In for a short rest, a drink, and to visit the loo, but I think this is a de-clutter entry rather than gardening, though it is eligible for both.

That Chinese puzzle I mention regularly is fully in effect this afternoon.

I am digging a new veggie bed, so of course I have all of the weedy sod to toss in the compost. I only have a little ready for now, so I want to pick up compost from a free city place and buy several bags of wood chips to put down a walking path in the garden. I had some manure and top soil in bags in the pickup already, so I've pulled those out. I need to go to Home Depot to get the wood chips, and a local park to get the compost.

I'm building a new compost pile, I usually have two or three going in different stages at any given time. Last year's compost hasn't been breaking down properly, there were too many branches in it. They allow air in and it all dries out, it doesn't rot, heat up, and break down. This week I've spent time pulling limbs and sticks out of that pile, and today I approached it with wheelbarrow and shovel to move.

But there's a fence post in the way on the left of the new compost pile location. If I expand the pile that way, it'll block access to this post I put in place several years ago when I didn't have dogs and I put in a more elaborate compost enclosure on the same spot. I had three posts and a tall stake (the posts were recycled).

So today I've loosened the post but I can't get it out by myself without digging a lot bigger hole. I've got it leaning and I'll wait till my son comes home and helps me drag it out of the way. (The concrete footer is the problem). And on the right side of the new compost pile is the loose stack of big limbs I cut down last summer.

SO. . .

I emptied the bags of manure and top soil out of the truck. I put in the fluorescent light bulbs that burned out (they don't go in the regular trash) to take over to recycle at Home Depot when I buy my wood chips.

I've lugged a tall trash container back and spent some time cramming it full of sticks from the pile beside the new compost (keeping them parallel to each other to get more in). If I take a container of sticks to the curb each time there's trash pickup I'll have them out of here by the end of the month.

Just before coming in for my drink and rest, I pulled out the limb saw and I'm going to go cut up the rest of that pile of large limbs and drag them out to the front for tomorrow's trash. I don't have a chipper, there's no point in waiting for one to appear magically, so out they go. This is why I pick up free compost from the city. It's pretty woody and finishes breaking down in the garden.

Once the limbs are out of the way, I can take my wheelbarrow full of last year's compost and dump on the new pile, and then I'll alternate with old compost and new dug-up sod from the new bed on that spot. I have a sprinkler out back that I'll set up on top of the pile tonight and water to see if I can't get this to start heating up again and work it fast this year. I'll keep my eye open for any lawn clippings neighbors haul out to the curb and bring them home to put on top. Those are always the best for jumping the biologic activity in my compost.

I need to compost parts of my house also, I think.

SRS