Rain Delay

The leaves have been beautiful this year. We had enough on the ground that we thought it was time to collect them and tuck them in for some garden composting.

Finally, we thought Saturday was the day. We put the catchers on the lawn mover and gave it a shot. Unfortunately, they were too wet from the week of rain. The last couple days won't help, either. We'll try again.

Meanwhile, we got in a little garden clean up on Saturday, until we decided it was time to go inside and warm up. I didn't clean up too much, though. There are some birds that like to scavenge around in the garden. There's still plenty of treasures for them to find.

Here is our post about composting in place last year.

Composting in Place

Many of the leaves have yet to fall, but last weekend, we did mow up some leaves and grass to start in-place composting. Each fall, we add the grass catcher to the mower and catch the chopped up leaves and grass for composting.

Last year, we collected it in wire cages (fashioned from misc. fencing we had). This did indeed compost, but was also hard to get out of the cage and a lot of the benefit went under the cages. This year, I planned to place the cages directly in a garden bed. But, then why use the cages? So, we'll pile it up in the beds. Anything left in the spring can be raked aside or used as mulch.

Even done like this, it does warm up inside the pile.

Decided to throw some coffee bags over parts to see if that helps. I think it will let in some moisture, but keep it from being sopping wet all of the time. I hope it encourages wormies to do their thing. They are always present under any coffee bags I use in the garden.