Starting a new batch of compost

Carrie, mkimmi, and floridalgr - welcome, and thanks for following my blog!

Since fresh grass clippings are really in abundance right now, I decided to go ahead and get a third bin started from some of the shredded leaves leftover from last year. I mean...fresh grass clippings, shredded leaves, and hot ambient temperatures really make for a rapidly decomposing bin full of materials, and I intend to take advantage of the opportunity! Those grass clippings get things REALLY heated up quick, and not much turning is required, either! This is what was put into bin #1.....

Photo below - bin #3 has (around 90% finished) compost in it, which will be left to do it's own thing until next spring. If everyone only knew all the hard work that went into this batch to get it this far, they would certainly be surprised. Dealing with the frigid temperatures earlier in the year sure did make things go slowly for the cycle, but will be well worth the trouble in the end. About 25 lbs of UCG's in bags are laying on top for the newly started batch in bin #1. They'll be added once the pile has been reduced just a little bit.....

Photo below - here's the same things in bin #5, and should easily yield at least 50 cubic feet of finished compost for next year's garden. This particular one has the most diverse group of contents in it, because it was the one that received most of the dry molasses, dry dog food, and also UCG's out the wazoo.....In all, I guess around 300 lbs. of of nitrogen-rich ingredients were added throughout the entire cycle...

Photo below - with tomato plants growing from it, this pile of shredded leaves was trimmed down in size as much as possible without disturbing the plant roots. In November, they'll be added to bin #1, because i'm sure it's contents will have shrunk significantly by that time. (probably even finished) Boy, this is gonna be a relaxing winter around my house, because no pile turning will have to be performed......

Other things......Since I didn't have enough soil on hand to pot up all of the japanese maple seedlings, I decided to just consolidate all the soil in the containers and keep 7 plants. Besides - I have enough things to water around here. These will be kept for at least 2-3 years, then sold to the public. They'll likely get to spend the winter inside the coldframes - that is, if they'll still fit in there once cold weather arrives....

Photo below - although this side of the shed looks kinda junky becuase of all the clutter, I wanted to show you my hose that is used to get water from the rainbarrels and out to the garden. At only 100 feet long, it'll only reach to the swp section, but with another 50 feet should easily make it to the majority of things. All I know, is that dealing with the long hose is way easier than hauling 50-60 gallons of water out there in buckets. Whew! A small pump might be introduced later too, whcih will make watering much faster.

In other news, I can safely say that at least 5 congo watermelons growing in the 18 gallon swc were pollinated. Yeehaw! Since I really want them to grow as big as possible, i'll have to remove all future female flowers so the plants' efforts are focused into these 5. An aggressive fertilization shedule will be followed too, because they'll get most of their growth over the first 3 weeks....

Also, the plums are ripe, but most have been damaged by the plum curculio (pest that bores into the fruit). That's ok, there weren't many that got pollinated anyway....It's an even trade for the bumper crop of muscadine grapes that we'll definitely have this year. I can't complain.....

Take care, and happy gardening!

EG