Garden - setting up, settling in

To a lot of people, good compost is essential to growing naturally-raised/organic produce.  Heeding this advice, getting a steady compost pile going has always ranked high on my list of priorities for the farm.
 Back in September I put together a pile of stuff that obeyed a loose of set of rules for composting that I’d come across:
  1. Equal parts nitrogen-rich and carbon-rich materials (keep it mixed);
  2. Promote oxygen-based (aerobic) bacterial growth to promote decomposition (keep it light);
  3. Keep it moist…but not too moist (keep it moist);
  4. Keep track of its temperature (keep it under control).
 It’s like making a garden waste soufflé.
Here’s a great page explaining, well, everything about compost piles:
 For this pile, we started last September with manure from Earl Grey (the llama), rotten groundfall apples and dry garden waste.  It has continued to grow, and has incorporated hay, goat manure, rose bush prunings, and some poplar saplings.  Don’t know why, but I do not know the names of the goats.

 

 We’ve just begun sifting and spreading the compost, along with some biodynamic compost we purchased from our neighbors at Fulcrum Farm just down the road.  I built a compost sifter out of some ½” hardware cloth and reclaimed redwood 2×4’s (from a deconstructed backyard fort) that fits over the wagon we pull with the ATV.

 When we’re all done, there will be about two cubic yards of sifted, composted llama manure that will help break up the clay-rich soil we’re working with and provide a solid bit of nutrition to the plants.  The turning and sifting process has brought up some pretty fascinating stuff, like  numerous ornamental gourd shells that became nurseries to miniature jungles of their own sprouts.

It’s nice to switch it up a little bit and get into the dirt; the construction has been pretty intense lately.  The hoop house building, compost sifting, garden box making, fort deconstructing, hole digging, cabinet making, trellis constructing thing has been fun,  but this is a welcome change.  There’s so much more to write about in between, but today our soil blocks showed their first sprouts. That’s pretty satisfying.