Tag: gardengoals2017

What do you do when your compost isn’t breaking down? I’m still trying to figure out the mystery that’s going on in my composter. Can you help? 

Last year, I decided one of my 2017 garden goals would be to get into composting. When I started asking for advice, I heard that I shouldn’t overthink it. I only needed to get a container, throw stuff in it and nature would take care of the rest. I’ve found it to be a bit more difficult than that. 

In October, I bought my composter: an Envirocycle tumbler. I thought about going with an old trash can with holes drilled in it, but decided to go with the option that looked best and was designed to tumble.

In went some fall perennial clippings. I also planned to continue adding food scraps through the fall to keep a balance of green/brown (also known as carbon/nitrogen). We added egg shells, vegetable peels and a whole lot of coffee grounds and started turning that tumbler.

Keeping A Good Carbon/Nitrogen Ratio

Somewhere during the winter, I realized that I probably hadn’t kept a good green/brown ratio. I thought those perennial clippings would be considered brown carbon at first, but more research made me think it might actually represent green nitrogen. Those stalks weren’t breaking down much at all, so midway through the winter, I went at them with a pair of pruners to help speed things along. 

Through the winter, I added a whole lot of table scraps. I tossed in a bit of dried leaves and newspaper when I could, but that’s a challenge when there’s snow on the ground and you don’t get the newspaper anymore. Of course, eventually the whole thing froze.

Compost That Doesn’t Break Down

Our first truly springlike day was April 9. When I checked inside the tumbler, it was actually starting to look like compost. As the temperatures heated up, we started turning the tumbler again, but the compost just wasn’t breaking down much more. 

By mid-July, there were still big clumps in my composter and seeds were sprouting in there. I bought Espoma’s compost starter and added it in. For the first time, it was also looking dry, so I added some water. So nine months later, I’m still on my first batch of compost. 

I have a lot of beds to build and soil to amend, so I’d be happy to be making a lot more compost than this. Honestly, I’d be happy to just finish this first batch so I can get it out of my composter, start over and do a better job. 

So here’s what I think could have gone wrong: 

• Not enough brown carbon
• Not enough microbes
• Too dry
• Too wet
• Not mixed well enough

Thoughts? What should I do with this clump of half-cooked humus? And how can I do it better and quicker next time? 

I just put together my first drip irrigation system in my raised bed garden and it was a great experience. I recommend it to gardeners out there who are looking to improve their outdoor gardening game, especially if you think your garden could benefit from a more regular and consistent watering pattern.

I had been using a sprinkler to water my garden, but that was creating some mildew and disease problems on some of my vegetable crops. It also wasted a lot of water, so I needed to water in a different way. So drip irrigation became one of my garden goals for 2017.

I purchased my kit from Dripworks, on the recommendation of the Seattle Urban Farm Company. There are some great instructional videos on how to set up the kit on the Dripworks YouTube channel. Kudos for that.

I bought the Dripworks small garden bed kit, which was plenty for my two 4’x8′ raised beds. It cost $59.95.

Drip irrigation sounds like next level stuff for serious gardeners. A little intimidating. But I really don’t want to work so hard starting seeds to only lose them all because I didn’t water properly. So I guess I’m a serious gardener now. 

The main components of the kit are a main line, some mini tubing and the emitter drip tube. I now know quite well what these are, but had no idea when I ordered the kit. They said it was everything I needed for raised beds sized like mine, so I went for it.

The Setup Process

The kit arrived with clear instructions and each component was clearly marked. The two things I needed in addition to the kit were a regular garden hose (because my spigot is far from my raised beds) and something to cut the tubing (I used pruners).

Another component that’s required in my garden is a timer, so no matter what, everything gets watered. I have this Orbit hose timer and I love it.

I attached the included filter and pressure adapter from the kit to the spigot, attached the hose and stretched it out to the beds.

The main line is the water source and runs along the ground at the heads of my two beds. The mini tubing runs from this main line up from the ground to the soil line of each bed, one for each bed row. 

You punch holes in the main line wherever you want a drip line in your beds. The kit comes with the tool you need to punch those holes. From there, the mini tubing connects to the drip line.

Soaker Versus Drip

Here’s the difference between a soaker line and these drip lines with emitters. Soaker lines seep water out along their whole lengths. I’ve used them before, but I wasn’t very successful with them. The watering isn’t targeted at all and it felt like you had to keep the water running for a very long time to get a good soak.

The drip line that came with my kit features emitters, basically a hole in the hose, every foot. You plant your plants at the emitters and you’re watering only your target: your plant’s roots.

Of course, this spacing is drop dead perfect for a square foot garden, which I have!

My Only Difficulty: Dainty Hands

The most difficult part of setting up the system was the connectors between the different tubes. Of course, these joints need to be water tight, so the connectors fit very snugly between the tubes. My fingertips were pretty sore from forcing the connections into place.

I turned the water on at the spigot and there wasn’t one drip or leak where there shouldn’t have been and each emitter was working perfectly. Total success!

Now I need to figure out how long to leave the water running every day. Have any thoughts or advice on this? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @howtonaturechat.