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Gardening With BNT
******************************************************************************************* "Gardening With BNT"Your source for gardening ideas including composting tips, pestcontrol tips, attracting beneficial insects and other gardenhelpers, tips on growing vegetables, annuals and perennials, andmuch, much, more.October 1, 2003 Volume 1, Issue 1Bill and Terry (BNT) Regling, Editorseditors@bntscountryparadise.com*******************************************************************************************By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of "GardeningWith BNT." You are receiving this newsletter because yourequested a subscription. Unsubscribe instructions are at theend of this newsletter.******************************************************************************************* IN THIS ISSUE******************************************************************************************* => Four Tips for Designing Your Beds => Guest Column:Composting the Easy Way => Garden Tool Nook => Hot Tips =>Garden Nook => Be a Weed Eater => Reader's Questions => From OurReaders*******************************************************************************************This newsletter is brought to you by www.bntscountryparadise.com *******************************************************************************************FOUR TIPS FOR DESIGNING YOUR BEDS****************************************************************************************** 1. Plants with opposite textures,shapes and/or forms should by planted next to each other in yourbed. They compliment each other better than having all of thesame kinds of flowers in one bed.2. Keep track of which plants retain good foliage throughout theseason. You can plant them next to other plants that lookscraggily after blooming.3. Plan a focal point for each month that catches the eye withbright color, shape or form.4. Allow enough space for each plant to grow. Leave about 1 1/2square feet around each plant. If your garden looks sparsebefore the perennials bloom, plant some annuals to fill it in.But be careful of what you plant, some annuals can grow verylarge.******************************************************************************************* Try Plow & Hearth forGifts for the home, hearth, yard, & garden *******************************************************************************************GUEST ARTICLE: COMPOSTING THE EASY WAY by Michael J. McGroarty******************************************************************************************* Click here to visit thefreeplants.com home page.Click here to sign up for Mike McGroarty's FREE GardeningNewsletter!Having an ample supply of good rich compost is the gardenersdream. It has many uses, and all of those uses will result innicer plants. However, composting can be time consuming and hardwork. I place a reasonable value on my time, so spending hoursand hours turning compost piles doesn’t qualify as a worthwhileexercise, at least in my book. Nonetheless, I do compost, but Ido so on my terms. I built two composting bins. Each bin is five feet wide, fivefeet deep, and four feet high. I built the bins by sinking 4” by4” posts in the ground for the corners, and then nailed 2 by 4’sand 1 by 4’s, alternating on the sides. I left 2” gaps betweenthe boards for air circulation. The 2 by 4’s are rigid enough tokeep the sides from bowing out, and in between each 2 by 4 Iused 1 by 4’s to save a little money. The bins are only 3 sided,I left the front of the bins open so they can be filled andemptied easily. I started by filling just one of the bins. I put grassclippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings in the bins. I trynot to put more than 6” of each material on a layer. You don’twant 24” of grass clippings in the bin, you should alternatelayers of green and brown material. If necessary, keep a fewbags of dry leaves around so you can alternate layers of brownwaste and green waste. When we root cuttings we use coarse sandin the flats, so when it’s time to pull the rooted cuttings outof the flats, the old sand goes on the compost pile. In ...
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...orlittle backyard nursery we also have some plants in containersthat do not survive. Rather than pulling the dead plant and theweeds out of the container, and then dumping the potting soilback on the soil pile, we just dump the whole container in thecompost bin, this adds more brown material to the mix, and is alot easier than separating the soil and the weeds.Once the bin is full, the rules of composting say that youshould turn the material in the bin every few weeks. There is noway that I have time to do that, so this is what I do. I pack asmuch material in the bin as I can, before I start filling thesecond bin. I pile the material as high as I possibly can, andeven let it spill out in front of the bin. Then I cover all thefresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brownmaterial I can find. Then when I’m out working in the garden Iset a small sprinkler on top of the pile and turn it on verylow, so a small spray of water runs on the material. Since Ihave a good water well, this doesn’t cost me anything, so I letit run for at least two hours as often as I can. This keeps thematerial damp, and the moisture will cause the pile to heat up,which is what makes the composting action take place.Once I have the first bin completely full, I start using thesecond bin. As the material in the first bin starts to breakdown, it will settle, and the bin is no longer heaped up, so Ijust keep shoveling the material that I piled in front of thebin, up on top of the pile, until all the material is either inthe bin, or piled on top of the heap. Then I just leave italone, except to water it once in a while. The watering isn’tnecessary, it just speeds the process.Because I don’t turn the pile, I can’t expect all of thematerial to rot completely. The material in the center is goingto break down more than the material on the edges, but most ofit does breakdown quite well. The next step works great for me because I’ve got a smallnursery, so I keep a pile of potting soil on hand at all times.But you