4 TIPS FOR USING A CHIPPER-SHREDDER

I spent many, many hours dealing with leaves last weekend. I say "dealing with" because removing the leaves from the lawn and getting them to their final resting place involves a series of machines and every once in awhile an actual human-powered rake.

My method mostly involves using our lawn tractor to mulch and bag the leaves on the lawn and then to run them over to the chipper-shredder, run them through that, then add them to the compost bin.

A quick break for a disclaimer: Both the lawn tractor and chipper-shredder I have came from Troy-Bilt and were given to me to test as part of my work for them as part of their Saturday6 blogging team. (You can read my reviews of them here and here.)  Of course I've not been told what to say and all opinions are my own. I was not asked to write this post, but since I'm using Troy-Bilt tools in it, I wanted to give you the full spiel.

Because there were a lot of leaves down, it didn't take me long to suck up two bags full with the mower bagger. So I fired up the chipper-shredder about every 10 minutes. Repeatedly.

Which means that I have a whole new slew of tips about using a chipper-shredder. The one I have is the largest and most powerful model that Troy-Bilt makes, but it's still a homeowners' version, as will most chipper-shredders that people use at their homes will be. The point is, don't expect these machines to do what professional model chipper-shredders, like you see arborists and city street crews using, do.

Here are a few tips I picked up from lots of firsthand experience over the course of the summer and particularly into fall.

A closeup of leaves after shredding.

1. A LITTLE BIT AT A TIME

Chipper-shredders have a ton of safety features built into them, which is good, particularly if you've ever seen the movie "Fargo." Pretty much the only ways you can get yourself in trouble are sticking your hands into the machine (which is not easy to do) or not wearing eye protection in case something comes flying out of it (which I've not experienced but I don't take chances with my eyes).

But one sure way to block the whole program up is to try to put too much through it at one time. If you put too many leaves in the hopper at one point, nothing gets sucked through, so in order to clear it you either have to turn the machine off, pull everything out and start over or start poking around with a large stick. Yes, I did that. Yes, I realize you should absolutely NEVER EVER do that. But the first method for clearing is a big drag.

Better you just avoid any of it by putting in small amounts of material at one time. This meant that instead of just dumping the entire collection bag from the mower into the hopper, I would gradually pour it out. This took a little more time but it was much faster than constantly stopping to clear the clog.

2. DRIER IS BETTER

I started working on my leaf collection project first thing in the morning when the leaves were still  covered in dew so they were pretty wet. What I found was the damper the material I was putting in was, the more likely the machine was to clog and the smaller the amount I put in at one time needed to be. Once I figured it this out things went smoothly, but upon further review, I think I would have saved a lot of time if I had just waited for the sun to dry everything off before I started putting stuff through the shredder.

The same goes for other garden waste. I also put through most of what I cut out of the garden. This was harder as stems and other plant material didn't drop to the bottom of the hopper as easily as leaves, but I got around that by doing some strategic loading. Small bundles at a time were needed.

By shredding all my leaves I was able to fit them all in the compost bin.

3. RESPECT SIZE LIMITS

My chipper-shredder can grind up branches up to 3 inches in diameter and it does a great job with it. In fact, I wish I had more branches to put through it because it makes the best mulch I've ever seen. But when they say 3 inches, they mean 3 inches. I put a branch that was probably only 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter in it and it ate it all up, until it got to a big knot, or maybe where it had attached to another branch, which was bigger than 3 inches and it stopped it up good. This, of course, meant  stopping the whole thing, making very sure that all the parts were finished spinning, and then going in there to pull it out, which was not easy.

4. KEEP THE BAG STRAIGHT

I suppose that there are different kinds of collection systems for different chipper-shredders. But on the one I have, there is a long bag that attaches to the chute. I quickly found out that it's crucial that the bag is laying flat on the ground, not twisted. When you start up the machine it's obvious when all is right because the bag will inflate.

I would estimate that shredding the leaves I collected about doubled the time I spent on that project last weekend. That's not an insignificant amount of time. But what I ended up with was lovely, tiny bits of leaves that will break down very quickly and all fit in my compost bin. I've always saved leaves, but before I shredded them, I would just keep them in piles by the compost bin, allowing some to break down by themselves for leaf mould and I'd add the rest to the compost as needed. In either case, the decomposition process took a long time.

My hope is that with everything so nicely shredded, I'll have a lot of finished compost to use by late spring or early summer. If that is the case, the extra work will have been well worth it.

