Sheet Composting in the Potato Patch

[digitS']

No, I'm not going to do it.

Each year, the potatoes are major recipients of my compost. I use it as mulch and in place of hilling. It is about time for me to spread the compost on about 100 square feet of potatoes and I've dang near got none!

Good Goobly Goop, where does it all go?!? I compost in pits about 8" down. Soil (and old compost) covers new compostables. I dig down to the bottom, put in a 5 gallon bucket, or several 5 gallon buckets, of compostables at a time. Here is a whole bunch of weeds that have been pulled from the dahlia garden. Under them is several inches of spent veggies and such:

No doubt, this is the most material I've put into that pit (about 4' by 10') this year. Still, I've had quite a lot to put in over the last few weeks - several buckets each week. I believe that I feed my compost with a generous hand! In fact, everything that I had except the frost-killed plants from the last time I mulched the potato bed was in that pit over the winter. The frost-killed plants all went directly into the garden beds rather than being composted over here.

When I showed up this spring, the pit was, well, almost a pit! What had been in it over winter had all but disappeared. I started filling again and have moved completely across it, covering a bucket or 2 at a time . . . Now, I'm moving across it for the 2nd time. See that little pile on the left with the shovel in it? That's all I've got after i.dont.know.how.many.weeks of feeding that compost! I might have have 2 wheelbarrow loads. And, you know? There's a lot of dirt in all my compost and what is there with the shovel -- it isn't fully composted!

If I wasn't afraid those weeds would come back to life, I might just mulch the potatoes with that! No. That doesn't appeal much to me. I better find some dirt somewhere and use it 50:50.

Where does it all go? I once read that composting reduces the material by 50%. I don't believe it! I doubt if I end up with more than 1 bucket of compost for every 10 that I put in there!

Steve
should edit to remove exclamation marks but i'm kinda aggravated!

 

[thistlebloom]

You sure make good use of your green material Steve. I wonder if burying it keeps more of the good stuff intact, rather than drying out in the air or getting washed away with rain.

I don't know what I was thinking this year when I planted my potatoes. I planted them in elevated rows instead of wide elevated beds.
So I have too much space being used for paths. I decided to do a variation of sheet composting by dumping my stall bedding in the paths, then next year consolidating the rows into beds. The bedding in the paths should be on it's way to being broken down and will be incorporated into the larger beds.

 

[digitS']

Well, that is one of the usual ways for doing sheet composting, Thistle'. As I understand it, anyway.

Keeping things a little below grade is mostly so as not to lose moisture. I know I've related the story of the guy down the road who built an above ground compost bin and how everything seemed to be "preserved" rather than decomposed. Ha!

Years it stood there! This is the wrong kind of environment for doing something like that and the soil contact just seems to really help. I don't know tho'. Maybe the earthworms are getting away with it - carrying everything over to the neighbors!

Steve
edited today to add: that neighbor's compost bin was on legs. it was really "above ground." everything stayed the same for years until a leg rotted off and it fell over.

 

[hoodat]

A mature buried compost pit is a great spot to plant squash and melons. They thrive in old compost.

 

[digitS']

Exactly what I've done in the past, Hoodat! Worked very well.

Except, that was when I had compost in the middle of the garden. I'd rotate around the beds, using a different one each year. Where I grew flowers, I once planted sunflowers in the old compost bed its 1st year back in production. Those plants did okay.

My problem with this spot is that I can't get water to it very well. The sprinklers just barely hit it. I didn't use it for anything before I decided that I may as well try the composting there.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

No doubt, this is the most material I've put into that pit (about 4' by 10') this year. Still, I've had quite a lot to put in over the last few weeks - several buckets each week. I believe that I feed my compost with a generous hand! In fact, everything that I had except the frost-killed plants from the last time I mulched the potato bed was in that pit over the winter. The frost-killed plants all went directly into the garden beds rather than being composted over here.

Here is a whole bunch of weeds that have been pulled from the dahlia garden. Under them is several inches of spent veggies and such:

The frost killed plants just went on top of the ground? We chopped up the plants last year, shredded leaves, spread that over the garden with rabbit manure, and half done compost. Do your frost killed plants include frost killed tomatoes, squash and things like that? We started throwing our weeds and spent veggies away? We started wondering if we are just spreading weeds all over the place. Do your weeds turn into compost?

