Second Year SFG in Canada

Kelejan wrote:Intrepid TD.    Do not look up the meaning of that word in the dictionary or you will get a big head.  There are about 34 other words that mean the same thing.

i.e. fearless, unafraid, dauntless, etc. etc. 

If you were fearful, afraid or daunted, then you would really be a hero. IMO.

You are our wordsmith, by far!  Head bowed.....

I keep a dictionary by my computer, Scorpio.  English was never my favourite subject at school, but as I read a lot I think the language kind of seeps into my being.  So I am full of words thinking I know what they mean, so I look them up and sometimes they are not quite what I mean. 

When the word intrepid came into my mind, I thought I had better look it up and there were all those words. That is when I think that English is such a rich language I wish I had studied more when young.

Mind you, if I learned English using Twitter, I really do not think I would have done as well as I have.  Sometimes when I read peoples' answers on some of the sites I frequent, there is always someone there to take apart spelling or grammar etc. instead of commenting on the meaning of the comment. 

I can only say I am tri-lingual in British, Canadian and American English. I only wish I could understand other languages so as to be able to read and understand their literature. I can read a cornflakes package though. One day I read three lines before I realised it was in French.

Kelejan wrote:... English was never my favourite subject at school ...

Same with me Kelejan.  In fact a teacher kicked me out of my last year of high school English. When I went to university, I looked for a course that did not require an English subject in first year. That's how I ended up in engineering. 

Today I am chopping up more leaves with the lawnmower. I opened up one bag of leaves that I got from a neighbour and found that it was "cooking". The neighbour had collected the leaves with a lawnmower so there was grass mixed in. There was actually steam coming off the contents.

I know I should wait until I have all the brown and green ingredients stockpiled before I start my new compost pile, but I am so tempted to start filling it as I go. Impatient I am.

I chopped up at least 8 bags of leaves today. I also used the mower to chop up some green material (e.g., plants) removed from the veggie and flower gardens. It's a lot faster than using the machete to chop up the greens.

The neighbours must wonder what is going at my place with the lawnmower roaring away for hours on end.

Also planted a square of garlic and a square of multiplier onions. For the "seeds" I used garlic cloves and onions that I grew this past summer. I had enough to do 8 of each per square. That's all the planting I will do in the SFG until next year. I'm not putting in Tulips this year so Mrs TD gets to use all of the Tulip bulbs in her garden.

I'm still harvesting Kale and Chard for green smoothies.

The plastic compost bin is currently maintaining a temperature of 15.5 Celsius even though the ambient temperature is still close to zero Celsius.

The high temp in Ottawa today is forecast to be 15 Celsius (59 F). Wow!

I started the day by going to the service station twice to fill up our vehicles. I learned that prices are going up 5 cents per litre tomorrow due to a refinery fire in the southern USA. It's crazy that an oil rich country like Canada has a lack of refinery capacity and so is dependent on the refineries in the USA.

On the way back from the service station with the Camry I stopped to pick up three bags of leaves from a neighbour. I got there just in time before they were picked up by the Waste Management truck.

I have to drop off the Camry to get new winter tires installed. Then I will be working in the yard.  I can't fire up my lawnmower to chop leaves until the afternoon because my one neighbour is sleeping after doing his night shift and I don't want to wake him up. So maybe I'll use the machete for a while to chop up green material for composting. 

There's also more garden cleanup to do including a few things still in the SFG beds. The work in the garden seems to never end for Mr and Mrs TD. 

More work today on chopping leaves and green material for composting.

Could not wait any longer. I put a layer of twigs, straw, corn stalks (from neighbour), leaves and semi-composted wood chips at the bottom of the new compost bin.







Leaves waiting for mulching with the mower.




Green garden waste waiting for mulching with the mower.



NOTE ON PHOTOS:
I usually use Photobucket to store my photos online and then put a link to them in my forum posts. I have found that Photobucket has become so slow that it is almost unuseable. I think the main proble is that they show a ton of advertising unless you pay to stop the ads. So I am using the SFG Forum image upload facility to show these photos.

On another thread, bigdogrock asked me to post current photos of our garden. It's looking pretty drab at this time of the year.

The TT needs to be cleaned out for the winter.



Front yard from the road. Appleseed is our snow removal contractor and they just put up the markers at the corners of the driveway. Winter is approaching.




Mrs TD has cleaned out the front flower beds.



The Sweet Peas are still flowering.



The backyard pond and flower beds.




Notice the brownish spot on the back lawn. This is the area where I mulch leaves with the lawn mower for composting.