Really good compost requires layering green material with brown material at a ratio of about 1-to-20. Comfrey is a great plant for the compost, so I cut all the leaves off my comfrey patch and layered them on top of shredded leaves. There is so much moisture in these leaves that it was difficult to shred them without it ending up like it had been through a juicer, but they will still break down quickly. After everything starts breaking down, I'll give the pile a good stir to aerate it and add water if necessary.

There are more leaves still to fall, of course, and even though the compost bin is getting pretty full (I've been dutifully layering it with greens as well), I have plans for the rest of the shredded leaves I'll produce. More and more I've been reading about the importance of fall mulching of garden beds, and finely shredded leaves are a perfect material for that. They will certainly be put to good use there. I also like to heavily mulch the roots of some of the less hardy plants I grow, so shredded leaves (which won't blow away) will be great for that too.

Because this is my first year shredding leaves (although we've mulched them with the mower for a few), I won't really know if the extra step was worth it until next year, but I have to think it is.

10 SPRING JOBS TO GET YOUR GARDEN IN GEAR

I love a good to-do list.

For the most part, April is the first real opportunity to get back in the garden in this area and although this week is cold and wet, soon it'll be time to clean up the yard. So in honor of tomorrow being April and my love of to-do lists, here's a list of some spring cleanup chores.

Affiliate links may be used.

1. CUT BACK PERENNIALS

Be careful when cutting back perennials left standing for winter. You don't want to damage new growth like on this sedum.

 Anything that wasn't cut back in fall should be taken care of now. For plants with stiff stems, such as echinacea, they will often just pull straight out. Other plants with lots of foliage, such as pulmonaria and lady's mantel, just sort of collapse over winter so I lift up the leaves and chop them back as close to the crown as I dare, being careful to look for new growth. Grasses are another plant to be careful when cutting back. If you cut off any new growth when cutting off the dead bits, you'll have grasses without tips, so a little caution is in order.

This hakonechloa is due to be cut back. I'll be careful to check for any new shoots that may be hiding under that mop and not cut them off. 

2. PRUNE CLEMATIS
Since my current clematis count is somewhere in the mid 20s, this isn't a small task for me, but more and more, I've been planting group 3 clematis that simple need to be cut back to a couple buds above the ground. In that case the bigger issue is trying to remember where they are all planted. Group 2 clematis, often the large-flowering varieties,  require a different treatment. I follow a rule of thirds with Group 2s, leaving one third of the stems untouched, lightly pruning another third of the stems and trimming the last third of stems almost to ground. I also take the opportunity to rearrange the stems, usually cutting off the twining bits and reattaching them with ties to whatever support they grow up. I only have one Group 1 clematis, and these are generally not pruned. Because it is a good grower and I'm afraid it may eat my new magnolia tree, I prune it lightly right after flowering, which is very early in the season. If you don't need to contain the growth, then you needn't prune them other than to remove dead bits.

'Guernsey Cream' may be my favorite clematis. It's a Group 2 so I use a rule-of-thirds approach to pruning it in spring.

If you don't know what kind of clematis you have, don't prune it at all. All of them will be OK without any pruning, at least for a year, it's just that the blooms may be much higher than you'd like and the vine may be a bit tangled. Try to identify what kind it is when it blooms so you know what to do next year. Several years of not pruning will lead to an unsightly clematis.

The exception to this is with new clematis that were planted last year. Regardless of what group they are, I think it's best to cut these back like Group 3s, which allows the plant to put more energy into the roots rather than producing flowers. You'll sacrifice some of this year's show, but it will be worth it for the long-term health of the vine.

I also fertilize my clematis when I do my spring pruning. I use Espoma Rose-Tone, and just use a small amount around the roots, watering it in well.


3. PRUNE (SOME) HYDRANGEAS
I already pruned the big Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' in my yard and I should have done the others a month ago, but there's still time. This hydrangea puts on amazing amounts of growth, so you can prune it back to 1 to 3 feet and it'll be beautiful and big. If you'd like it larger, prune less.

Last year I didn't cut the Limelights by the deck back by much because they were relatively new shrubs (the before and after follows), but this year I'll cut them back a little more severely. They have grown enough that they flower above the deck handrail now.

