http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net New to gardening - my experiences with Square Foot Gardening Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:49:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/2007/06/09/how-to-start-composting/ http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/2007/06/09/how-to-start-composting/#comments Sat, 09 Jun 2007 16:51:27 +0000 Andy http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/2007/06/09/how-to-start-composting/ One of the three main ingredients in Mel’s mix is compost. As I didn’t have any, I purchased some from the local garden centre but it would have been nicer to make my own. However, everything I’ve read seems to suggest that you have a 1 cubic metre compost heap at a minimum. My question is how do you start a compost heap? A lot of the documentation online seems to imagine that you already have the ingredients to fill the compost heap half way up – but where do you get this stuff from (or store it?). At the moment I have access to the lawn clippings from the grass and the few food scraps that we have left over and later in the year I will have LOADS of leaves. However, currently the volume of waste doesn’t seem to be sufficient to create a compost heap – so any ideas?

]]> http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/2007/06/09/how-to-start-composting/feed/ 1 http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/2007/05/26/4/ http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/2007/05/26/4/#comments Sat, 26 May 2007 16:03:00 +0000 Andy http://squarefoot.absoblogginlutely.net/?p=4 Whilst my parents were here in November we purchased a lot of the materials to make the project but didn’t purchase the base or the ingredients to make “Mel’s Mix”. I wasn’t in a hurry as I knew the frost date was the 15th May (and sure enough we had a cold spell the day before) so I didn’t have to rush to get my garden outside. So – it has taken 7 months to start the project!
Getting the 4″ square piece of plywood for the base back from Lowes was not fun. It was chucking it down with rain and the wood would not fit in the car – I had to wait for my father in law to come with his suv to get the wood home. The last piece of the holdup was getting Mel’s ingredients. Obtaining Peat Moss was easy, Vermiculite was only available in medium and not coarse grade and it is practically impossible to purchase compost around here. Most of the garden centres only carry one type of compost (if at all) and Mel’s calls for a variety of mixes. The local nursery that I asked just told me that he uses soil from the garden – not very helpful when I *need* compost. Today I finally managed to track down some compost, potting soil and cow manure that I am going to use as the compost portion of Mels Mix.
So…..today I went to start making the box only to find the battery on my cordless set is flat – so it is currently charging and I am creating this blog.

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