Thursday, September 16, 2010

belmont community gardens

new compost area

This is an area we have newly cleared at the south east side of the Belmont community gardens. It was all brambles and small buckthorn trees. Its off to the side and out of the main view of the front path into the gardens. We'd like to put our compost, manure and wood chip piles here in the future. We're also setting up a big bin for composting garden waste here - for gardeners who don't do this in their own plot.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a stunning picture!
~Felicia~

Vic said...

Hi Kathy,

What do you think about building a straw bail compost container? We are looking for a composting area for our greenhouse and somebody suggested using straw bails.

Thanks
Vic

kathy said...

Hay bales sound like a great way to make a nice pile of compost! how2compost link That's an idea to look into. But I'd need to know the price of a staw bale, how much space you have available, and how much other compostable material you have available to say if its a good idea for you.

While almost anything works as a container for composting, hay bales take up a lot of space. The cool thing is they actually become compost too. So you end up with a giant pile of compost, rather than compost in a bin.

If you're trying to add organic matter to build more compost and the price of straw bales is good, sounds good to me.

For us, we are generally trying to minimize time and effort. We have lots of space. We also have a lot of garden waste, but few people to supervise compost production. Chicken wire or snow fence takes up no space, is more traditional, lasts a few years, gives aeration, and can be dissembled to turn the pile.

It sounds fun to experiment with straw bales. Maybe a small pile and see what you think. It like to hear how it works for you!

Marian(LondonUK) said...

Lovely shot, how the Sunflowers still cheer the late summer/autumn colours alongwith the working paraphernalia of wheelbarrows etc. We were thinking of making a Lottie calendar to sell at our festival, your photos are excellent perhaps you could do that and sell them at your next seed swap or such event?
Marian (LondonUK)