Before pruning

After pruning

For the so-called smooth hydrangeas in my yard—Hydrangea arborescens including 'Incrediball,' 'Annabelle' and 'Invicibelle Spirit'—I prune them back nearly to the ground. This excellent pruning guide from Proven Winners recommends leaving some stems as a framework, but I rarely do that.

Bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla), lacecaps (Hydrangea serrata) and oakleafs (Hydrangea quercifolia) shouldn't be pruned at this time of year, with the exception of removing dead stems, which can and should be done any time of the year.


4. CLEAN OUT THE GARDEN
Leaves that fall in autumn can create big mats in the garden that can make it difficult for plants to emerge. I like to clean up the garden, clearing the way for plants to grow and allowing me to keep a close eye on what is growing. It's easy to spot small weeds when they can't hide under leftover fall detritus. The problem, of course, is that perennials are shooting up all over the place and it's easy to crush new shoots inadvertently when you're standing in the garden to rake it out.

From string trimmer to chainsaw-on-a-stick to high-powered blower (attachment below). Makes spring cleanup much easier!

I like to use a leaf blower for this job because you can't damage young plants and you can clean out areas deep in the garden without having to step in it. You may recall that last fall I tested the Troy-Bilt TB60044 Straight Shaft String Trimmer with the JumpStart engine starter (which gets my vote for invention of the decade). I loved the fact that you can easily swap out a variety of attachments for it and it just so happens that there is also a blower attachment for their TrimmerPlus line, so that is perfect for this job.  I'll be testing out a new Troy-Bilt leaf blower soon that is battery powered and full of cool technology so I can't wait to tell you what I think about it.


5. PULL WEEDS

See that little bugger? That is baby garlic mustard weed and it's already popping up all over the place here. I'm trying to pull it anywhere I find it to get ahead of this garden thug. 

It is amazing to me how many weeds are already thriving in the garden. It's a never-ending fight, but dig out what you can now to make for less work later.


6. GIVE THE LAWN ITS FIRST CUT
When the lawn starts growing, which is will very soon, a first cut will make everything look better. A mulching mower will also clean up all of the other bits and pieces left laying around on it, and it will set the stage for a healthy lawn for the rest of the summer. Just make sure to keep the blades nice and high.


7. PLANT EARLY SEASON CROPS

Sugar snap peas started inside and transplanted into the garden.

Peas, kale, spinach and lettuce are all cool season crops that will withstand plenty of cold weather so an early sowing can get you eating vegetables from your own garden early on.


8. WORK ON YOUR COMPOST

A shot of my compost thermometer last spring, when my pile topped out at 140 degrees! I was so proud and now there's a new standard set that I'll have to meet this spring.

My compost pile goes pretty much dormant in winter but as soon as it thaws out I get out there and start stirring. I'll add the material I clean out of the garden and if it needs a kick of nitrogen-rich material, which is not uncommon after all the carbon-rich leaves and garden waste I threw in there in fall, I add a 5-gallon bucket full of rehydrated alfalfa cubes, which is a great source of "greens" for the compost pile. That usually gets everything cooking again and so long as I stay on top of the stirring and watering if necessary, my pile will be hot by the end of May and I'll be making finished compost quickly.


9. EDGE YOUR GARDEN BEDS
I say this all the time, but I know of no other garden chore that makes your garden look pulled together more than edging beds. A crisp edge will make you look past all manner of garden sins, and if you get a good edge early in the season, all you'll need later is a few touch-ups here and there.


10. MULCH. OR NOT.

I know of no other aspect of gardening that is as controversial as mulching. Whether to mulch, what to mulch with and when to mulch will probably be debated by gardeners until the end of time. The most important of these questions, I think, is what to mulch with. It must be an organic material (that is, no ground up rubber, please), it should break down quickly and you should be careful where you source it from.

I like to mulch with compost, leaf mold or pine bark fines, none of which are particular easy to find in mass quantities. I don't care for large chunks of wood and certainly not dyed wood chips. But this year, I may not mulch at all. Invasive so-called jumping worms have come to our area (they are gross and horribly damaging and more than a little scary and I'll tell you all about them soon), and the DNR is still trying to get a handle on making recommendations on managing them. One of the main sources that could bring them into the garden is eggs in mulch, so I'm very wary about bringing mulch into my garden right now. (By the way, they've also been found in many other states.)

If I do mulch, I will probably use mulched leaves from my yard and my neighbor's yard that have been rotting down for a year or more.