The SFG beds. Still a few things growing including kale, lettuce, chard.




The Sage (center) and Lemon Balm (lighter green on right-back) are still growing.




This is the Pink Pampas Grass that I started indoors last Spring. I have to cut it back and then I hope it will get the pink plooms next year.



Fish in the pond with dirty looking water.



A lone Sugar Snap Pea plant still growing in the SFG.




Cabbage (growing after being harvested) and mustard.




Kale.



Tiny carrot plants. I think these are volunteers.




Daikon Radish plants still flowering.




Strawberries.  They have been given a 4x4 SFG for next year. They shared the 4x4 with some other things this year. 

Wow, you have a lot of garden/yard to take care of. Will the strawberries over-winter under mulch?

sanderson wrote:Wow, you have a lot of garden/yard to take care of.  Will the strawberries over-winter under mulch?

I think many people on the forum have bigger properties to look after. There will come a time when the garden/yard will be too much for us. We have already considered moving. But for now I think working in the garden is good for us. Just need to be careful not to overdo it on hot humid days.

My understanding is that strawberry plants have to acclimatize to increasing cold conditions before being covered with mulch. I am thinking of building a wall of cardboard around the inside edge of the 4x4 bed to hold in the mulch. Then I will apply a 4 to 6 inch layer of straw. After that I will put the chicken wire cage back over the whole bed. We tend to get a lot of snow which will also help to protect the plants.

Not much going on in the garden today. It's been raining.

I sent emails to two nearby riding stables to see if I can get manure from them. So far there has been no response. Maybe I need to visit them in person.



I did pick up a pail of coffee grounds from the local coffee shop and left an empty pail for them to fill up. 

trolleydriver wrote:I sent emails to two nearby riding stables to see if I can get manure from them. So far there has been no response. Maybe I need to visit them in person.

That's what we did. My husband has a pickup so the 33 gallon trash containers are fine. If I had to use my car, I would have to use 20-gallon totes with lids.

sanderson wrote:

trolleydriver wrote:I sent emails to two nearby riding stables to see if I can get manure from them. So far there has been no response. Maybe I need to visit them in person.

That's what we did.  My husband has a pickup so the 33 gallon trash containers are fine.  If I had to use my car, I would have to use 20-gallon totes with lids.

I hope you get help in moving full 20 gal totes. sanderson. Five-gallon buckets is enough for me.

I'm looking for the day when they can produce a nice simple robot that do things like that  for me. I know I could not afford it but I would be happy to volunteer to test one or two. I really do not want to supersede our menfolk but I bet some of them would like one as well.

Kelejan wrote:

sanderson wrote:

trolleydriver wrote:I sent emails to two nearby riding stables to see if I can get manure from them. So far there has been no response. Maybe I need to visit them in person.

That's what we did.  My husband has a pickup so the 33 gallon trash containers are fine.  If I had to use my car, I would have to use 20-gallon totes with lids.

I hope you get help in moving full 20 gal totes. sanderson. Five-gallon buckets is enough for me.

I'm looking for the day when they can produce a nice simple robot that do things like that  for me. I know I could not afford it but I would be happy to volunteer to test one or two. I really do not want to supersede our menfolk but I bet some of them would like one as well.

Lifting 20 gallon totes of manure would be a "no go" for me with my bad arm (repetitive strain injury), bad foot (plantar's fasciitis), bad back (spondylitis), and whatever else I have. 

trolleydriver wrote:... I sent emails to two nearby riding stables to see if I can get manure from them. So far there has been no response. Maybe I need to visit them in person. ...

Still no response from the stables. However, I found a livestock auction house just 30 minutes from my home. I asked if the public is welcome to visit to just view the auction. They said yes. So maybe I'll go to the auction and maybe get some manure while I am there. 

http://www.ottawalivestockexchange.ca/

So, smaller totes or buckets. Dried out horse manure is light and fluffy.

sanderson wrote:So, smaller totes or buckets.  Dried out horse manure is light and fluffy.

My neighbour must be feeding lead (Pb) to her horse!  

This afternoon I finally got around to filling my new 3x3x3 compost bin. 

I started with a layer of browns (leaves) and then a layer of greens (everything else) and continued adding layers until the bin was full. I topped it off with some straw. Before adding leaves to the bottom layer I had already placed some twigs and straw for air circulation.

Here are the ingredients in no particular order.

I had available just one medium sized bag of horse manure from a neighbour.



A tote full of coffee grounds and filters from the local coffee shop.




