Teach Meh! ...Please? :)

[Anew2013]

Hello out there,

I am very very curious about composting. You see I really want to help my plants become the most they can be and I remember noticing as a kid how much bigger and better the black berries near horse pens were...for obvious reasons Anyway, that is why I am here. I am a complete newb and will mostly be working with horse manure and possibly wood chips (that are mostly composted already). Any and all advice, mostly on how to get started in the first place would be much much appreciated.


Please and Thank you.

 

[baymule]

Anew2013, first of all, welcome to TEG and a big Texas howdy!! Second, you are to be congratulated that you want to learn how to garden and grow your own food. What do you want to plant and what is your general location? I also compost with horse manure and find that if I let a pile compost for 6 or more months, it takes most of the weed seeds out. I just make a pile and water it when I think about it. I also have wire bins that I pile manure, grass clippings and leaves in and let it turn into garden gold. It is not rocket science. Some make it more complicated, but it is easy. Let Mother Nature do her work.

You have come to the right place. We will be glad to help you with all your questions.

 

[897tgigvib]

Anew, Canesisters is the one with the compost heap named MOUNT ROTMORE.

Practically all kitchen waste goes into it. No meat though.
No dog or cat poop, no carnivore poo, o us omnivores either.
No fat or oil.
egg shells are awesome!

Horse, cow, sheep, goat, chicken, llama, rabbit, turkey poops are all great.

dead vegetable plants without disease are great. Some folks grow things just for, or mainly for composting them.

Lawn clippings are awesome.

Half composted wood chips are ok. They need to compost all the way though. Smaller chips compost faster.

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What you want to do is let GOOD BACTERIA AND GOOD FUNGUS turn this stuff into super compost.

For those good guys to do their job, they need good material, good air circulation, and some moisture.

What you do not want is for ANAEROBIC BACTERIA to take over. They just leave a sloppy and somewhat acidic mess that stinks like...ummm, peeeuuueweee!

Those bad anaerobic bacteria rake over if the compost is kept too wet and or compacted down and never turned over to mix it up.

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So we make sure the good bacteria and good fungus are happy.

Slightly moist, well drained, and turned over every once in awhile. (((If you are near a Gold's Gym, you can put a sign near your compost heap offering the exercise of turning it for them only paying you 20 dollars for the exercise)))

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Canesisters is the expert on the details!

Details include what is the best mix, how hot should it get, how big at minimum...

 

[digitS']

I am a person who grows things for the compost. I could grow a "compost crop" but I don't. It is a fine idea, however .

My gardens are large and I try to grow as much in them as possible. I am not one to force myself to harvest and eat olde veggies, past their prime. Nope. Not me! I've got something else coming on .

There are lots of things that get away from me. So what? The compost pile isn't choosy. I just get those plants in there before they are anywhere near going to seed. Sometimes, mildew and bugs start beating up on olde plants. Take 'em out first! Give them to your hungry compost where they will contribute to future garden production. That future garden is where you'll realize the good return on your investment in feeding your compost.

Steve

 

[canesisters]

Welcome to the garden Anew! This is a wonderful place to learn about gardening "from the ground up".

Marshall is absolutely correct with his compost info (even if he's exaggerating about my composting). Mt. Rotmore is big and hot and rotting along just fine. BUT it hasn't proven itself yet since I haven't planted anything in it yet.
Like you, I started with a LOT of wood shavings/sawdust. You're going to want to add a lot of veggi material and poo to get that wood breaking down. For me, just a big pile is working well. Some folks like to build some sort of bin (wire fencing in a ring, pallets as a 3-sided box, etc). Whatever suits your situation. If you have to keep it tidy and hide it a little from the neighbors, then the bins might be a good idea. I actually made my pile right on the area I'm going to garden. The "pile" itself is key. I started Mt Rotmore in November and needed it to be usable by April - VERY SHORT TIME for a compost pile. I had to do some work to get it heating up fast and to keep it from getting too wet or too dry. It's piled as high as possible and loosely covered with a tarp (silver side down - hoping to reflect a little heat) to keep the rain off. I've even made mushroom tea to seed it with spores, but I have no idea if that actually did anything useful.
The best and easiest thing is to just get started - and as soon as possible - to give that pile plenty of time to do its job. I'm already scouting out a spot for 'Son of Rotmore' so that it can start this summer and have roughly a year to become 'magic soil'.

I believe that gardening can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. Just have fun! And let your garden grow with you (someone told me that and I LOVE that idea).

Debbie

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

Welcome Anew!

If you have time and acess. Search for "Back to Eden film" on the Internet. This documentary is completely about chip gardening and there is a big portion on horse manure/chip gardening. I have watched this over and over. Each time learning something different.