I always learned that if you are going to mulch, you should let your soil warm up first, but there is also a benefit to applying mulch before many weeds have a chance to get going. One thing is for sure: If you are going to mulch, be selective in your sources and keep it away from the base of plants.


AND ONE DON'T
At this time of year, you can probably do more harm than good trudging around your garden. Stepping on emerging perennials is no good and even worse, compacting the soil is really bad. So even though I've just given you a list of a lot of thing that require stepping in the garden, try to limit the traffic there. If you can use a board to distribute your weight when you step in prune something, that will help. It's also not great to dig in wet soil as it can damage the soil structure. So don't get ahead of yourself. Your garden will thank you.

What's your favorite spring garden chore, or the one you hate the most?


This post was sponsored by Troy-Bilt, which compensates me to be part of its Saturday6 blogging team. Of course all opinions are my own!

A BUSY AND HOT TIME IN THE GARDEN

Sorry I've been blogging so intermittently lately; things are busier than I would like and I have been working on this week's window box post for a really long time!

Anyway, allow me to catch you up on what's happening.

First off, the most exciting thing to happen in my garden perhaps ever.

Do you see that? That's the temperature of my compost pile and one that I'm pretty sure it has never reached before. After months of just piling stuff in there but paying no other attention to it, last week I spent about an hour getting that thing in shape. I peeled off the whole top layer and put as much as I could fit in a wheelbarrow. Then I took the rest of it and put the left side on top of the right side and then shifted it all back and threw the wheelbarrow stuff back on, watering in between every layer. Five days later I was flirting with 140 degrees! That hot will discourage worms but for now I'll take the heat because I think I have a few weed seeds in there. I'm noticing that some of the places where I put compost last year seem to have new garlic mustard weed plants and I think the compost was the culprit.

Last weekend was not great for us weather-wise (would you believe we are still having frost warnings?) but I did get a fair amount done in the garden. I've been slowly making my way around the garden edging, weeding and mulching, and the areas that are finished look so good I can hardly take my eyes off them. Even parts of the garden that are pretty bare either because perennials there didn't come back or because they are waiting for annuals look fantastic.

I planted an Aralia 'Silver Umbrella' over the weekend. I've been looking for this plant for a long time and finally ordered it from Broken Arrow Nursery. I hope it will be a stunner.

The portable greenhouse is utterly behind capacity. I need the weather to warm up so that I can move some things out.

I'm way behind on the vegetable garden and really need to carve out some time for that. So far all I have planted is peas, which have germinated poorly, and parsley grown from seed this winter.

'Thundercloud' sedum

I spent Monday helping move plants from a wholesale nursery near the Wisconsin-Illinois border for our master gardener plant sale. Mr. Much More Patient built a couple of elevated trays so I could almost double the capacity in my car. We fit about 130 gallon-sized perennials in there! I also picked up a few plants I was planning to buy, including some 'Thundercloud' sedums which are supposed to stay in this lovely ball shape and appeal to my bizarre love of meatball plants.

Me and Ted, the creator behind this Katie's Krops garden.

I spent Thurdsday at the grand opening of a Katie's Krops garden in Wisconsin as part of my partnership with Troy-Bilt. I can't wait to tell you all about the great kid who is behind this garden and my day there.

This coming weekend is our master gardener plant sale. We've gone totally nuts this year and we'll be selling 15,000 plants in THREE hours. If you're in southeastern Wisconsin, please come and shop until you drop! The plant sale tends to take up all my time between now and then, so my own garden will have to continue waiting for awhile. We've got a bit of a weather delay anyway. Have a wonderful weekend!

A COMPOST CONUNDRUM

One of the trees we took down in our latest round of tree trimming and (dead tree) removal was an evergreen that the compost bin was located next to. Even though the only thing that shielded the bin was a (rather large) bare trunk, it somehow made the placement of the compost bin make sense. Now that the tree is gone the bin is RIGHT THERE and seems to have been plunked right in the middle of the yard.

As you approach our house from the road, the first view you get of our house is through the trees, with the compost pile right in the middle of the view.

Yep, not so attractive.

Moving a compost bin isn't that big of a deal. It's actually a really good excuse to give the pile a proper turning and pull out the remainder of finished compost (which is at the bottom, still frozen solid). The problem is where to move it to.

Even though I think my compost bin isn't too visually offensive, it's not exactly charming. And of course there are ways to screen a bin. But the easiest way to deal with a compost bin, is to stick it somewhere that is convenient to access but completely out of your line of sight.

