Digging New Beds 4

 Hello folks! I have finally finished my new garden beds.

This is a beautiful sight for me. It took a long time to get this done, but these will be permanent beds ...it will be worth all the work in the future. I didn't keep track of how many hours it took to complete, but I estimate around 50 hours.

As with the first bed, I still need to dig in some lime.... about 5 pounds per 100 square feet. I'm also adding about 10 pounds of coffee grounds to add some nitrogen. I'm thinking this will help speed up the decomposition of the leaves that I dug in to the bed.

The lime that I'm using is a new product from a company named Sunniland. It is a blend of calcitic lime and dolomite lime. It adds calcium and magnesium and helps raise the ph of our acidic soil. I haven't had the soil tested, but this area is known to have acidic soil. Hopefully it will help.


Soooo......Until next time......HAPPY GARDENING!

Practice What You Preach !!! (Revisited)

Sunday I visited a local Starbucks for the first time. I asked if they had any used coffee grounds. The young lady said "Sure" and gave me two water proof bags of grounds.

Right on the label it read...GROUNDS FOR YOUR GARDEN...FREE... along with instructions for how to use the grounds as a nitrogen fertilizer or in your compost pile. And a "Thank You" for taking the grounds! I was quite impressed! I suggest going to Starbucks for coffee and grounds, if there is one in your area. They cater to the organic gardener and are eco-friendly. WAY TO GO STARBUCKS!!

I left with 17 pounds of grounds!

So I spent the afternoon building a compost pile. Using the leaves I found the day before, I emptied the bags one at a time, spread them on the ground and pulled out the larger sticks.

Then used my bagging mower to shred them.
 I suggest using a dust mask when doing this.

 

Then spread them out in my compost bin and sprinkled on the grounds with the coffee filters.

Then I sprayed it down good with water. I added a little soil from the garden after every other layer to introduce micro-organisms to break down the leaves. I repeated this process till I used up all the grounds. This job took about 2 hours, but I ended up with a pile that's 4 feet by 4 feet by 3.5 feet high.

 

I plan on building some more smaller piles in 3 feet diameter cylinders made with chicken wire. I don't want to get into a jam and not have enough compost for my beds,ever again.

By the way, I was able to pick up 7 more bags of leaves from my neighbor up the street from me. That is a total of 21 bags so far and I'm sure I'll be getting more.


Soooo......Until next time....... HAPPY GARDENING!