can really do the same thing by just buying two or threeyards of shredded mulch to get started, and piling it up nearyour compost bins. If you do this, you will always have a supplyof good compost to work with.Shredded bark, left in a pile will eventually breakdown andbecome great compost. The potting soil that I use is about 80%rotted bark. I make potting soil by purchasing fine textured,and dark hardwood bark mulch, and I just put it in a pile andlet it rot. The secret is to keep the pile low and flat, so thatit does not shed the rain water away, you want the mulch to stayas wet as possible, this will cause it to breakdown fairly quick.So I keep a pile of rotted bark mulch near my compost bins. Whenboth bins are completely full, I empty the bin containing theoldest material by piling it on top of my rotted bark mulch. Imake sure the pile of rotted mulch is wide and flat on top sothat when I put the material from the compost bin on top of thepile, the compost material is only 5 to 10 inches thick. Mymulch pile might be 12’ wide, but it may only be 24 to 30 incheshigh. Once I have all the compost on top of the pile, then I goaround the edge of the pile with a shovel, and take some of thematerial from the edges of the pile and toss it up on top of thepile, covering the compost with at least 6” of rotted bark. Thiswill cause the compost material to decompose the rest of the way.Once you get this system started, you never want to use all ofthe material in the pile. Always keep at least 2 to 3 cubicyards on hand so you’ve got something to mix with your compost.If you use a lot of compost material like I do, then you shouldbuy more material and add to your pile in the late summer orfall, once you are done using it for the season. Around heremany of the supply companies sell a compost material that isalready broken down quite well. This is what I buy to add to mystock pile. But I try to make sure that I have at least 3 yardsof old material on hand, then I’ll add another 3 yards of freshmaterial to that. Then in the spring I’ll empty one of thecompost bin...
... and add the compost to the top of the pile.The pile of usable compost will be layers of material, some morecomposted than others. Kind of like a sandwich. So what I do ischip off a section of the pile from the edge, spread it out onthe ground so it’s only about 8” deep, then run over it with mysmall rototiller. This mixes it together perfectly, and I shovelit onto the potting bench.Having a pile of rotted compost near your compost bins is greatbecause if you have a lot of leaves or grass clippings, you canthrow some rotted compost in the bin in order to maintain thatlayered effect that is necessary in order for the compostingprocess to work well.Sure this process is a little work, but it sure is nice to havea place to get rid of organic waste anytime I like. Then downthe road when I have beautiful compost to add to my pottingsoil, I am grateful to have done the right thing earlier, and Iknow that I have wasted nothing.Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit hismost interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign upfor his excellent gardening newsletter, and grab a FREE copy ofhis E-book, "Easy Plant Propagation"******************************************************************************************To be a Guest Columnist Send your article tobnt@bntscountryparadise.com ***************************************************************************************** Where America Stays Green on theInternet...LandscapeUSA.com ***************************************************************************************** **HOT TIPS********************************************************************************************GARDEN TOOL NOOKInstall a rural style mailbox on a post near your garden. Youcan paint flowers on it for a great-looking waterproof nook tokeep small hand tools, garden gloves, kneeling pads or even anotebook for writing down garden records. This is one way tomake sure you don't put off writing down planting times,fertilizing schedules, etc.******************************************************************************************BE A WEED EATERMany of the "weeds" you try so hard to get rid of can actuallybe eaten and contain two or three times the nutritional valuethan spinach or swisschard. Use young leaves from dandelion,chicory, lamb's quarters, shepard's purse or watercress for awild greens salad. Serve with a vinegar and oil dressing. Youcan also steam or sauté any of these "weeds." Sauté in olive oiland garlic and/or drizzle with lemon juice.****************************************************************************************** Gardener's Supply Outlet Savings Orderyour fall gardening supplies now and save.Gardener's Supply Fall Outlet Sale - Save and additional 10% onorders of $50 or more ******************************************************************************************READER'S QUESTIONS******************************************************************************************Have a question? Ask BNT. Send your questions toaskbnt@sendfree.com******************************************************************************************FROM OUR READERS******************************************************************************************Have a gardening idea, country recipe, or picture you'd like toshare? Please send your input to readertips@sendfree.com ******************************************************************************************Copyright 2003 BNT's Country Paradise******************************************************************************************List Maintenance To SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter send an email with SUBSCRIBE asthe subject to: newsletter@sendfree.com To UNSUBSCRIBE from this newsletter send an email withUNSUBSCRIBE as the subject to: unsubscribe@sendfree.comOnline issues can be found at:www.bntscountryparadise.com/newsletter_archives****************************************************************************************** Bill and Terry Reglingwww.bntscountryparadise.com bnt@bntscountryparadise.com 1430Marshall Road Lyndonville, New York 585-765-9421
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