New with a few questions

[Crabbergirl]

Ron has a great idea there with composting directly in the bed. I have found that if you run over your leaves with the mower and catch them , they are a lot easier to work into the soil. Small pieces will compost faster too.
Our local landfill facility has free composted mulch. It is a little chunky but it will make great compost when mixed with soil and re composted. You might check your local facilities and see if they have mulch or compost. I get about 6 yards a year, and I like that they load it for me. Now if I can just figure out how to get them to unload it

 

[mr_yan]

Composting directly in the beds is easiest. Lasagna is just a complicated method of this.

You said you had both a lot of lawn to mow and a lot of fall leafs on hand. Kill two birds with one stone here. Spread the leafs on the lawn then mow and bag them. The mower will chop the leafs and mix it with grass clippings and it is about perfect to place in a pile to compost down fast.

 

[handygardener]

hi

onions don't do well if they are overwatered. Their bulbs also act as storage for water so too much watering can make them rot.

Thank you!

I was thinking of digging out all the clay and starting from scratch but I looked at prices, and that would be really pricey.

What I plan on doing is getting some quickrete all purpose sand and compost and do what crab said. Once I figure out the right combination, I will do the whole raised bed.

Also I came home last night and my onion was looking really bad, I took the trays out of the self waterer for today, and i'll see what happens.

 

[handygardener]

I agree.. double agree!

I agree with crabbergirl and ronsgarden with composting directly on the garden soil. Plus mulch helps control growth of weeds!

Ron has a great idea there with composting directly in the bed. I have found that if you run over your leaves with the mower and catch them , they are a lot easier to work into the soil. Small pieces will compost faster too.
Our local landfill facility has free composted mulch. It is a little chunky but it will make great compost when mixed with soil and re composted. You might check your local facilities and see if they have mulch or compost. I get about 6 yards a year, and I like that they load it for me. Now if I can just figure out how to get them to unload it

 

[RonsGarden]

I call it the trench method!
I find my compost bin fills up quickly during the fall and winter!
So, as long as the soil isn't frozen I dig trenchs and bury kitchen scaps as I go along!
I have a stainless steel pail (with a lid) in the kitchen and empty it once a week!
For oak leaves I use an electric shredder/blower machine to shred them up!
Bits a pieces break down quicker then whole leaves!
To mulch the veggie garden after planting, I have an endless supply of algae the washes up along the shore from June to early August! I spread it between the rows.
It breaks down slowly and turn it under in the fall after the crops are done for the season!

 

[Xandrew245x]

I have had them out of the watering tray for the past two days, and everything looks much better, I'm not going to put them back in, I'll just manually water when needed, they were giving way to much water.

 

[Crabbergirl]

So glad you can recover! Keep us posted on how things are going. I think you will be very happy once you get the amending done So great to look back at something that was a challenge , that you put effort into that turned out GREAT! Good luck.

 

[Xandrew245x]

Well I have a few of the raised beds filled up with leaves, waiting for another nice day to finish the rest. Today I did manage to get my new composter together and filled it with fresh damp grass clippings. It is just a square plastic bin about 2 and a half feet in size and about 4 feet deep, what is the easiest way to agitate the grass clippings to speed up the composting process?

I also added some grass clippings around the plants I already had planted, and kept them plenty far away from my plants so they don't get hurt.

 

[Crabbergirl]

If you have a small tiller that can be a great way to "stir" your mix but you sacrifice worms sometimes.using a "pitch fork" it the best mannual tools for turning compost. Also you don't want to turn it too often. Make sure to keep it damp but not saturated( unless you get ants in the pile then you will want to flood it for a couple days to run the ants out). If you have some other things to add , layer them in. If not turn the pile when you see the grass on top turning the color of straw.
Is your bin open to the ground on the bottom? If not you may want to add some of the soil from the beds into the bin. It will help to make a better "compost soil" Also some of the leaves mixed in will help too. I compost grass piles for a couple months , by the time they are done, they will be real light and fluffy if you have not added other things to the mix.

 

[Xandrew245x]

My bin is sitting on the ground with a screen to keep rodents out. I filled te bin clear full so I don't have any room for anything else. How can I gauge when I need to add water to my pile?

 

[lynpenny]

I go out and use a fork to stir mine. when it is full it is hard to do and i mostly just compost leaves. I usely take a full year to compost them and I don't stir as much as I should but my bin has one side that can be opened so I can get down in it to stir them. If it is dry then I add water but the rain usually takes care of that for me.

 

[RonsGarden]

I don't turn mine, but I do use a length of pipe to open up the centre of the pile to let air in.

 

[Xandrew245x]

Well even after my efforts to prevent it, I lost my cantaloupe plants to frost the other night. I have new ones germinating inside just in case anyways, and they are much bigger and healthier then the ones I planted outside, so are the majority of the other plants I germinated.

 

[Randy]

Our nights are usually too cool to do well with melons. Our official frost date is tax day, April 15, but too often we still have a killing frost after that, so I stretch it out to May 15.

 

[Xandrew245x]

I'm going to wait a while to replant the new ones, I think i'm going to have to transplant them into a pot or something, they are getting way to big.

 

[Crabbergirl]

Hoppers got my first watermelons! grrrrr. Lubbers are my biggest pest. The leaves are already coming backon the melons. So I look for a full recovery.