Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 4.11

Good morning, and Merry Christmas!  Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.

The weather here in Denver has been, uhm, interesting.

On Wednesday, April 30, we topped 80° for the first time this season.  Oh, such a lovely day, especially as I was not at the office but, instead, outside working in the yard, breathing the mingled scents of sun-warmed lilac and the first lawn mowing.

And May Day?  Although the official high for the day was 44°, that temperature came during the wee morning hours.  The daytime high was about 50° cooler than the day before, somewhere in the mid-30s.  We had flurries of wet, sloppy snow, interspersed with rain.  And wind.  Oh gawd, wind.

And yesterday was more of the same, minus the moisture but with extra wind.  In general: ick.

But today it’s supposed to clear out and warm up.  I hope so.  I’ve a shitload of tubers waiting to go into the ground.

And as to Merry Christmas?  Well, the Christmas cactus which refused to bloom last winter has buds.  Go figure.

Sometimes I cannot decide whether I am extremely clever, or extremely stupid, all over the same idea.

During the gardening season and as I do fall clean up, I’ve taken to stacking the "rough" garden debris — that is, stuff like corn stalks and vines which must be chopped, and/or needs to break down before being chopped, before adding to the compost bin — behind the back fence.

Then, as the gardening season starts, I have piles and piles of debris to prep for the compost bin — indeed, waaaayyy too much "brown" to add all at once.

Another difficulty in composting is grass clippings.  While they provide the very necessary "green" component essential to get the compost cooking nice and hot, they also have a tendency to matt together, creating thick, impenetrable masses which do not compost at all.

On Wednesday, as I planned my (very full) day of gardening chores, I was ruminating on this dilemma: how to efficiently and effectively mix the new green with the old brown.  My initial idea was to pile up a stack of brown debris and, as I mowed the lawn, empty the clippings on to the pile.  Then, when I was done, I'd run the mower over all of it, chopping the brown and mixing it with the green at the same time.

It would have worked but... after emptying the first batch of grass clippings on the pile, I did a massive face-palm, realizing I was thinking ass-backwards and adding a laborious and unnecessary step to the proceedings.

Instead of throwing the clippings on the pile of brown, I spread a nice, even layer of unchopped debris over the lawn, and mowed across the whole shebang ("she bang"?  what a weird word...), simultaneously mowing the grass, chopping the debris, and mixing it all together.

Then — since I had such a nice mix of un-matted brown and green achieved with little effort — I determined to do the compost right this time around.  As I emptied each load from the grass catcher, I conscientiously mixed it through what already was in the bin.

Like — wow.  So, am I extremely clever for thinking it up, or extremely stupid for not figuring it out years ago?  In any event, I’m anxious to get out there and see how well the compost is cooking, even if it has only been a couple of days.

The remainder of the day was spent getting the new sphagnum moss liners into my hayrack planters and filling them with potting soil, ready for planting begonias in them.  I've had the planters for several years, and the old coco fiber liners were looking extremely ugly.  Well, and I never really liked those liners anyway, but they are what came with the racks.

What I did not get to was planting the potatoes.  And I desperately need to do that.  The seed potatoes that I put aside last fall in the cold storage have sprouted... and I mean really, really sprouted.  Great, big, foot-long sprouts.  See, the door to the cold storage space has been open for the last month or six weeks, meaning the cold storage hasn't been cold.  Aaaccck!

Then, of course, there is more generalized clean up, and getting ready for last-frost: starting corn, squash and cucumbers inside; getting pots cleaned, filled, and ready to accept dahlia tubers.  Oh, all sorts of stuff to get done.

That's what's happening here.  What's going on in your garden?