I have a plan

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I have been confused about the rabbit bedding from the beginning, but I read this http://beekman1802.com/spring-raised-bed-prep/ and I know what I need to do. Last fall we did not get the garden cleaned up. We have half finished compost and a lot of rabbit manure with a little bit of bedding that I have been spreading around the garden even on top of the snow. There is a lot of material not being put on the garden that has a lot of straw, pine shavings urine soaked, hay, and rabbit droppings and that will be mixed and fill all the bins. We are going to spread all the older bedding and half finished compost, droppings around the garden and till as soon as possible like what this man did in the link. I also think that I made a mistake watering with rabbit manure tea. I had used some of the urine soaked pine with the droppings and watered the garlic, onions, peas, beets and lettuce. The lettuce was wonderful, but the beets had tops, not much of root. The garlic was very, very tall, but there was garlic, the onions and peas fell over and I read a cause could be too much nitrogen causing stalks that are watery, weak, and fall over in the wind. I will use compost tea this year. The goat bedding in the picture looks a lot like what we have, but ours is partly black from composting.

 

[digitS']

I was on a 18 month composting cycle for quite a few years, GWR. I'm not really sure how I got on it but it may have just involved using commercial fertilizer alone the first year. I still go through quite a lot of organic fertilizer each year. There is never enough compost.

Once I was on that 18 month cycle, I didn't get off it until Dad was no longer living at that home. My 2 part composting bin was in his backyard. I still had a year's worth of compost to use, each and every season (except the first). Nothing was coming out of the bin that was less than 18 months old.

Now, my composting is semi-subterranean and the material decomposes much faster. I think I get away with this process because of the rocky nature of the surrounding soil. There's no pooling of water - nothing like that.

That rocky soil seems to mean that there is almost no time when it's too wet to till. The tractor guy wanted the sprinklers on for 24 hours before he tilled a piece of ground that had not been cultivated in years. It was in pretty good shape after he finished but that's glacial till. It isn't clay or anything of the sort.

Steve

 

[journey11]

Goat manure is wonderful, can go on even if it's fresh and it makes for such a nice soil texture. I was lucky enough to get a truck bed full a couple years ago. I wish I could get some more!

I always end up clearing out my raised beds each fall, just because it is easier to get to than the big garden. But really, I would think it must be better to leave some kind of covering on it to protect the soil. I don't really have the erosion problems in a level raised bed like I do in the big garden, but something about leaving it naked just feels like a bad idea to me. I can't see a need to put a tiller on the raised beds, they are already so loose and friable as is. I just work it a little with the turning fork. I think it would be good to just lay the hay/goat (or rabbit) manure mixture right on top each fall and leave it all winter, then turn it in come spring.

Best thing I ever did was to start putting my compost pile directly on the garden. I've been doing that on one quarter of it each year so none of the good stuff is wasted (where I used to have a compost pile down by the barn instead, out of the way.) Then last year I started fencing the chickens on that area and they turn it for me.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Goat manure is wonderful, can go on even if it's fresh and it makes for such a nice soil texture. I was lucky enough to get a truck bed full a couple years ago. I wish I could get some more!

I always end up clearing out my raised beds each fall, just because it is easier to get to than the big garden. But really, I would think it must be better to leave some kind of covering on it to protect the soil. I don't really have the erosion problems in a level raised bed like I do in the big garden, but something about leaving it naked just feels like a bad idea to me. I can't see a need to put a tiller on the raised beds, they are already so loose and friable as is. I just work it a little with the turning fork. I think it would be good to just lay the hay/goat (or rabbit) manure mixture right on top each fall and leave it all winter, then turn it in come spring.

Best thing I ever did was to start putting my compost pile directly on the garden. I've been doing that on one quarter of it each year so none of the good stuff is wasted (where I used to have a compost pile down by the barn instead, out of the way.) Then last year I started fencing the chickens on that area and they turn it for me.

Two years ago we put chopped leaves, compost, rabbit manure and then built compost bins in the garden. It worked great. The next year we did the same, but the compost piles did not cook and in the spring we had to move it all out of the garden and we did not till. That was last spring. We had the best garden ever last year, but partly because of the weather and that is why we did not get the leaves and things spread last fall. The garden was still producing in October, part of it at least. Then, it froze. The leaves did not get shredded for some reason. They are under a tarp right now and turning black. The tomato plants are still in the garden. I did get the asparagus and the garlic covered. It is a big mess out there right now, but you are right, it would be better to do this in the fall.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I was on a 18 month composting cycle for quite a few years, GWR. I'm not really sure how I got on it but it may have just involved using commercial fertilizer alone the first year. I still go through quite a lot of organic fertilizer each year. There is never enough compost.

Once I was on that 18 month cycle, I didn't get off it until Dad was no longer living at that home. My 2 part composting bin was in his backyard. I still had a year's worth of compost to use, each and every season (except the first). Nothing was coming out of the bin that was less than 18 months old.

Now, my composting is semi-subterranean and the material decomposes much faster. I think I get away with this process because of the rocky nature of the surrounding soil. There's no pooling of water - nothing like that.

That rocky soil seems to mean that there is almost no time when it's too wet to till. The tractor guy wanted the sprinklers on for 24 hours before he tilled a piece of ground that had not been cultivated in years. It was in pretty good shape after he finished but that's glacial till. It isn't clay or anything of the sort.

