Preparing for Spring with Microbes

Not a very interesting weekend in the garden - mostly clean-up after the snow and getting ready for the burst of growth that will happen as soon as it stops freezing at night.

I sowed more cover crops (peas and barley), planted out the leeks and transplanted lots of Swiss chard seedlings that had set themselves.  The variety is my favorite - Verte a Carde Blanche - very sweet with a wide white stem and slightly crumpled deep green leaves.  We use the leaves and stem as almost separate vegetables.

I ran a bunch of Fall leaves through the shredder ready for another compost pile.  The old pile had cooled down so I turned it over, added a couple of handfuls of rock dust, some M3 and a good dose of Bountea.  The extra nitrogen and microbes really worked - in a couple of days it was steaming hot again.

It is always best to add all amendments, particularly rock dust, to either the Bountea or your compost pile. That way everything gets processed by the microbes.  Microbes are king of the garden. The picture is of microbes in compost tea.