Composting Leaves and Pumpkins

Hello again!

From the folks at Botanical Interests who offer a great variety of vegetable and flower seeds that we feature here at Skillin's! I make a few comments in italics.

Leaves

"Are you wondering what to do with all those falling leaves? The easiest thing to do is rake them into shallow piles then mow over them with a mulching lawnmower. This excellent carbon/nitrogen mix of leaves/grass can then be dumped straight into the compost bin.

If your compost bin is full, it's worth buying a trashcan with a tight fitting lid to keep near the compost pile. The leaves will stay dry in there all winter. Then, you'll have 'brown' material on hand to alternate with 'green material' in the spring and summer. Before storing them, you can run them through a shredder or fill a tub with them and stomp them with your feet to break them up. (This is a great kid activity!) If you don't want to bother with breaking the leaves up now, you can store them whole and simply take handfuls of them and crunch them up with your hands before adding them to the compost bin. Breaking them up into pieces no larger than 1"-2" in diameter is best to encourage airflow and keep the pile from getting matted down.

Extra leaves that have been shredded also make an excellent mulch to cover your garden beds for the winter. Scatter them a few inches deep across the soil surface, but not too close to the crowns of perennials where they could cause root rot. With this method, the leaves will decompose slowly over the winter, enriching the soil. In early spring, any remaining leaves can be worked into the soil (along with some compost) to recharge your beds for planting."

Great advice above by the folks at Botanical Interests. I mow and grind as many leaves as I can into my lawn. These shredded leaves decompose nicely into the soil and help enrich my lawn growth. I don't recommend doing this if you do not feed organically. Too many ground leaves can add to thatch if your soil is not organic and alive. But I do feed my lawn's soil organically and my soil that is "alive" with worms and even smaller microorganisms incorporates the leaves quite nicely!

I also bag a fair amount of leaves and I know that these leaves are used by municipalities for compost. I do not add many leaves to my compost pile or use my leaves as mulch but the comments above by the folks at Botanical Interest are just fine in my opinion.

Pumpkins

"After Halloween, there's no reason to put your sagging Jack O'Lantern on the curb for the trash company to add to the local landfill burden. Why not let it enrich your garden instead? First, remove any melted wax inside or non-organic accessories. Then, use a sledgehammer (another great kid activity, as long as they're protected with goggles and a warning about safety) to smash the pumpkin up into small pieces. These pieces can be scattered around the garden, buried under soil, or added to the compost pile along with layers of leaves to decompose over the winter. The pumpkin pieces will add organic matter and nutrients to garden soil, helping to give you a head start on next spring's crops."

I recommend putting pieces of pumpkin into the compost pile and let it decompose into compost rather than adding bits of it straight to the vegetable garden!



Mike Skillin
Skillin's Greenhouses
November 1, 2010

Composting Class at Skillin's!

Hello again,

Saturday September 26 at 10 AM brings a Composting Class to Skillin's at all 3 locations! (check http://www.skillins.com/ for our location info). In honor of that class we want to write just a little bit about composting for you to consider.

If you can come to the class let us know at info@skillins.com! Or let us know anytime if you have any questions about composting!

Composting is as old as time and by composting we can replicate nature's process of returning plant matter back into the necessary component of healthy soils. Adding compost to soil gives soil the organic matter that creates the environment for the growth and activity of millions of microbes that make plant nutrients available to be used by plants.

Products needed

Compost Bins Bins come in a variety of style and types. The pyramid style is an upright bin with a removal cover for adding rare materials on the top and a door on the side to remove the finished compost. This style allows you to continue adding and at the same time removing the finished product. Tumblers are the other typical style great for smaller yards and gardens and are ideal for batch composting, putting in the rare materials allowing it to completely compost then removing it all before starting the next batch.

Bio Excelerator Excelerator contains billions of microbes especially cultured for composting. These are partially important when composting end of season brown, drier vegetation and plant debris that can be more difficult to fully decompose.

Compost Thermometer Maintaining a composting temperature of 110 degrees is critical to complete composting. As the temperature start dropping it is important to turn your compost adding fresh material to the center of the pile to compost. Repeat this process until all material has been composted.

Compost Aerators Compost must be turned in order to create a fully composted material and like any job the right tool makes a good task that much easier. Compost Aerators are design for easy piercing of the compost and when pulled back up wings fold out pulling compost with it creating a turning of the material. If your compost pile is big enough a gardening fork can also be a great aid.

Terry Skillin
Skillin's Greenhouses
September 25, 2009

Garden Talks June 10--Slugs and more!

Hello again,

I need to get back out to the greenhouse and I hope to type more later in the day but I just wanted to reinforce that wet weather brings out voracious slugs and snails. The volume of fleshy plant material these slimy little serpents can eat AT NIGHT is incredible.

Last night just before dusk I went out to cut some broccoli and reviewed a bed where I have planted some small tomato plants and marigolds. (Yes, I LOVE marigolds and am not ashamed to admit it!). The marigolds looked great.

This AM I went out to add some kitchen waste to the back compost pile (aka Worm Eden) and these very same marigolds were almost "sawed off" from the ground up. Slugs and/or snails for sure. There were none around (never are during the day because they work so hard all night) but the damage from the ground up (the marigold tops are just fine) is unmistakeable. In my haste I have never applied Slug Magic to this bed.

A mere 30 feet away is another bed of broccoli, brussel sprouts, red sails lettuce, pepperd, eggplant and, of course, marigolds. AND a generous scattering of Slug Magic The marigolds and everything else is full and lush.

The message: All natural Slug Magic stops slugs from eating plants. Pure and simple. If you have not done so in this wet weather get that Slug Magic down around your plants.

Some quick pointers I want to "flesh out" later:

NOW is the time to trim your lilacs and most rhododendrons for shape.

My perennial hibuscus has at last come up! Wow! I will tell you what this means.

Many customers I have spoken to have not planted their peas yet! Don't despair. Beans make a good predecessor for fall peas. I would like to talk more about that.

Back to the greenhouse; I will be back later today I hope to "flesh out" the above topics and more!

Mike Skillin
Skillin's Greenhouses
June 10, 2009