Moving into Winter on the farm
October 23rd, 2009With the greenhouse project done, it’s time to put it to use. We’re going to try growing tender herbs (chervil, parsley, cilantro, even basil) over winter, and experiment with tomatoes.
In the past, I’ve been using our own compost for planting seeds. Everything goes into the compost pile: food scraps, garden waste, grape stems and pomace. Turn it over once, and a year later it’s transformed itself into beautiful rich, black, and crumbly soil. Our compost bin is to the right in this photo.
That’s composted bedding straw from the sheep barn on the left, under cover to keep it from getting saturated over winter. It will go into the garden and vineyard next spring.
I got some used seedling trays, cheap, from the Red Barn Nursery in Stayton. Perfect for starting seedlings for transplant into larger containers as they grow. But the compost as it comes out of the bin is a little too coarse than it ought to be for starting seeds. I tried putting it in a blender, but that didn’t work. The solution: a big blender, in the form of a Steinmax 1800 electric chipper/shredder.
The Steinmax 1800 sold in 1986 for $230. I found one on Craigslist for $75. It needed a bit of refurbishing – welding, hammering, patching, rewiring, lubricating, painting. The results?
Beautiful stuff, the texture and color of coffee grounds.
We used to have a big, gas-powered chipper/shredder, thinking that we’d shred plant material before it went into the compost bin. But that didn’t work well, it was too much work, and the machine was hard to start and noisy to run. We soon sold it. But after a year of composting, the course compost (fine for amending soil in the garden as is) slides readily into the maws of the shredder. Letting all the heavy lifting happen by itself in the compost bin is definitely the way to go. Do seeds like it? See for yourself.
We’re still getting fresh peas out of the garden, despite repeated frosts and rains. Here’s how.
A similar cold frame will enable us to harvest lettuces all winter – as long as the gophers don’t move in.
