Processing Area

The processing area is so named because I moved most of my composting activities there in 2015. It is bounded by the west fence area, the back fence area, the mini lawn, and the myrtle bed. For the time between when I moved in on May 15, 2013 and when the arbor and water oak circle were removed in early 2016, the area was confined to the grassy part of the lawn to their west. After I removed the arbor and the oak and added the raised beds, the area expanded to the north-south line along the west side of Bed 1.

When I moved to this house, much of this area was covered with St. Augustine grass. In this photo, the processing area would include most of the grass, but not the other features.

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On March 9, 2014, violet woodsorrel was starting to dominate the southern half of the area, later in the year, it would be dormant and hidden beneath the St. Augustine.

False garlic also grew in patches. This photo is from March 13, 2014, when many of the chive-like plants were showing their small white flowers.

The processing area on March 28, 2014.

On January 24, 2015, I had finished my first leaf mold pile. In this first attempt, I shredded some leaves with my mower before tossing them in the pen, but got tired of it after a while and threw in a lot of unshredded leaves. I only filled the pen about half full and put a tarp over it to preserve moisture.


Here is a view of the pen in the processing area from the north, on the same day. I had moved a stick pile into this area.


This photo was taken from the back yard gate, just to the west of the myrtle bed, on May 5, 2017.

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The front (south) part of the processing area has what was a large bare dirt patch, which is now being covered with young sedges and some young Bermuda grass. This is where I had made a large pile of unshredded leaves. As I shredded them with my mover, I would dump the lawnmower bag onto the shredded pile shown in the photo. This pile continues towards the back fence.

Both photos show a large stand of common sunflowers, which have grown to over ten feet high, shading the area to the north. I removed some branches to create a clear passage to the bird bath. The photo below shows the northern end of the processing area, take from the other side of Bed 1. In the foreground, just behind Bed 1, is the back end of the shredded leaf pile. A dewberry bramble is growing at an accelerated rate between the leaf pile and the sunflower plants. The area to the right of the bird bath is part of the back fence area.


By January 3, 2018, I had bought a new 4' x 25' roll of hardware cloth and constructed a new leaf compost bin in the processing area, to the north of the bin with the compost from 2017.


By January 26, I had filled the bin to above the top, and re-topped it a couple of times after the shredded leaves had settled. Here it is next to the nearly mature compost from 2017.

By February 3, I decided that I wanted to move the bins out of the processing area and use the space for garden beds. First I used some old hardware cloth I had on hand and made a very small bin by the east fence next to the bedroom wall area. I filled the bin with compost.

In the meantime, I kept collecting bags of leaves from around the neighborhood and shredding the leaves the best I could with my electric lawnmower. I created long, narrow leaf mounds and passed over them multiple times before raking them into long piles on either side of the mowing area.

On February 16, 2018, I managed to remove the hardware cloth from the 4' tall bin, moved it to the bedroom wall area, and started breaking down the big pile of mowed leaves where the bin had been.

Shortly thereafter, I also moved the other compost bin and hawled the compost to a pile in the middle of the mini lawn.

I also moved some of the compost to unplanted areas of the raised beds. With the compost out of the way, I moved all of the mowed leaves into two long piles across the entire processing area.

Soon thereafter, I ordered a gas chipper-shredder, which arrived on February 28. The next day, I began the long, arduous task of reshredding all the leaves that were already there, as well as a lot more from bags in the neighborhood.

By this time, my objective was clear: I wanted to make six garden beds that would fill the entire area I had called the processing area. The story continues in six garden beds.