a lid and only use it to transport poop to the garden and I bury it immediately.

That's a problem I have not had with piles. I also used tumblers before though, and when they were too wet inside they seemed to attract bugs. It's important to keep tumblers moist but not wet. Drainage vents are crucial.

Also, I simply ditched the tumblers all together. Mine we're DIY and it was more work turning then than turning a pile. The piles holds way more material too. The tumblers would get full and I would have to throw away comparable materials. That's actually what led to the development of my first pile.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

True the tumbler is small, however I’m not comfortable adding food scraps to the big open piles of compost. We have bears, raccoons, chipmunks and who knows what lurking in the woods. Whatever lands in those open piles is subject to rummaging by whatever strolls along.

 

[igorsMistress]

I made a trip to Home Depot after I finished moving the mulch and watered a few things. No marjoram to be found but I did get some lemon balm. The mint has grown considerably in its pot and looks quite happy as do the other herbs. I also picked up a pot with three bells of fire in it, going to put one in with the yellow bells and the other two out in the yard somewhere, and a few oleanders because I may have forgotten to water the two that I had in pots already. I’m terrible about remembering the stuff out front until it’s about too late so I need things out there that can be neglected obviously. I also got 4 bags of soil for the garden that I need to haul out there and spread. The garden center was very busy this morning, lots of people buying tomatoes and peppers and herbs. I must say it’s busier this fall than it has been in a long time! Usually it’s the snow birds buying annuals to grow while they’re here but today it was a lot of younger folks buying food starts and flowers to attract pollinators. The marigolds were flying off the cart before the guy could even get them set out.

 

[igorsMistress]

True the tumbler is small, however I’m not comfortable adding food scraps to the big open piles of compost. We have bears, raccoons, chipmunks and who knows what lurking in the woods. Whatever lands in those open piles is subject to rummaging by whatever strolls along.

I like my tumbler! Our neighbors have had roof rats because the folks behind them don’t keep their fruit picked up so I only toss out what my flock will eat in the big pile, but all other fruit and veg scraps go in the tumblers for similar reasons. I mean we don’t have bears, but no sense in attracting rats.