Several bags of chopped up garden waste. Some of this was already heating up and steaming in the yard waste bags.




Several bags of chopped up leaves (a few varieties but mainly maple).




Some pond plants and pond water.



One small bucket of kitchen scraps.




A small amount of blood meal at the 1/3 and 2/3 mark as suggested by sanderson.




The Jack O' Lantern met its demise and submitted itself to the compost bin.

Following on from the previous post which showed the things that went into the compost bin today.

This is what it looked like after completing the first layer.



Getting there.



Full to the top.



Covered with a tarp.  The green arrows point to the digital thermometers at two different levels in the bin.



Side view.




The mess.




After cleaning up.




The SFG anticipating new compost.

trolleydriver wrote:Following on from the previous post which showed the things that went into the compost bin today.

Full to the top.


Side view.


After cleaning up.

I love side views where you can see the layers!  Now, that pile to the left of the bin can go on top and really fill to the top!  Tomorrow it should have shrunk some.

PS  That is some wet manure!  No wonder it is so heavy.  I ran out and took a photo of the manure I asked my husband to get the day before it rained.  Horse manure nerf balls can dry out fast here.

I need to get going on the Fall cleanup.  After a hard frost and temps below freezing last night, I expect whatever was still "growing" in the SFG beds will be no more.

Planned activities for the next few days:

1. Do a final cleanup of the SFG beds including the Table Top.
2. Add compost to the SFG squares/beds where not already done.
3. Put straw mulch on the strawberry bed.
4. Put straw mulch on the garlic squares/beds.
5. Turn the new compost pile (not looking forward to doing that).
6. Move the pile of wood chips from the driveway to a storage location in the backyard and cover with a tarp.
7. Move bagged leaves to a storage area (maybe under the big pine tree) and cover with a tarp.
8. Cleanup the pond (remove pond plants such as water lilies, trim them back, compost trimmings and put potted roots back in pond).
9. If needed, collect more bags of leaves from neighbours for use next year.
10. Continue to collect coffee grounds and get some cardboard*** from the coffee shop (nice people working there by the way).
11. Prepare the lawnmower for winter storage.
12. Maybe build another compost pile using a simple hardware cloth enclosure (I have to be crazy to even think about doing this).
13. Mow the front and back lawns for the last time this year. (Update: done as of 12:30 pm).

*** I may use this cardboard to build a low enclosure to hold in the mulch on the SFG beds before putting the chicken wire cages back over them. If I do this I'll post a photo.

Here is the cardboard barrier to hold in the straw on the strawberry bed.




And here is that same bed after mulching with straw and putting the chicken wire (rusted) cage back on top.




This lettuce is still OK even after a hard frost.




Swiss Chard still ok.




Kale still hanging in.




This bed has garlic in the squares with the plastic forks. I put cardboard around the whole bed and around the squares containing the lettuce and chard.




I then added straw mulch to protect the garlic. Here it is after adding the straw and putting the chicken wire cage on top. After the lettuce and chard are harvested I will remove their cardboard barriers and cover those squares with straw. 




Mrs TD and I moved the wood chips from the driveway to the backyard next to the SFG. The chips were covered with a tarp after this photo was taken.








Temperature in the new compost bin after 48 hours. It reached 40.5 Celsius before I quit the outside work for the day.

trolleydriver wrote: And here is that same bed after mulching with straw and putting the chicken wire (rusted) cage back on top.


I then added straw mulch to protect the garlic. Here it is after adding the straw and putting the chicken wire cage on top. After the lettuce and chard are harvested I will remove their cardboard barriers and cover those squares with straw. 

They look so cozy

trolleydriver wrote:Here is the cardboard barrier to hold in the straw on the strawberry bed.




And here is that same bed after mulching with straw and putting the chicken wire (rusted) cage back on top.




This lettuce is still OK even after a hard frost.


This bed has garlic in the squares with the plastic forks. I put cardboard around the whole bed and around the squares containing the lettuce and chard.

I love your cardboard barriers, TD! Cheap, simple, effective, compostable...
And I think the 'reverse top hat' you have around your greens is the solution I need: I planted milkweeds in an SFG bed that I want to convert to ANSFG - but I don't want to bury the milkweed squares under 8" of MM. I don't know if they'll come up this spring, they didn't seem to do well this year - but I want to give them a chance.

I'm loving all your photos, TD! You're a wonderful gardener and it shows!

I wonder if we could use a double thick box as a top hat...? I think I'll try it next year just for fun.
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