I've come up with two potential places to move it to. One is just about 10 feet behind where the bin is now, tucked up under a couple large evergreens. The other is over by the raised vegetable gardens, shielded from the road by another large evergreen.

OPTION 1

You can see where I've started moving the pile already, but now I'm rethinking the placement.

OPTION 2

That bare spot sort of by that pine tree would be a sunnier location for the pile. 

I have no doubt that the second location is the one that is better for compost production. It's a sun vs. shade situation and material breaks down much faster the warmer it is. Organic matter will, of course, decompose no matter what, but the speed at which that happens is affected in part by temperature.

The second location is also better from a "shield from the road" perspective. One of the things I dislike the most about the current location is that now that the tree is gone, the very first thing you see when you are driving up to our house is the compost bin. "Welcome friends, please put your fruit and veggie kitchen waste in the bin as you leave."

But I'm pretty sure we would see the bin from the house if we look that direction. And there's a chance I might someday want to claim that bit of sun for another raised bed. And, to be perfectly lazy about it ... it's a much longer way to move a pile.

I've got plenty of time to think about it. The bottom of the pile is absolutely a frozen block of ice. I tried to jam a shovel in it over the weekend and chips of ice literally flew out. Maybe that's one more thing to think about: if I move it to the shadier spot, I probably won't have a thawed pile until July.

Garden tasks to pass the time

First of all, if you're finding this blog from Young House Love, welcome! I'm thrilled you popped over to see the blog and I hope you enjoy it. I tend to jump around topic-wise, ranging from renovations (currently we're working on our kitchen) to gardening to DIY projects. If you like what you see, you might want to consider getting posts by e-mail, which you can sign up for just over there ----> to the right.

I was surprised and so honored that John and Sherry from the fabulous Young House Love blog (and New York Times bestselling book) featured our house renovation on their blog yesterday. I loved reading people's comments about it and I'm happy that some people found a little inspiration in it.

I know I'm not the only frustrated gardener out there chomping at the bit for spring. Winter is hanging on a bit long in many parts of the country. So to help us all out of our funk, I thought I'd share a few things you can do now to get ready for gardening. Some of these things depend a bit on what part of the country you're in, but up here in zone 5b we're among the last for spring to show up so there's a good bet that you should be on this schedule or ahead of it.

Prune SOME shrubs 
The some is key here. You do not want to prune spring blooming shrubs now because they have already set their buds and you will cut off your flowers. The key is finding out if a shrub blooms on "new wood" (stems that grow this year) or "old wood" (stems from last year or before). Some of my favorite hydrangeas like 'Limelight' can be pruned to whatever degree is necessary. They don't need to be pruned though (other than removing dead wood). I should have pruned my Limelights in late February or early March but I just never did. This weekend I'll put on my boots and stomp through some snow to do a light pruning (nothing like I did a few years ago). The less you prune, the bigger the flowers will be, so keep that in mind. I will just prune the big Limelight by about a third just to keep it in check size-wise. The new Limelights along the deck will just be slightly pruned to shape them a little as they are still growing.

Have no fear, just a few months after pruning, 'Limelight' will be looking like this.

The other shrub that is going to get a good pruning is the purple smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria), which I'm embarrassed to say I have never pruned. It was obvious last year that it was all out shape and badly in need of a good prune job. Like most plants that I'm not familiar with the pruning requirements of I did a little research and it turns out that April is the time for pruning them in my zone. Most advice seems to recommend a pretty hefty pruning (down to a foot or 18 inches) for smoke bushes (this is for smoke bushes that are being grown as shrubs, not trained into a tree form). I know it's tough to do that to a big shrub, but it will recover in no time. The year that you prune, however, you will have no flowers (the "smoke") so you will have to sacrifice those. That's OK by me as I'm really interested in the foliage.

The purple foliage of a smoke bush with the pink bloom of clematis 'Princess Diana', which grows up its branches in my garden.

Get that compost pile cooking again
Although I add kitchen scraps to the compost pile all winter, I do let it go dormant during winter. I just bought a compost thermometer (I am oddly excited about this purchase) and found that my pile is currently 32 degrees. I don't think anything is decomposing at that temperature.

