Dung, Doo Doo, and Dirtier Part 2!

We needed to continue from our other thread getting too long.
Well I just hauled this rotting old nurse log out of the mountains Today and got the 400# + monster in my truck by sliding it down the snow pack into my truck backed up to the snow bank off the road. My question to those in the know is what am I adding to my new bed with this log? What creatures are in an old specimen as far as Bugs? Beetles, centipedes, salamanders, ants, worms, are what I know but how do these creatures work in the breakdown of this log?
Kenton we need your expertise. Anybody ever looked into the benefits of log rotting for the garden?

I don't really know what the benefits would be, but sounds interesting.

A friend of mine many years ago, used large logs to edge one of her garden areas. She or her husband hollowed out areas of the top of the logs, then she planted fuchsias, begonias, and other plants in the hollows. It was so long ago that I don't remember what all she planted but it was very attractive with moss growing amongst the flowers. I know that isn't what you are planning, but maybe a salamander or two will find your log as a new home.

Donna

Actuallly Steve there are no cartoons just crayon stick figures LOL ( don't tell my DH)
Havn't gotten that far in the book yet
that is a cool idea Steve. with the log and all.
My DH won't let me get things off the raoad anymore, i bring home to much junk he says. LOL
We have a dead willow tree we are going to take down ,any ideas for me Steve? I have a ton or rocks too, Looking for ideas. might use as a herb bed
Nice Truck. Ford Or Chevy,?
sue

That is my 2000 Ford F150 I bought it stripped so that I can keep it as a working truck until I die. I have no power windows or any packages added cause that will break me just keeping the electronics going 10 years from now. I have beat it up quite a bit hauling rock, manure, logs, firewood, furniture, sawdust..... I am already emotionally attached to it. Pretty soon I'm going to paint the deer skidder and truck bed in Rhino liner. So it looks nice.
Sue there is no willow tree that can die. They just keep growing and growing.

Willow? Heat your house with it. I got one forth of a winter out of a single branch of a Globe willow.

Rotten logs? Who would be crazy enough to have such an unsightly thing in a garden that ought to be pruned into little geometric squares according to a metric master grid?

I'm thinking that a log would make a nice microhabitat for things of all kinds for your garden. Good and bad, no doubt. Centipedes= Good. Slugs=bad usually.
And salamanders are just the next best thing to David Letterman.

The log would slowly release organic matter and keep your matter-eaters (worms) interested for a long time. I can't wait to see what you do with it, you've done such an amazing job thus far. I wonder if a person can make a rock-garden style using logs?

When you get those results, Sue, I have some charts that tell you what the numbers mean in the world of reality. I like them; I hate math.

Good to see you back, Donna.

I did make a silly little wall with Logs. Here is the short side of it behind a first-year Magnolia, Hops, and Narcissus 'Spellbinder.' What a pathetic attempt I made at hiding the stakes supporting it. But you ought ot see how well the hops will hide everything...
Kenton

Good to kmow about the wilow don't die.
A Ford man, aaahhh A goood man LOL :)
I m maiing them out today and should get them back next week maybe wend or thrus.The cat pooped in my first sample had to through it out. "Bad Kitty"
That sure is a cute little fence and tree there Kenton.
sue

Yes, Kenton, that is a nice looking spring corner, and I agree Hops vines grow vigorously. I have a variegated one that I try to keep under control on a post.

DonnaS

What!!!??!??!?! Really Donna???!!! I'm D-mailing you.

Willow firewood must be cured for a summer or two off of the ground, as it will root and grow!

Sue, perhaps the cat thinks that it needs to offer its own sample?
Kenton

Donna I have never heard of any body being successful in "controling" hops. I put mine where they can just take off and I love the smell. It grows over my cattle gate in the summer making my entrance quite beautiful. It takes the swinging and banging of the gate too.

Well it takes a lot of trimming. And I can't find my photo of the hop vine on the post. Ever since I installed Photoshop Elements 4, I have had a terrible time as it wants to be my primary , instead of previously installed Photos shop Album 2.0. I tried a couple of times to uninstall Elements 4 but so far it still jumps up in front of Album 2.0.

Donna

maybe i should just mail in the cat for a sample. LOL
sue

Confounded computers, eh?
And Cats. I prefer dogs for those reasons.

