Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving Snow on the Cabbages

Here in Kentucky, we got to enjoy a few Thanksgiving snow flurries. For many, it put them into the Christmas spirit and made them want to go shopping early on "Black Friday". For me, it made me want to go see how the garden is doing. While the masses were up early fighting the crowds at the stores, I was taking these pictures of the snow on our cabbages.

Now that it is getting colder, I wish I would have made the cold frames that I planned to. With the aid of cold frames, you can grow keep the garden growing practically all year long. I plan to build many coldframes this winter and be ready to use them for early spring sowing. I will let you know when those are built.

Without the cold frames, I still have broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and carrots in the garden. Of course, my main crop is still compost.

This pile below has cooled off and is ready to be turned. It is easy to tell since the snow that fell on it didn't melt.

See how the snow didn't stick to the top of this pile:

That's because the top of this pile is made of used bedding from our Guinea Pigs and what's left of the jack-o-lanterns. Both are decaying rapidly and are still warm.

I hope to make another sizable compost pile soon. I have plenty of brown material available and since it hasn't been very cold here for very long, green grass is also still available. If I bag up some grass and mix it with leaves and dead garden plant material, I will have a really hot compost pile in which no snow will stick.

I doubt I'll get that accomplished this weekend. I plan to spend what's left of Thanksgiving weekend with my family actually being thankful for all we have but do not deserve. As for Christmas shopping, I'll do my part by staying out of the way of those frantic shoppers!

5 comments:

Ewa

Hi,
Staying out of frantic shoppers sounds very familiar to me - I hate shopping while so called seasonal shopping, anyway.
Concerning composting how long does it take for your compost to be ready?
Mine is abt 6 months in the summer season - do you think, that if I put togeteh a new compost pile now it will be ready by spring? I think it is not possible.
My garden is located in Poland. Greetings,

Leslie

Marc, I am so glad you left a comment at Dreams and Bones so that I could find you here. What a WEALTH of information!!! I am loving the read.

Marc

Thanks for the kind words Leslie.

Ewa, I don't know if your new compost pile would be fully broken down by Spring, but it could be if you layered the carbons (Browns) and nitrogen (Greens) in equal parts when making the pile. Mixing things like shredded leaves and grass clippings make the pile heat up and speed up the decomposition.

My piles that I make in the Fall right there in the garden usually are finished by Spring. If not, I will sift the compost and throw the bigger chunks in a different compost heap. Carol at May Dreams Gardens wrote a great post about how to make a compost sieve to use if your compost isn't all the way finished.

Whyite

We got a few flurries around Thanksgiving as well.Hopefully i can get my hands on some pallets and make one soon. My garden beds are full of dead plants waiting to go in it.

Gardening for Fun

Your cabbage inspires me. I plan on growing cabbage next year. Wish me luck!

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