As soon as it is workable (and, um, not covered in snow), I will start stirring the pile, adding water if it is too dry. Because I put a lot of well chopped up leaves and yard waste in the pile during our fall cleanup the pile always comes into spring a bit heavy on the "browns" (high in carbon). I kick-start in spring by adding well moistened alfalfa cubes. Alfalfa is very high in nitrogen so really balances things out and getting things decomposing again. I buy a bag of alfalfa cubes at the feed store about once every three years and soak them well in a five-gallon bucket so they break down a bit. Then I pour them into the compost, stir well and within a few days I usually have steam rising from the pile. There is something so incredibly satisfying about making the best thing for your garden. My problem is that there is never, ever enough compost.

Plan your vegetable garden
Ideally you will grab a piece of graph paper to do this, but I'll be honest and tell you that I usually end up doing it on a piece of scratch paper while watching television, but that's because I know from previous years about how much space I need for various things. Just putting it on paper helps a lot. Remember not to plant your tomatoes in the same place every year if you can at all help it. They say it's best to alternate between three different places but I just switch the tomatoes from one side of the raised bed to the other every year. It helps to know how much space things need to grow but keep in mind that you can plant much more intensely if you have very good soil enriched with a lot of compost. That's the theory I subscribe to. Make the soil as good as you can and then stick a lot of veggies in there. You can also plan out where you'll be switching things out. For instance, I always place my cucumbers and my peas in the same spot because the peas are usually done by the time it's time for the cukes to be planted.

Finish your clean up
If you're like me, sometimes you don't get to everything that needs cleaning up in fall. I prefer to leave some things, like perennial grasses, standing for winter interest. It's important to chop off the dead foliage on these as soon as possible (mine are still under snow, but I will do it the second I can get to them). The problem with spring clean up is that you have to be careful about walking in your beds. The last thing you want to do is compact your soil when it is sodden. If I have to step in beds I try to do it in one step instead of tromping all over the place and then I use a rake to reach in and pull out any material I've cut down.

So all is not lost as we wait for spring to arrive!

Speaking of spring, don't forget about the Grand Garden Show on Mackinac Island this summer (check out some of the details here). They now have the website for the event up and complete and I'm absolutely thrilled to see that Stacey Hirvela of Spring Meadow Nursery and Susan Martin of Walters Gardens have joined the line-up. I heard Stacey speak back when she was working at Martha Stewart Inc. and it was memorable.

Jack Barnwell also tells me that he's got all the private garden owners signed on for tours as well and I can assure you this will be a spectacular opportunity that is probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Anyway, check out the website for more info or you can call Karen at 906-430-1206 or email her at mackinacgardenshow (at) gmail.com if you want to ask some specific questions.

Giving the compost a little help

Composting purists would not at all approve of the way I compost, but frequent readers of this blog know I appreciate the K.I.S.S. principle (even though that acronym reminds me of a bad kitty poster in my third-grade classroom). This means that I don't overthink composting, and generally just throw the stuff in the bin, knowing that nature will do its thing eventually. (This of course doesn't include any animal products, other than dog hair, which is plentiful around here, fats, perennial weeds or diseased plants.) Another word for it would be laziness.

Anyway, if you're composting properly, you are keeping a close eye on the ratio of browns to greens (essentially carbon-rich material to nitrogen-rich material). And since it's natural to have a lot of browns in fall and early spring and a lot of greens throughout summer, technically you are supposed to story the overflow of this material in a separate pile or holding area. Or, if you're me, you just throw it all in there and hope for the best.

I do believe those are actual sunbeams coming through the tree branches in this picture of my overstuffed compost bin.And yes, I do just store the pitch fork in there like that.

But sometimes the pile needs a little help and that's the case with mine right now. It's chock-a-block with leaves from both fall and cleaning out the beds in spring. And while those leaves will break down at some point, I need some compost and the sooner the better, so I gotta get that baby cookin'.
The solution: Alfalfa. A 50-pound bag of of alfalfa cubes can be picked up at the feed store for about $10 and while I think it is a little ridiculous to pay for composting materials, it's the price I pay for being a lazy composter and that bag will probably last me at least two years. Alfalfa is a really good green because it is especially high in nitrogen.

Mmmmmmmmm, alfalfa slushy (say this in your best Homer Simpson voice).

So I stick a few handfuls of alfalfa cubes in a five-gallon bucket then fill it up about three-quarters of the way (just so that I can haul it without spilling the resulting slurry all over my pants) and let it "brew" for 45 minutes or until all the cubes are broken down and the whole thing is like a big ol' stinky slushy that some horse would love to have.