Here is a sad and odd shot of the bottom quarter of the hops.
Kenton

your two rascals are soooo cute Kenton, nice pic.
Idid take some pic of my soil and tumbler i hope to get them out and see what you think. It feels nice and soft, compared to last yr cement clay i had. I could roll aroundin it ,but that would be odd, so i won't. LOL. i just love the way good soil feels, yep i m odd , its official, but that is what we do here in the ghetto, right Steve LOL:)
sue

I am anxious to get out my chipper shredder to start next years stuff. I don't need a tumbler to make my compost. Hee Hee Sue. I got over 9yards of Peat, 1/2 yard of garden compost, 2 bags of scotts lawn fertilizer, 3 bags of grass seed and 2 small bags of river rocks for $10 at Home Depot yesterday. One big pallate load for 10.28 Yay!
Kenton Im sure that that is an estimate of the hops and it changes daily as it grows. I actually love my hops here.
Oh my Sue that is quite a visual of you rolling in the soil/compost. The Ghetto is in Columbus not out in the farming community.
I got this shot canoing yesterday on a river near home.

Wow I gotta send you shopping for me..I never get those kinda deals...Who do you know there??BTW... I love your gardens it shows you know what your doing..

Loretta...

i will trade you my tumbler for your chipper, STeve? :) hehe
sue

I have had a 5hp chipper shredder for the last 5 years and it worked ok. But when ever plant material was green it clogged up. So My wife and I went christmas shopping at Lowes and had them unlock the garden area to see what they had left. They had a 10hp Troy Built Chipper shredder that was returned brand new. The bag wasn't even dirty. It was origionally priced at 1100 bucks. Well we got it for $626 and a whole year interest free to pay it off. I crank it up tomorrow for the 5 yards of plant material we have cleaned up this spring. I am being overtaken by plantmaterial. Last fall we had over 4 yards of material. Now soon to be given as gifts to all my plants in my garden beds. I'll trade you the 5hp one. Works great except green stems. Any body who wants it its only $200 and has a new 5hp motor. I dumped the chipper in my pond last fall. Not good for the hot engine to hit cold water.

I could have used a chipper yesterday, Dh and i spent the day pulling out trees, you know the ones that were in straght lines . yikes, it will definetly be alot easire to mow this yr!!. The ground was to soft in the back to get a few dead ones out , try again later in the season.
Are you sure it ws an accident tipping your chipper in the pond?? or ws it an ,"shall we say" A german moment? LOL
Took the trees to a place to get shredded.
I decided to do an experiment STeve, I bought some worm castings, added it to my potting mix and planted some seeds to see how and if they grew better than just regular pot soil. I know i have worms in my compost, but im a bit on the lazy side. Worm casting ? worm poop? or the dirt they push up? both? I thought it might do my seedling a bit of good
Hey Steve if you and your DW are ever in Ohio come and see me and i can set you up with some Llama poop.
Bring your chipper too ok.LOLthe 10 hp one, not the 5 hp. :)
i m just waithing on my soil sample to come back , i m reall y anxious to see the results.
sue

So Sue how long does it take for a soil sample to get run in Ohio? Geez we do ours in Montana in a few days and results come in in a week at the most. But we just test the usual not like you guys at Ohio State. I suppose they have to taste test, Sniff test, and determine how long it takes to freeze soil at OSU. Hee Hee.
Oh llama poop is every where here in the Flathead Valley. There are more llamas than deer. I especially enjoy the best manure on this planet. Yaak manure. We have a herd of yaak about a 1/2 mile away from us now. Their manure is better than worm castings. (Please note I have no Idea what yaak sh.. does but it is rare) And anything rare is so much better than cow, horse, or chicken. Kind of like your Worm castings. I am sure that they are good for plants but I think the creature that leaves the stool is far better for the plants. I think you encourage worm habitat and you get plenty of worm castings. (Why do they call them castings anyway?) Its just more sh..
the loss of my chipper was quite unwanted and unexpected. I love that green little thing. It is more satisfying to stand at the chipper and drop plant material than it is to have a smoke after a week of withdrawl. I love shredding with headphones and good Yo Yo Ma Cello! Ahh tomorrow an uninterrupted day of shredding.

Sue's already had the soil cat-scanned.
Dumb joke, yes, but a clear reflection of the source.
Don't roll in it for heaven's sake, you might compact it! (Unseriously) I am beginning to become a soil-compaction Nazi...

