The Compost Pile

 Earlier in this blog project I thought of doing a series of photos showing little protects in the yard/garden that I would like to do. I would still like to make that post, but when I started this one, I had to actually get on with doing this particular little project.

In the northeast corner of the garden is our compost pile. It is rather large because when I do projects like the garden bed off the front deck (from my first post) the compost pile is where I dump all the old bark much, and soil that I dig up. Plus all the soil from the pots that are from that garden. As well, it is where I dump all the soil from the hanging baskets and other pots that we plant during the summer. Of course we also dump our compost there too.

In the fall, I screen the soil from the garden beds, and add screened soil from the compost pile and if all goes well, I cover and store the fresh (ish) soil in a few raised beds so in the spring I have nicely screened soil that is ready for planting. This past spring the process worked really well.

That is how we use our compost pile between about April and October.

Managing the compost pile, like many parts of the garden, is always an issue. The picture below was taken July 6.  That mass of weeds in the corner of the garden is the compost pile. As with many parts of the garden, things just get out of control. I just can’t get to them soon enough to keep on top of the weeds.

Cleaning up the compost pile is a “little project”. I have a few of those.

There are a couple of points of interest in this next photo. The garlic bed on the right. Mona had recently harvested the scapes and made several ice cube trays full of garlic scape pesto (minus the Brent killers: pine nuts)

On the left is a bedding box that I made last year and used over the winter as soil storage. I didn’t have enough soil in the spring to plant anything in it, and really didn’t want to take the time to sift more soil. It was pretty wet this spring so I really wouldn’t have had much opportunity to sift soil anyway.

To the left of that box, outside of the photo, is the keyhole garden that I have mentioned in previous posts.

Anyhow, back to the compost pile and the little project.

There are two parts to the project: remove the mass of weeds, and then cover the pile with grass clippings. It was important to get the project started because the lawn needed mowing and I wanted a clean(ish) compost pile to put the clippings onto.

Unfortunately, it was really on that day, and has been for much of July, so I didn’t get it done as well as I would have liked. As well, I did have other chores that I had done earlier. I replaced a broken belt on the mower deck of the lawn tractor, we went grocery shopping, and we bought a bunch of fruit. Mona froze most 20 lbs of blueberries and the next day, I started pitting and freezing 20 lbs of cherries. Prior to starting work on the compost pile, I also weedwacked the lawn, and ran the regular mower around the perimeter and fiddly bits, such as the trees in the orchard. It was a very busy couple of days.

Back to the actual project:

The first wheelbarrow of weeds. You can start to see the actual compost pile.

 Most of the weeds are rather large so they are easy to remove.

The second wheelbarrow of weeds. It doesn’t take long.

Already it was too hot to work on this. I had removed almost 3 wheelbarrows full of weeds and had begun digging up the soil and moving it towards the back of the pile.  But it was too hot and I needed a break.

Later, after having a break, I went back to mowing the lawn. Since I had done all of the hardest parts of the job, I just needed to ride around on the mower and put the grass clippings onto whatever parts of the compost were more or less ready.

This next picture was taken on July 19th. I have already covered the compost with lawn clippings, then used up much of those lawn clippings, and have somewhat replaced the clippings again. The storage system works well, and it is helping to keep the weeds down. In a few days we will harvest the garlic. Once that is done I will start to screen new soil of the garden beds. I will probably clean out at least half of the compost pile over the next month or so.