Yesterday was a big work-outside day here. I wanted to do some top dressing and soil amending in the empty beds before it’s time to plant. Cedar pollen was also just a bit lower, though I still looked like a crazy woman in the garden with a balaclava to keep pollen out of my hair and nose and mouth and motorcycle goggles to protect my eyes (I did have to dispense with those as they started fogging up too much eventually).
I top dressed our asparagus bed with cottonseed meal in between the patches of cover-crop clover and covered that over with shredded leaves since I didn’t want to scratch it in. I did the same with the pot of leeks. I watered it all after taking the pictures. I was surprised to find one spear of asparagus popping up already.
I put cottonseed meal in all of my other empty beds and raked that in. My husband also helped me do a coarse screening of compost from one tumbler (combined from both our tumblers somewhat recently). We put the screened compost in the beds where I have plans to plant the soonest. The pictures are before we had put in the last loads of compost in the big bed and before I watered it all in.
I also found some bare space in my lettuce bed to plant some dill, parsley, and cilantro. Those can take a long time to germinate, and we’re supposed to have cooler weather this week, so it may be a while before I know if any comes up. I just wanted to put it where I know I’ll be watering anyway, and they can make a nice addition to our salads. We’ve continued to enjoy harvesting baby lettuce for lunchtime salads. The last picture shows a closeup of where I harvested a big batch yesterday. Other low spots are from earlier in the week, but they’re growing back nicely.
After I finished all the soil amending and watering, my husband and I made sure that both composters were filled to the brim with shredded leaves (my husband worked like a yeoman last Saturday and Monday to clean parts of our backyard—the leaves get to stay where they land everywhere else on the property but not on the river rock that previous owners used in the back). He mulched many of them outside the yard, so just a tiny portion went into the compost. We mixed in alfalfa pellets and moistened everything. We’ll probably have to add more water, but we hope to have some hot compost in both tumblers soon.
It was a long day and we were exhausted when we finished at dusk (my husband also did branch and shrub trimming along our driveway while I watered), but it was productive. Now we’re praying that we actually get some rain to do a better watering than I can do with my hose. We’re supposed to have a shot on Tuesday.
My next gardening task is to start some seeds for Sugar Snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and beets. The plan is for me to start them inside but move them to the composted beds in February.
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