 

[897tgigvib]

Cane, I wonder if you could test some of your compost to see how strong it is by putting some into a flat nice n deep and planting something like radishes or lettuce in it pure and seeing how it grows.

If I recall, Anew, Cane wanted to heat her pile in a hurry so I suggested putting it over a good sized heap of fresh lawn clippings. Ever notice how a pile of fresh lawn clippings gets real hot in the middle of it in just a few hours?

Hot is good. That means it is biodegrading, a thing that is never fast like fast type fast, but can be faster or slower in terms of months.

The thing about hot is, that too hot can lead to spontaneous combustion. Rare, but it happens. If you have it too hot, definitely hurts your hand in a hurry if you put it in the middle, and need to cool it off, old well burned ashes can be mixed in, or even a bit of your clay soil.

Composting is easy, but turning it can be a workout. Usual way to turn compost it to make a new heap from the old heap, right next to the old one. Use a pointed garden shovel or D handled spading fork. Shovel up the stuff on the outer and top parts to become the new inner part of the new heap, and continue inward. Basically, turns the pile inside out.

Small particles compost faster. Might want to yank out some of the bigger chunky stuff and toss it in a wheelbarrow or something, and bust it up with a shovel or your hands or whatever way you think of.

Anew, Gardeners tend to develop a kind of ingenuity, and you will too! something that's not rocket science like busting up chunks, you can devise your own way. One person might burn the big chunks and toss the cool ashes on top of the pile. Another might make a sieve out of screen with half or quarter inch holes they like to call hardware cloth for some reason. -p;l./ <<<my cat walked on my laptop

I used to see my brother in law's ingenuity. Like an inventor he was! You ask to be taught...

I have a lesson for you, a great one

See if you can devise something from, oh say, wood, nails, and some other things, this garden season. Pretty good project? Nothing fancy.

Some of the stuff gardeners use to devise things, the materials list, might include:

wood, like 2x4 or 1x2, or 1x12
old branches
roll of wire fencing or chicken wire
nails or screws
twine
rolls of plastic or garden remay cloth

hammer, screwgun, sharp handsaw makes good exercise

devise things and feel the confidence! Yea!

 

[digitS']

I don't think we know anything about your location, Anew.

Marshall talks about anaerobic bacteria taking over the compost and I'm sure that is a serious problem some places. I just don't have to worry much about that. You see, not much composting occurs here during the winter months and by the time things heat up during the summer, it is very dry. We can easily go thru the 3 months of summer with well less than 3" of rainfall. Much of the less-than-20" that falls thru the year, comes down during the winter as snow.

Then, I have gardened for decades in gravel. Yep, the "soil" in this valley must be 50% rocks. Not only does water move very rapidly thru it but it seems to allow air into the soil quite well. So, I have to water the compost or it just sits there and dries out. For about 20 years, I've dug down in my soil about 8" and began building the compost pile there. That soil is later used in the pile, especially at the top to kind of seal it in. Then, I wait . . . as far as I'm concerned, I'm in no hurry. Funny how the gardening seasons come and go . Anyway, my compost is always good stuff after 18 months.

By the way, since I've dug down in the soil and used that soil on top the compost -- I can compost right in the garden in one of the beds. I don't need to water it separately that way. No, I cannot use that bed thru the first year. Even the 2nd year, it is a bit coarse - winter squash is a good choice to grow on top of it. The third year, it just looks like good garden soil. This composting-in-place has some advantages .

I am also happy to buy fertilizer of some sort for the compost. Even just several bags of composted chicken manure is something good but I'll use a blended organic fertilizer, as well. If I think it needs it. See above about adding green plants - those compost easily. It just depends on what kind of material goes in there. Wood shavings are pretty serious "non-starters" in the compost. It is surprising how poorly they decompose and benefit from something added. Whatever I put in there, even if I have to spend $ for it, will end up in the garden. There isn't any difference between me buying fertilizer for the garden soil and buying it for the compost - just that, at times, I get more bang for my buck putting it in the compost.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

Great advice above. I'd just like to add that you can hurry up your compost by regularly turning it. But, if you don't, it WILL decompose, but just takes months to do it, instead of weeks. I put EVERY bit of plant waste in my piles of chicken and horse cleanup, and I burn wood and paper trash, and the ashes get used to garden, too. Last year, when I had brooded over 60 chicks, I was laying down grass clippings in their turnout. It got stinky, so I shoveled it out, which was about 3 inches thick. THAT went into one of my garden beds. The decomposed grass, and the chicken poop is gonna grow some great crops this year.

 

[seedcorn]

For those of you composting wood chips, how long do you compost them? I have access to them but I was always afraid of the nitrogen they would tie up. In fact I buy them for mulch (have to be correct brown color according to DD) because they don't break down fast and stop weeds.