Today I took some time to clean up those plants from the garden that had died back or had been severely damaged in the recent freeze. Hidden among the slimy remains of frozen fava bean branches and brown lettuce were a couple of good heads of leaf lettuce, which I happily harvested. You can see them in the photo, along with the materials removed from the garden and the remaining beautiful kale in the background. The bucket of dead and damaged materials are perfect for compost, but sadly I do not have an active compost pile right now. I have not started one because my yard is full of the noxious weed pennywort, and there is no location where I can put a compost pile that the weed won't move in. Once pennywort is in the compost I can't use it in any garden. However, I think I may have a solution: composting in a closed worm bed for a majority of my excess plant materials, and feeding some to the new hens that should be moving in this week. Now I need to look into worm bin designs and decide how to proceed. Hopefully the next photo posted will be of our new hens. Oh, and wish me luck: we are in for another bitter night.
