******************************************************************************************* "Gardening With BNT"Your source for gardening ideas including composting tips, pest control tips, attracting beneficial insects and other garden helpers, tips on growing vegetables, annuals and perennials, and much, much, more.
October 1, 2003 Volume 1, Issue 1
Bill and Terry (BNT) Regling, Editors editors@bntscountryparadise.com
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******************************************************************************************* IN THIS ISSUE *******************************************************************************************
=> Four Tips for Designing Your Beds => Guest Column: Composting Easy Way => Garden Tool Nook => Hot Tips => Garden Nook => Be a Weed Eater => Reader's Questions => From Our Readers
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This newsletter is brought to you by www.bntscountryparadise.com
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FOUR TIPS FOR DESIGNING YOUR BEDS
****************************************************************************************** 1. Plants with opposite textures, shapes and/or forms should by planted next to each other in your bed. They compliment each other better than having all of same kinds of flowers in one bed.
2. Keep track of which plants retain good foliage throughout season. You can plant them next to other plants that look scraggily after blooming.
3. Plan a focal point for each month that catches eye with bright color, shape or form.
4. Allow enough space for each plant to grow. Leave about 1 1/2 square feet around each plant. If your garden looks sparse before perennials bloom, plant some annuals to fill it in. But be careful of what you plant, some annuals can grow very large.
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GUEST ARTICLE: COMPOSTING THE EASY WAY by Michael J. McGroarty
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Having an ample supply of good rich compost is gardeners dream. It has many uses, and all of those uses will result in nicer plants. However, composting can be time consuming and hard work. I place a reasonable value on my time, so spending hours and hours turning compost piles doesn’t qualify as a worthwhile exercise, at least in my book. Nonetheless, I do compost, but I do so on my terms.
I built two composting bins. Each bin is five feet wide, five feet deep, and four feet high. I built bins by sinking 4” by 4” posts in ground for corners, and then nailed 2 by 4’s and 1 by 4’s, alternating on sides. I left 2” gaps between boards for air circulation. The 2 by 4’s are rigid enough to keep sides from bowing out, and in between each 2 by 4 I used 1 by 4’s to save a little money. The bins are only 3 sided, I left front of bins open so they can be filled and emptied easily.
I started by filling just one of bins. I put grass clippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings in bins. I try not to put more than 6” of each material on a layer. You don’t want 24” of grass clippings in bin, you should alternate layers of green and brown material. If necessary, keep a few bags of dry leaves around so you can alternate layers of brown waste and green waste. When we root cuttings we use coarse sand in flats, so when it’s time to pull rooted cuttings out of flats, old sand goes on compost pile. In or little backyard nursery we also have some plants in containers that do not survive. Rather than pulling dead plant and weeds out of container, and then dumping potting soil back on soil pile, we just dump whole container in compost bin, this adds more brown material to mix, and is a lot easier than separating soil and weeds.
Once bin is full, rules of composting say that you should turn material in bin every few weeks. There is no way that I have time to do that, so this is what I do. I pack as much material in bin as I can, before I start filling second bin. I pile material as high as I possibly can, and even let it spill out in front of bin. Then I cover all fresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brown material I can find. Then when I’m out working in garden I set a small sprinkler on top of pile and turn it on very low, so a small spray of water runs on material. Since I have a good water well, this doesn’t cost me anything, so I let it run for at least two hours as often as I can. This keeps material damp, and moisture will cause pile to heat up, which is what makes composting action take place.
Once I have first bin completely full, I start using second bin. As material in first bin starts to break down, it will settle, and bin is no longer heaped up, so I just keep shoveling material that I piled in front of bin, up on top of pile, until all material is either in bin, or piled on top of heap. Then I just leave it alone, except to water it once in a while. The watering isn’t necessary, it just speeds process.
Because I don’t turn pile, I can’t expect all of material to rot completely. The material in center is going to break down more than material on edges, but most of it does breakdown quite well.
The next step works great for me because I’ve got a small nursery, so I keep a pile of potting soil on hand at all times. But you can really do same thing by just buying two or three yards of shredded mulch to get started, and piling it up near your compost bins. If you do this, you will always have a supply of good compost to work with.
