Compost

On Saturday I got my first load of Phoenixville Borough compost delivered to my garden by my Dad (thanks Dad). It was first piled all into one of the raised beds, but I spent a few hours on Sunday spreading it out between the two new beds. You can see that it is pretty rough stuff, with lots of sticks and woody pieces mixed in.

As I moved it around though I tried to sift through it and remove most of the woody chunks while leaving the good stuff behind.

In the picture below you can see the other raised bed filled out with compost. Behind that, on an angle, you can see another small, new bed that I have set aside for the rhubarb plants when they arrive.

My last project of Sunday involved this forlorn little weedy/ grassy patch back near the compost pile. I planted a few blackberry plants here 2 years back, they have to take off- but I'm still holding out hope.

It's a big space and I'm hoping to plant some winter squash here this year, but the soil is a bit to shallow and root-filled to dig much compost into. So I am trying a technique that I've read about but never tried myself.

The area that I going to plant I covered with a thick layer of old cardboard. Later on I'll use chopped leaves and more compost to cover the cardboard with a good 5--6 inches of organic material. The idea is that the cardboard will block out any weeds that are present, and then eventually just break down into the soil. Thats the idea anyway. The logs on top of the cardboard are just there to hold it down until I get the compost to cover it up.