Looks great! Are you going to fill it with bulk compost?
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Yepā¦ probably gonna be bought from the store for this year, though weāre gonna start our own compost pile tooā¦ I should probably check to see if the county has some compost? Probably not, since they donāt collect it at the streetā¦
The epic gardening channel had a suggestion of putting in some sticks at the bottom, which will help with drainage and theyāll break down eventually, tooā¦
Iām certainly gonna start very smallā¦ maybe a couple of different plants if that? Iām still not sure what yetā¦
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There may be a municipal compost. Even if they donāt collect household compost they may have to deal with leaf litter from parks an dealing with downed branches.
Getting a yard of compost delivered may be cheaper than buying bags at the home store, even when the delivery cost is added in. Looks like your construction os about a yard in volume. Locally I get compost for about $45 per yard. Buying that at Home Depot is about three or four times that.
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Iāll definitely look into what the county has or maybe the next county overā¦ maybe one of the local towns has something from their parks and rec, too!
I donāt think the local smaller gardening shops will be any cheaper for that stuff, either.
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The oaks are trimmed now. It was a heavier year in terms of pruning, maybe 7% on the one that needed the most work. We shouldnāt need to go that heavy again for another 2-3 years. Next winter should just be cleaning out the interior of cross branches. We tend to be really conservative with pruning and always an eye towards long term stability.
I want to prune the Mexican redbud next. A lot of people wait until itās done blooming in spring so they have more blooms. But while blooms are nice, a healthy tree is more important and weāll do it when the tree is still dormant.
We need to prune the neighborsā tree. 
Itās damaging the fence. The whole thing needs to come out, it should have been removed as a sapling growing within 2 feet of the fence. But we assumed the owner would take care of it and they didnāt and itās very fast growing
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Wowā¦ in case you need a very zen live streamā¦ no music or anything.
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Are there any landscape suppliers near you? Another potential source of compost.
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Iāll check into that, too! Thanks!
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Anyone do a raised bed using hugelkultur techniques?
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I am doing that tnis year, but have no experience to share yet. Had lots of logs and leftovers after our various tree disasters this year!
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Get a big ziploc bag, or a big container (we tend to use mulitple large plastic yogurt tubs), and keep your collection in the freezer, sealed. Bring it out to load it or top it off. Store as much bio-scraps in the freezer as you can.
At your leisure, you can bring all your kitchen scraps to the compost pile while frozen. Itāll all thaw, and the freezing usually helps break down stuff so it rots even faster.
If you donāt have a copy of Rodaleās Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening (which as a nice large entry for ācompostingāā¦ then here:
One thing to avoid: attracting rats, cockroaches (even though they are good soil-decomposers), and flies. A roll of hardware cloth around your pile will keep the rats away. And a hot pile with plenty of microbe activity will naturallly repel flies and roaches.
Apparently this excellent video by Geoff Lawton shows you can make a compost pile that attracts healthy young folks with strong backs!
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