Africanaussie

Way back in May it was international compost week and it got me thinking about compost. Of course by now the week is long over, but I still thought a post about composting seemed in order right now.  Here is my compost bin.  I have often posted about my compost bin, and have met others who say that a compost bin does not work for them.  These are a couple of my observations: 1.  Forget the hot compost/cold compost debate, as there is not enough surface area to hot compost.  A bin works best by being as full as possible.  As everything composts it reduces vastly in volume, so you need to be continually aerating the mix, but if you have two bins you can leave one to mature while adding to the other. 2.  Air is so important!  I mix up my compost with a garden fork a couple of times a week.  I have seen spiral shaped tools for this purpose that look to be quite effective.  My five year old bin is breaking ...

I know I said I was not going to do any gardening until  after the week down in Brisbane in early March.  Well physical work, that is - but there has been lots of planning going on....:) I wandered out over the weekend, put on my big hat and gloves and started to pull out a few weeds, just in the herb spiral, mind you!  I tied back the franzipani that was leaning over it, and the mandevilla that grows-like-crazy, but never stops flowering so it can stay.   A nice thick layer of compost was spread over the area, and then a layer of mulch.  Now that can sit and brew, and the worms can do their job, and when I come back I should have some good soil to plant my herbs into.  The mint and tropical coriander, garlic chives, mother of herbs and basil are perrenial, and I just re-plant dill and parsley every year. The next bed over is the perrenial bed, with four asparagus...

Over the weekend on the way to the beach with the grand kids, we detoured off the road to find a garage sale, and just as we were leaving I saw these wooden trellises propped up against a dresser.  At one dollar each I thought I could definitely use a few.  I picked up five - maybe I should have got more as now I can imagine all sorts of projects.....  We did our bit to clean up the beach and brought back some yummy seaweed for the compost.... along with some ash from a  fire.  That always gets the compost chugging along nicely.  My bin is starting to split - It is three years old, but I tend to push against that side when stirring it up.  At the end of the wet season I will empty it out and turn it around.  That should give me a few more years. The pumpkin vine was not offering up any more pumpkins so out it went - also into the compost!  On went a layer of mulch - this ...

I am growing celery!  This is quite unusual for this area - we have a little cooler weather lately and that seems to have made all the difference.  I laid out some empty eggshells around the veggies.  This is supposed to keep the white moths away -  they think there is a bigger moth than them there already.  I wonder who asked them what they think?  anyway I have given it a try - I had some empty eggshells handy. I am not saying it worked - but there dont seem to be as many white moths in the area. I have talked about how I stir my compost up quite regularly , and then the bottom quarter seems to sit maturing until I need it.  Sometimes I pull it out when it is not properly matured, and evidently that is OK in this hot and humid climate as things deteriorate quite quickly here.  I make sure not to put it right up close to the stems of plants.  I always dig it out of the front, and this week the wheel...

Only the comfrey in the pot survived this very wet season that we are just coming out of!  This weekend I will be propogating some more plants from root division.  I hope they will be soon be flourishing and providing me with free fertilizer.  I had propogated these plants and they were growing quite happily against the fence.  I am not sure why they didnt survive and dont even seem to be re-shooting - they were quite shaded and also very wet - two things they seem not to like.  I do want to grow them in this area though....  I might cut back the vines growing over the arch above and give them another go in this area.   I might also re-think the front of the vegetable garden and remove a row of grass and grow a row of comfrey there - full sun - it might be the perfect spot..... Can one have too much comfrey? Here is the lone pot, tucked under the pawpaw tree. I was in my mind thinking that seaweed tea and comfrey juice were pretty...

I prepared the new bed that I will be planting tomatoes in next April after the wet season ends. I had this extra "wheelie bin" and half filled it with some leftover mulch, then kept topping it up with garden clippings, seaweed etc.  I did not mix it like I do the other compost.  It just showed the difference that mixing makes as the top part had not composted much at all.  Also this bin is not open at the bottom. The uncomposted bits went deep into this pit, covered by the richer black gold that I found on the bottom of the bin.  I have a sheet of plywood submersed so that I  have an access path in front of the tomato bed.  I found this worked really well to tip the bin over onto its side and use the lid to support a bucket that I kept filling up and transporting to different parts of the garden.  The other bin next to it has leaf mould, which is busy maturing.  I also used some of the rich black compost to build up around ...