Compost and planting leeks for the winter

After one year of composting food scraps from our house, we now have rich organic material to add to our garden. We planted leeks today to harvest after the first hard frost. If we don't harvest them we are going to mulch them heavily for a late spring harvest. 

Looking into the inside of our composting barrel; you can find the barrel in one of my previous post.

The compost came from all of our food scraps in the house, with the exception of meat products. The barrel has not been emptied for one year. I was amazed at how we kept filling it and as nature did its thing and broke down the matter there was always room for more. In addition when I went fishing and came home with extra worms I would throw them in the compost. Finally I want to point out that at no time did the compost smell unpleasant. 

I planted this bed on August 20th; depending on our first hard freeze I am going to try and harvest it in November. Leeks are hardy and as the weather gets colder I will increase the mulch up around the leeks.  I have been told I could cover them over the winter and harvest them in the warm spring. I will do this if the leeks are not big enough in November. This bed was planted with mustard for most of the summer; I cut the mustard and worked it into the soil prior to planting. If you look closely you will see the awesome compost on the rows!