Kiwi's SFG Adventure

KiwiSFGnewbie wrote:From reviews, one concern is that with our strong UV the plastic breaks down and becomes brittle.  So, I decided to site it beside the house, instead of near the garden, since this means it'll be permanently shaded.  I also liked the idea of having it on concrete instead of our 'wonderful' clay, which after all the rain we've been having is pretty soft.  The concrete is on a slight slope so I'm hoping to be able to level the bin somewhat before starting to fill it this week.

Looking good!   A couple points you may want to consider:

Since it is setting on concrete you may want to put trays under the tumblers to catch the liquid that drips out of the bins. Or, you may be able to simply rinse the concrete on a regular basis to wash off the liquid stains.

I had to set my tumblers up on blocks so that I could get the wheelbarrow under them to empty them. Otherwise I would have had to dump the compost out onto a tarp under the tumbler and then shovel it into the wheelbarrow.

Second that. It can get messy under. And had to raise ours to get a wheelbarrow or cart under.

OhioGardener wrote:A couple points you may want to consider:

I had to set my tumblers up on blocks so that I could get the wheelbarrow under them to empty them. Otherwise I would have had to dump the compost out onto a tarp under the tumbler and then shovel it into the wheelbarrow.

I had to dump my Lifetime on a tarp and drag it away from the tumbler.
Then shovel and screen it into the wheel barrow.

Thanks heaps for the advice, folks.  I was thinking of something like a fish bin for emptying it out (the height is towards the top of my calf muscles), which could sit there permanently to catch any drips.  Was assuming they wouldn't be too much so long as I keep the bottom vent closed all the time, but perhaps that was a bit optimistic :-)

KiwiSFGnewbie wrote: Was assuming they wouldn't be too much so long as I keep the bottom vent closed all the time, but perhaps that was a bit optimistic :-)

You will want the vents open for air flow - composting is an aerobic process. 

Optimism frequently meets Murphy's Law.

OhioGardener wrote:

KiwiSFGnewbie wrote: Was assuming they wouldn't be too much so long as I keep the bottom vent closed all the time, but perhaps that was a bit optimistic :-)

You will want the vents open for air flow - composting is an aerobic process.

Yes, that's why I bought something with vents, having seen how my current unvented one does not work, but I just thought perhaps the loss of a single vent wouldn't make that much difference especially since I'll be turning it multiple times each day.  But since I'm in a hurry, I'll definitely keep them all open if that's what's necessary

Optimism frequently meets Murphy's Law.

Oh, yes indeed

Well, goodness, I knew it'd been a while since I last posted here, but I'm surprised to see it's nearly a month ago!  Today I had a salad for my lunch, containing lettuce from my troughs and 5 beautiful beans picked from my garden     My harvest hasn't been huge by any means, but the plants are still producing flowers and there are around 10 pods in various stages of growth already on them, so there's enough to keep me motivated.  They're simply gorgeous to eat -- sweet and crisp and juicy     This isn't the harvest I expected, but after what the plants and I have been through I'm just happy for whatever I get.

I had to pull out a couple of plants recently -- they were producing pods, but as they matured they went yellow and then withered away, so it was clear they weren't happy and I didn't want them consuming nutrients from the MM.  Oddly, they were right next to productive plants    I couldn't find any useful info here or elsewhere online, so am chalking it up to 'weird sh*t happening in my garden'.

The 2 determinate roma tomatoes are continuing to get taller (and produce more flowers); over the weekend I constructed teepees for them out of 4-foot bamboo stakes ziptied together.  I'd sprayed them with Neem oil to hopefully deal with small white spots on the leaves, and noticed how heavy the plants were getting.  They'd been sitting in little metal cages up till then, since the seed packet had said no staking was necessary    I'm really hoping they don't get too much taller!  I deliberately chose bush tomatoes so I wouldn't have to deal with huge plants in my first year....

The truly exciting thing is they've started to ripen in the past few days    It's amazing how quickly they're changing colour now that they've started, after being green for so long.  I adore tomatoes and can't wait to be eating my own!!!



The cardboard you're seeing there is covering carrot and silverbeet (I think it's called swiss chard in the US) seeds which I'm eagerly waiting to see poking their heads above the surface any day now.  Peas are now also sown in two squares along the back edge.  I'm probably a bit late for autumn sowing but I couldn't get my head around it any earlier.

I didn't have any compost ready to add to the bed (originally I wasn't going to try to grow anything this autumn/winter) and the minimum I could buy was 5 gallons, so I decided to hope for the best that there's still enough nutrients in the bed.  Several of the squares actually haven't grown anything very much this summer, so the hope is that there's still a good amount of nutrients in there and I'll get something from the autumn sowing.  If not, then at least I tried and didn't just sow a cover crop as was the original plan post summer harvest.

The compost tumbler is going well, and provoking learning experiences every few days, but this is enough for one post

You are doing so good considering all of the challenges you have had. I like your tee pee and cup design to hold off the netting.

As far as some of the beans dying, could it be dampening-off? Over-wet stems near the soil line? The stems get really skinny and the plant dies. It occasionally happens to some of my beans or cucumbers.

Thank you sanderson   Being this new I have no way of judging how I'm doing!  I keep thinking, I hope I look back on this season and say Boy that was a difficult one to start with  

The cups are actually coke cans -- DH drinks a lot of it, so I have an inexhaustible supply of them!  For the teepees I had to cut them down to half height, but the alu is so thin it's really easy to do.

I'm not sure if the bean stems got really skinny, it's a couple of weeks ago since it happened.  I don't think so, though.  And one of them was in a square with 3 others that were perfectly happy, so....???

The first year is the big learning curve.