Steve

I would like to be able to let this cook down for 18 months, but there is not really enough room. I guess we could get rid of some of the old bedding and compost less. There is some on the ground that is probably close to 12 months though. That will be put in the garden. Maybe, all of it is when I think about it. My DH fills the bins, moves it to the back and lets it sit until fall and then put in the garden, but not tilled in until spring, and then the newer compost stays piled up until it cooks down. Or something like that. It cooks fast and then stops and just sits, so he takes it all out and makes new and the half finished sits, and sits, and sits, and never does look finished.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

@Gardening with Rabbits - I may be out of line here (please tell me if so) but would you please go into your profile and add what state or province you live in. And maybe the nearest city or town. I'm kind of new here and I always look at the location of a poster when they are discussing gardening. Thanks.

Grandpa Smiles has large piles of goat, rabbit, chicken, cow, and horse manure out behind one of the barns. He even has signs that say what animal its from. I guess that, as the years went by, he slowed down on the amount of work he put int his gardening and didn't use the manure nor the compost in the nice bins he built. I can't wait to dig into the goldmine back there. I'll have to use some discretion and not over do it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Turning compost is dirty hard physical labor unless you have a mechanical way to do it, like a front end loader. That's probably the main reason I don't turn mine nearly enough, plus I always have other more pressing things to do. If you turn it the stuff on the outside cooks down and you get more of the seeds in it cooked. Turning speeds the whole process up.

When I have chicks in the grow-out coop I have to carry water to them. That's right next to my compost. When I'm carrying water over there I make sure the compost stays damp in the summer. Otherwise it dries out and stops working. It takes forever to finish. Sometimes I'll drag and leave a hose to the compost and wet the compost when I don't have chicks in there but I'm not as consistent with that as I should be.

When I turn it a few times and manage to keep it damp and not soaking, I can get two batches a year. Otherwise maybe 9 to 10 months per batch. Two batches is barely enough but occasionally even then I run short. This is the stuff that I dig into the row when I plant stuff. I've got about 10 chicken feed bags full right now and a new batch started.

Most summers a neighbor brings me two or three front-end-loaders of partially composted cow manure and hay from where he fed his cattle during the winter. I leave that piled up until it changes from mostly raw manure to compost. I spread that across my garden, just finished doing that yesterday. It does not cover all my garden, maybe 1/3 to 1/2, but I put about a 1" thick layer and later dig it in. That helps the tilth quite a bit but I do get a lot of seeds from that, mostly Bermuda grass and some burdock. To me it is worth it.

About once every four years I clean out the chicken coop in the fall as soon as the garden is done. I don't need to clean it out for the sake of the chickens, it stays dry and is not a problem, but I want those finely broken down wood shavings and the powdery chicken poop on the garden. It stays dry so it does not compost in the coop but they have scratched it to a real fine consistency. It is easily ready for me to plant in the spring, but most of the winter it is not cold enough for the ground to stay frozen, plus I get a fair amount of moisture all through the winter. Plus when I do put this on, it does not go where I plant my early stuff in late February. It goes where my warm-weather stuff will go, which I probably plant in May.

 

[digitS']

An advantage of leaving that compost material so long was that I never turned it. Smiles, Sr may have appreciated that same advantage.

I'd pay some attention to building the piles. Around here, 90%of the decomposition occurs during the 6 weeks of mid-summer. I'd try to have a nice layer of soil over the pile by July 4th. Then - keep adding on top. Everything had been piled on by late October with a top layer of soil. All I'd do the next year was keep the weeds off it -- often, I'd plant something like squash on top .

That season, I'd build the 2nd pile. The first would be entirely used the following year. What was on the bottom was a full 24 months old, on top, 18 months.

You should know that I also built piles in the garden. I'd dig out a bed so those compost piles were long narrow affairs. This is how I got into composting-in-place.

Those 4' wide piles were as high as I could make them and still able to hold a layer of soil. Yep, about 5' high! By spring, they were settled to about 3'. They didn't make my best growing beds that year but squash, pumpkins and sunflowers would grow on them.

The following year, it would have been difficult to know those beds had ever been used for composting.

These days, I try not to get quite so extreme. I am still digging out beds for the compostables. However, they aren't any 5' plus in October. I'm trying to leave the garden looking just like bare ground for the winter.

Off on one side - actually, between 2 gardens - I have the compost "pit." Once again, it looks just like a garden bed. I keep it too busy to grow any plants on it. That location is where I grab compost in the middle of the growing season. Really, there are 2 more places like this - under the little decks outside my chicken house and greenhouse. Stealth composting.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

@Gardening with Rabbits - I may be out of line here (please tell me if so) but would you please go into your profile and add what state or province you live in. And maybe the nearest city or town. I'm kind of new here and I always look at the location of a poster when they are discussing gardening. Thanks.

Grandpa Smiles has large piles of goat, rabbit, chicken, cow, and horse manure out behind one of the barns. He even has signs that say what animal its from. I guess that, as the years went by, he slowed down on the amount of work he put int his gardening and didn't use the manure nor the compost in the nice bins he built. I can't wait to dig into the goldmine back there. I'll have to use some discretion and not over do it.

I put my state in. I thought it was there already. Have fun with the goldmine!!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

One pile gets about 5 feet and there are 4 other bins made out of pallets and they get about 3 to 4 feet high. They do sink way down if a lot of grass clippings are used, at least it seems that way. Then it stops cooking and we pile it behind the garden and it sits and sits. Last spring I planted potatoes in some compost. I had hauled this half finished compost to the edge of the garden and dug a hole and piled this in and when spring came it was composted down some, but not all the way. I harvested the potatoes and the dirt still looked like compost. I was outside today and dug down in that area and it just looks like dirt now. A few pieces of wood shaving here and there.