I use the handle of the pitchfork to make several holes in the pile, top, then fill them up with the alfalfa slushy before tossing the whole pile to aerate it.

And instead of layering this into my compost bin (which would necessitate removing a lot of the material in there) I just use the handle of the pitchfork to poke several holes all over and as deep as I can go and pour the alfalfa slushy in there. Then I toss the whole thing like a giant dead leaf and alfalfa slushy salad (aren't you hungry now?) to mix it all up and properly aerate the pile.
I'll bet within the week I have a nice steaming pile. Compost pile that is.

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Gardening Week begins

Since most of the country is buried under a pile of snow, gardening seems like it's so far off we could cry. So this week is Gardening Week at The Impatient Gardener. I'll be posting only Gardening-related posts, but if you want to know the latest on house stuff check out the Facebook page because I'll be updating reno stuff over there.

You know it's going to be a good weekend when you open the mailbox on Friday and find the latest issues of both House Beautiful and Fine Gardening. I can think of four magazines that I absolutely love. I work for one of them (so I'm required by law to love it), and I also love Coastal Living (although it's getting a bit thin these days).

 
So which one did I reach for first? Well, it's February, so that means I'm totally dreaming about gardening.

Between getting two great magazines in the mail and an awesome Packers victory in the Superbowl, I couldn't ask for much more.

Anyway, Fine Gardening got me even more fired up for gardening season. To give you an idea of where I was before that magazine showed up, the other day a Facebook friend who lives in a part of the country with much nicer weather posted that she had spent most of the day weeding and I was overcome with jealousy. You know it's bad when you want to weed (someone please remind me of this in June).

In honor of my need to weed, I'm laying off the renovation posts this week and I'm only talking about gardening stuff. There are a few things going on at the house, but I'll fill you in on those some other time, because this week I'm thinking about spring.

One of the articles in Fine Gardening was about composting. I love composting and I even have a book that's well over an inch thick on the subject, but the fact of the matter is, I don't have the time or energy to dedicate to tending my compost pile. What I loved about the FG article is that it simplifies the process. Any organic matter will turn into compost if you give it enough time, but the trick is get enough of the stuff quickly enough to be useful in your garden. The FG article advocates a very loose guideline for compost, which I love. Six parts of "browns" to one part of greens. Layer it all up, water in between each layer, mix every three layers. That is the kind of thing I can handle. I'm just not up for setting up a string of compost bins a mile long to accommodate various stages of compost. And with the new compost bin I got last year, I hereby resolve to be more attentive to my compost, but not too attentive.

The other article in Fine Gardening that I love is a primer on garden design by Ann Stratton. This is something I've struggled with, and I bet a lot of gardeners would say the same thing. Knowing how to grow a plant and select the right plant for the right spot is completely different from designing the overall look of a garden and I think the latter is something that either comes from formal education or trial and error. This is why a lot of great gardeners hire garden designers.

I can see the design flaws in my gardens. I have a serious lack of structure and all-season interest. I used to plant in singles instead of drifts (I've been correcting that over the years). I lack repetitive elements. I know that I need those things, but how to incorporate them can be a challenge.

So I spend a lot of time reading books and magazine articles on garden design (you can see some of the plant IDs from the article here). The article in Fine Gardening mentions a concept I don't think I've heard before but I love it and when I saw the accompanying picture it made perfect sense to me. It's the triangle rule. That is, try to plant similar things in a triangle.

In the photo above (from the article; you can go online to see the specific plants in the photo), see how the iris in the bottom right corner is repeated on the opposite side of the path about halfway up and then again on the right side of the path further along? Doesn't it just feel like it is escorting you down the path?

I love this design idea and I will definitely be incorporating it in to some of the new gardens I'll be working on come spring (and some of the old ones too).

I want this

The compost bin we threw together two years ago in about 15 minutes and four pallets has disintegrated. It didn't help that we stirred the compost pile with the Kubota. That's the bad news. The good news is that I REALLY want this: Lee Valley Tools Compost brackets.


I first saw this on Gardening by the Yard with Paul James (one of the last two decent gardening shows left on HGTV). Here's the problem. Just the brackets alone cost $79. That seems excessive for something that's going to hold decomposing stuff. That doesn't include the boards, which they recommend be cedar or redwood so they won't rot.

So, has anybody used this set-up? Do you love it, or are you wish you had just skipped the expensive brackets and thrown something together for a lot less money?