Here in zone 6 we’re pretty much in the clear for anymore frosts or hard weather. As it starts to warm up-and it was 90 and high 80’s the past two days-it’s about time to start thinking summer garden time. I’ve got about another 3 weeks of harvesting all the leftover spring crops. Two nights ago I replanted 10 squares with summer crops. If you’re interested in an easy and great crop rotation plan, you might consider my eBook where I talk about this. It’s all easy and it minimizes the likelihood of pests, critters, and diseases. But now is the time to start planting things like tomatoes, beans, peppers, cucumbers, varieties of cut-and-come again lettuce, zucchini, the other squashes, and finally corn! I like to throw in a flower or two not just because of looks but to also attract pollinators to the garden. My preference for this is bachelor buttons. They do the trick, last a long time, and look great. As a side note, I’m now a bee-keeper. It’s been fun to watch and the greatest part is I don’t get stung! These bees are great for pollinating but they’re not aggressive and they don’t have a hive to protect. But they don’t make honey so I miss out on that one. I also miss out on bees stinging the neighborhood kids and creating a whole other host of problems.

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Making compost is not only a lot of fun, it’s also very easy. And you can’t buy compost as good as you can make in your own backyard. One of the best parts about homemade compost is that it’s all free! I spend quite a bit of time attempting to explain how easy it is to make your own. I know there’s a lot of expertise out that that might be of value, but you don’t need a lot of knowledge to do it correctly. In the SFG system, we use a basic mix of course vermiculite, peat moss, and a blended compost made up of at least 5 different ingredients. This mix has gotten to be very costly-about $70 per 4X4′ square. But it’s only a one time expense. If you make your own compost you’ll never need to spend another cent on Mel’s mix. If you choose not to make your own compost, you’ll always need to have access to some commercially available compost. As you read from previous posts, my favorite commercial compost is made by Gardener & Bloome. It’s got about 10 different things in it, and then I add all of my extras-egg shells, banana peels, orange and lemon rinds, moldy strawberries, old grapes, potato and carrot peelings, dried grass, dried fall leaves, horse manure, etc. You can see how easy it is to get to that minimum number of 5 ingredients. If your interested in learning what you need to know about composting, there’s an easy chapter on how to do it in my ebook which you can find on my site. While at Home Depot today, I ran across this brand of compost-Kelloggs. It too looks excellent and is very similar to the ingredients found in the Gardener and Bloome product. I know there’s formulas about how much of what to add in order to make compost. You don’t need to know all of that. I’ve had tremendous results doing it the way I’ve done it for 13 years. I just layer everything together, make sure I mix it well, mash all the larger pieces, and then moisten it to resemble a rung out sponge. In 6 weeks I get a great compost blend-something no store bought package can offer. One good season of successful composting under your belt will have you asking yourself:”why haven’t I been doing this all along?” Learn how to do it so you don’t have to spend another dime on buying the commercial brands at the stores.

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