For this fall I have and will have:
Leaves
Rabbit manure
Old plants
Flower stalks
half finished compost of different ages consisting of rabbit manure, wood shavings, a lot less hay than last year and some straw, plus grass clippings.
Rabbit litter boxes of wood shavings, urine, droppings, hay.
Pile of grass clippings
Pile of weeds

What would you do with this if you were me?

 

[digitS']

GwR, I would probably do what I did a little more of today: digging out a garden bed and burying compostables under about 8" of soil. This is what I do each year. The first bed is where I harvest the potatoes; I can start in August. It seems the best route after all these years of compost piles/bins/pits. Here is something I posted a few years ago, with some pictures: Sowing Seed on Compost-in-Place

No, I don't want any weed seeds in there. Also, things like bindweed & quackgrass roots had better go in the garbage can.

It is a bit of work to dig out beds and I can't do any of them in the big veggie garden. The plants there are just cut down, I may go over some beds with the lawnmower set up high. Fertilizing is done with commercial organic fertilizer beginning in the spring. I said I "rely on the tractor guy" in that earlier thread but the last couple of years, ground there was both rototilled and gone over with a spading fork - no more tractor guy.

The little veggie garden is different. I can dig out every bed beginning in September and pile compostables in each before refilling with the soil. The ground is very fertile after all these years. It is my "salad garden" but I still manage to grow most everything there.

You might want to try it in only one part of your garden and see how it works for you. Try to balance what goes in and don't load it up with things like shavings & straw. If your soil is like mine, you may be pleased how next year's plants grow and how the soil looks when you dig it out 12 months from now. I wouldn't use this technique for clay. Soil that won't drain well may not allow the material to decompose properly.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

That gives me some ideas. DH left a trench when he dug the potatoes out, so that can be filled in pretty easy. I have 3 boxes that could be done. Actually, the boxes were built that way last year. We had a lot of salad stuff, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, but one box had sweet potatoes and we did not get hardly anything. The onions were in another box. We got a lot of onions and I am happy with it, but they were small. I planted a few beets and carrots in one box and nothing, so I have been confused why the boxes grew great leafy things, but not much root crops. When I planted this spring I thought the dirt was great. It could have been that they did not get enough water or they drain too fast. I am not sure how hard it would be to bury things in the garden, but going to see what DH thinks.

 

[digitS']

I no longer have box frames around anything in my garden. When the cedar boards rotted away (& I began stumbling over them), they were taken out. I've really got too many square feet to spend the time & $ on them.

If I've raked the beds properly, the unframed beds are mounded a little around the outside and certainly, as the soil settles more in the center - the water doesn't really run off into the permanent paths.

I'm still willing to get an organic fertilizer worked into the soil surface. I figure that it won't really be lost if it isn't used so the fertilizer will be around next season. I'm thinking especially of the phosphorus. And, most of the things I grow seem to be very "interested in" the nitrogen. I don't have much manure to use but that could really take the place of the bagged fertilizer.

Steve

edited to add: That compost in the pit that I was talking about in the 1st posts . . . I never used any it. I added more and more compostables since not-being-able-to-use-it-on-the-potatoes. It was something of a "pit" when the growing season started - I bet it is a "pit" next spring! Dang hungry thing!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

The wood on our boxes are rotting away too. One only has 3 sides now. A few times we have noticed that we build a compost bin, not a pit like you, but the same thing happens. We use a lot of grass clippings, things from the kitchen and the rabbit bedding. We turn it, turn it and it will be hot and then it will not get hot again and it is like everthing disappeared except for the wood shavings. We built one bin and we have no idea hat we did, but we have real compost and it does not sprout weeds. We have another pile that was sitting at the edge of the garden and sprouted, tomatoes, squash, grass, weeds, so I pulled all the weeds and thought well that is not hard. I took some of it and put in the area where I planted the beets and then when the beets sprouted, tomatoes sprouted, grass, weeds, squash, so I weeded the beet patch, and then weeded the "compost" pile again. It still again has weeds on it again and there are a couple of tomato plants growing AGAIN in the beets and a few other weeds. This is why I am wondering about old plants and old vegetables, what to do with them. I guess it is easier to weed tomato seedlings than grass with deep roots. I guess if we had room it would be great stuff after a couple of years, but we do not have a place to store it that long.