09/17/12

It rained all day today, but I did a couple of things that I thought were worth mentioning. At lunch I put away the last of the garlic that I brought if from drying under the shed. Unfortunately, it looks like I am not going to have a great deal of fresh garlic to last me through the winter. The Tochliavri is looking good, so I put that away. The Symphony, however, all had thin papers and some were even starting to break apart. I'm not sure if I waited too late to harvest, or if I left them outside too long. I hadn't noticed any issues when I harvested them, but is clear they aren't going to store vert well. Also, the Bogatyr isn't looking good, but since I only had a couple of those left that's not such a big loss. My plan is to give a couple of the better bulbs to my Mom to use, then we are going to try drying the rest of the Symphony and Bogatyr. I'll be buying planting stock soon, so will just buy a bit extra to eat on for the next month or two. After that I suppose I'll have to resort to buying my garlic from the grocery store.

After work I needed to take the trash down to the road, so while I was out I took out the compost. Right now the compost pile has a fairly thick layer of grass clippings on top. I dug into the clippings and was surprised to find that the middle layers of clippings were completely dry. I had assumed that after hours of rain the pile would be soaked through, but apparently the clippings pack tightly enough to keep the rain out. I have read the suggestion that grass clippings always be mixed with other materials, and now I can see why. The other thing I found that was surprising is that there was significant heat coming from within the clippings. This is really the first time I have experienced noticeable heat coming from the compost pile. Since it was raining, there was also some steam coming from the area. I added some kitchen waste to the hole and covered it back over with grass clippings. I'm interested in seeing how quickly these materials break down. I realize that the conditions in the compost pile are far from optimal, and the heat being generated is probably either not as hot as would be desired, or at least will not remain hot for very long. I am still excited, though, to see that I'm making progress and am starting to create a pile that actually heats up, if only for a short time.