compost

Weeks ago I turned my compost pile, and then started chopping into the "compost cake" layer at the bottom with a shovel to feed the garden. It's all gone now- time to turn the pile again and see what else is ready, now that it's cooking! Every time I dig into the middle to bury kitchen scraps steam rises from the heat inside.

When I was digging it into the beds for planting, ran out before I got to the raised bed for the green beans. So there I used the method applied to the separated beds in the first year- double-ditch digging to bury several bucket's-worth of pulled weeds. As soon as there's more compost I'll use it as a mulch to feed the plants, but for now that will have to do. This is the only side of the garden where the soil hasn't really improved much in the past two years, it's still heavy clay and I'm trying to remember if I did something to the other areas and not this one. I probably should send a sample in somewhere for a soil test... I do remember blanketing the other garden areas with leaves overwinter one year, and how soft and rich the soil was afterward, but on the raised bed they just blow off too easily. Maybe I'll try that again this fall but put a mesh over the area to hold the leaves in the bed...