black gold - at least the start of it

what you see here, is the makings of the best stuff on earth - or i should say from earth.

well, i decided i have to completely re-rig my compost system.

if you recall a post back in may 2009: http://eldoradogardening.blogspot.com/2009/05/omg-has-been-month-already.html

it turns out this 2 bin system, just didnt have the capacity for the yard waste i was able to generate in a year. this came apparent late in 2009, when i was cleaning out my garden beds. so, that fall - i ripped out the bins (which are real cool and made from recycled plastic - i bought it about 10 years ago at my last house).

so i did the pile thing and didnt shred the garden waste last year; i just kinda chopped it up and let nature takes its course.

i dont have the time to manage the compost pile, so it never warmed up too much. i added dr earth compost builder - and it didnt do much, but relieve my wallet of $10. as fall kicked it and temps cooled, i will be building a new series of bins.

i have been noodling on it awhile and after referencing an online guide:

http://www.mastercomposter.com/

and farmer freds blog and radio show, http://www.farmerfred.com/

it looks like i will have a 4 or 5 bin system. at this point, i am planning each bin being 4x4 in size, possibly 5x5 depending upon a few factors i am still working on. that would mean a series of bins 20-25 feet long. a monstrosity, for sure, but with some careful landscape planning and i believe i will be able to mask the bins.

this may be overkill, but with a low compost management time, i would bet 4- 5 years should be sufficient to generate compost the slow way. so the way it will work, will be thus - bin 1 will receive all green and brown for 2010. that pile will move to bin 2, in 2011. bin 1, will then take 2011 stuff. each year, the piles will move up 1 bin, and by the time a pile finishes up in bin 5, it should be black gold.

good compost, like fine wine, cant be rushed, and given more and more trees getting larger and generating more leaves, every year- size will matter for my composting. so to make room for the new bins, i had to haul out all of last years compost pile and while i was at it, i figured it would shoot it thru the shreader this year. and the pile you see here is only the pile from last years goodies. shreding of this years garden commences this week.

espaliers

my first attempts at espalier action of fruit trees. a few broken branches - but hey they will grow back. i filled up the last holes in the regular orchard this spring and am now turning to the fence line - and espalier - for apples and pears.

only certain varieties of trees are suitable for espalier - those with long lived spurs or other fruit bearing wood which isnt renewed every year. like i said - apple and pears, good. cherries, yeah probably. nectarines and peaches - not so much.

so in went my first two asian pears. hosui (totally awesome - juicy, Bartlett type flavor and crunchy). and shinko (never tried one, but the description sounded great and i needed a pollinator).

even though its totally against my normal rules, i let one of them set fruit this year (usually wait at least 2 years for bare roots) and will see how it goes. i will also be grafting other varieties of pears to these trees.

espaliered apples will start next spring with about 4 varieties, that i will get from trees of antiquity - and the bar is thus for a tree to be accepted:

1. an uncommon variety that you cant find, possibly even at farmers markets

2. must be on old variety - early 1800's is the newest acceptable; preferably older - much older.

3. has a characteristic which makes it stand out. i.e. colored flesh, scent, others?

4. most likely not red skinned, i just have a thing against red skinned apples - probably from the hundreds of red delicious apples i threw out as a kid because they were pithy or other such reason.

as these espaliered trees mature and grow in number - i will begin to graft additional varieties to them to further increase my diversity. california rare fruit growers offers a scion exchange - usually in mid-january, where for a small fee you can buy cuttings suitable for grafting. grafting - i have done before - trained by my grandpa and had success, so i am looking forward to doing it again. the scion exchange is not well advertised, so listen to farmer freds show as he is usually the only way i hear about it also (sundays - 1530 am 830-10, 650 am 10-12). he's a hoot - you wont regret listening to our local radio gardener.

number 1

todays farmer fred garden grappler had me dialing into his show. luck would have it, i was caller number 1.

the question - 'name a piece of drip irrigation - and be specific.'

the answer - 'anti-siphon valve.'

was really hoping for caller #5, but i was a little too quick on the trigger finger. keep up the good work fred. and now you can be fred's facebook friend:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Get-Growing-with-Farmer-Fred/101135776596504?ref=ts

and now a word from our sponsor....

not really. i have no sponsors, except my wallet and my wife - who puts up with way more from this garden geek than she should.

i did want to do a shout out to farmer fred hoffman, local gardener guy on the radio every sunday from 830 am to noon, starting on 1530 AM (kfbk) and moving over to 650 AM (kste) at 10 am. i love his show, its fun to listen to (especially when he and darcy paulin go at it) and at times, find i actually pick up a thing or ten to file away in my brain somewhere.

in case you are listening during the garden grappler (the prize section of the show on kste) and hear a 'garry from diamond springs' - thats me! i have been the big prize winner twice and smaller prize winners several other times. listen to fred, i bet you would enjoy it.