Unusually warm weather

It is March 20th and the temperature is going to be close to 80 degrees.  Usually the garlic is just poking through on the warm days and there is no thought of planting anything else.  However, we are going to take advantage of the weather and put in some radishes, spinach, and lettuce.  The garlic however is loving the warm weather.  You can see it is up to almost 8 inches tall and about 1/2 of the onions have sprouted already.

There are 9 plants per square foot, equaling 36 heads of garlic and 108 onions.  The best part of square foot gardening, is that I can have a box prepped for planting in an hour or so.  Fill up the boxes with some new compost, put down new strings to mark off the square feet, and start planting.  No tilling, very little weeding, and a lot of food grown in a small area.

If you are interested, check out Mel's book:

Compost

For some reason, I've always been infatuated with compost.  The idea of taking plant material, piling it up, and it turns into dirt has amazed me from the time I was a kid until now.  I remember gathering grass clippings as a kid, shredding them, and turning them weekly, always in shock at the heat generated in the middle of the pile.  On our 4 acre homestead, I have 3 compost bins that are 5x5x4.  That is big enough for me to turn the compost with my front loader and to hold all of the compost we have.  We moved onto an old pony farm and the barn hadn't been cleaned out for several years.  I still have a large 40x10 stall clean out and put into the bins (which will require me to build a 4th bin).

Anyway, compost has been on my mind.  Yesterday I cleaned out 1/2 of my boxes from last year, taking the old, dry plants to the bins and layering with loads of manure from the barn.  I don't own a chipper/shredder yet, mainly because new ones cost way too much, so I'm waiting to find one at an auction.

With the rainy season in Western PA upon us, this is the perfect time to get the new compost working and by layering the dry material with the manure and sawdust from the barn, it should all break down nicely by summer.  I have 100 cu. ft. of compost ready to go for the year, so this new batch can work for an entire year before being put into use.  Frankly, I like the longer wait time as it allows the seeds to break down and there aren't as many weeds when it is used. Once we get our rabbits, their manure will contribute to the compost and by next year I'll have 100 cu.ft. of black gold.

For anyone that is getting into gardening, I can't emphasize enough the benefit of composting.  You are going to have vegetables that are unusable, grass clippings, leaves, kitchen waste, and your spent plants.  Rather than throw all of that out, start a compost bin and turn that into nutrients for your garden next year.  The results from that black gold far surpasses what I've ever gotten from dirt + fertilizer.  As a matter of fact, last year I had 6 foot high pepper plants and more than enough produce without using any fertilizer at all.

Happy composting.

Planting Onion Sets

The garlic popped up about 10 days ago, right on schedule with the daffodils.  With the 60+ degree temperatures we've had and the amazing weather forecast, I decided it was time to put the onions in the ground.  This is probably 4 weeks earlier than I would have normally planted them, however everything is defrosted and the forecast is for 60 degree temps for the foreseeable future.

For those of you who don't know, I have a square foot garden, which is raised beds, 4x4 feet split into 1 foot squares.  I planted onions in 12 squares, 9 per square, giving me 108 potential onions.  Half are sweet onions, the other half are red onions.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they do since I've never planted onion sets before, always planted seeds.

I also turned my compost and started cleaning out the big stall in the barn.  The big stall is 10x40 and has 4 years of horse bedding and manure in it, left over from the previous owner.  This is going to be my wood shop, so it is time for it to get cleaned out.  I might have to create another compost bin in order to hold everything and have one for rotation. I definitely need to get a chipper/shredder.  I've been putting it off, but I need to shred the left over plants from last years garden and it would be nice to shred the manure/bedding that i'm cleaning out.