I must admit to putting my twigs in the driveway to have them run over by my parked truck. Chevy Chipper?

I finally watered my compost that was intended to be a mananged pile. I hope I haven't lost the Nitrogen...

Worms ingest both (inorganic, micro-pebbles) dirt and composts. (Organic matter, like hair that Steve pulled out of his scalp after taking his chipper for a swim) They eat both and conveniently mix them. Buying the castings really isn't necessary. Anything with organic matter is good, though, I suppose. I was just reading that worm castings help neutralize pH a little. Nice, eh?

Kenton

Hello Kenton long time no see. What do you mean by Managed pile? How does nitrogen dissapear so quickly? Are you talking blood meal?
I'm all excited cause today I put my thatcher on the front of my yard sweeper and did one round before dark. I got a ton of thatch in just one pass. I will be able to thinly layer my new pile tomorrow as I begin to shred my spring clean up and thatch clean up. I will be able to cook eggs in a week of the pile sitting. My worms are drooling!
Ha Ha to the cat scan. I remember that her sample will read a little high in the nitrogen.
Yeah I can't see the idea of worm castings from newspaper clippings unless you live in an apartment, condo,etc. Why not have the real thing working like a republican to improve the world. LOL Any way if they use silica, how do the worm farms get that when they don't add it. The worm farm worms must get constipated without the fiber. I have seen in my childhood in Michigan worms preferring leaves to grass. I suspect the grass is too hot for them.

True. (about the worms)

I've been busy with School and work. 5 more weeks to endure; pray for my sanity...

Managed: Hot compst, turned to maximize speed. I should have used Blood meal, as it will not dissapate like wetted Amonium sulfate. (I think.)

I understand that thatch is not bad. It is a healthy part of a lawn, but when it gets too thick, that indicates that there is a problem with the soil health and/or water schedule. Apparent;y, it is best dealt with by core-aeration. But I'm no grass fan...

Tools. I read about something I had hoped existed. A core aerator, but not mechanical. Something on the end of a stick, like a shovel. I need to aereate badly, but I don't have the money to hire someone and jsut using a fork will compact it.
Does anyone know about it?
Kenton

Yes I have seen a forked coring device that you stick in the ground and step on the plug is pulled and then dislodges upward when you step on the tool in the next area. I use a corer in the spring that I weigh down and pull behind my lawn tractor. I plug the heck out of the yard every spring after I run my thatching device ahead of my lawn sweeper. My thatch is not thick but I think that opening up the sealed surface that is composting is just like forking my compost pile adding Oxygen to the roots along with the coring tool. It also allows me to take inorganic fertilizer (Scotts Turf builder) and convert it to nitrogen for the compost pile by thatching. After all I buy a lot of torn bags (Mostly in inorganic form) from all of the nurseries and need to get it into the compost pile so it cooks the pile slowly. You guys that are trying to get fast compost are too type A for my gardening methods. Hee Hee. I have plenty of room to cook 3 or more piles over 2 years. Fall cleanup + grass clippings broomed up during cutting + fall through winter thru Spring = compost pile # 1 to be used in April in the garden bed. Then Spring clean up + thatching brooming + Summer = compost Pile # 2 to be used in the fall to top dress for winter. Then pine cones + pine needles + Fir cones + winter ash from fire place = 2 to 3 year compost to be used in acid beds for compost.

= one happy gardener with the grandest garden in Montana.

I wonder where I could find one of these step-aerators. I'll check around.

We have one in my garden shed and I never use it. When you visit bring a big suitcase. I also have a chipper shredder for you and probably lots of other things. Better yet bring a big dump truck and I can load up a bunch of bolders and river rock.

Roadtrip 2007...
Watch out folks. I'll need a mobile greenhouse to bring things to you (camper shell) and like you said, heavy loading to bring back some Montana-grown rock. Mmmm-mmm. Fancy.

How far along has spring come up there steve? Tulips? Crocus? Snowdrops?

Nothing blooming yet. The last snow was about a week ago. though we have warmed up a lot. Weather is beautiful now and I am hard at work transplanting and getting the beds cleaned up. We don't do bulbs here and they are just emerging in town. No bloom. Lots of perenial starts. Usually the forget-me-nots are the first flowers. I am kind of dissapointed in the native bloom. Usually it will be going strong now but soil temps are just starting to get going. I'm anxious to see if the new natives species are going to get going this year that I have seeded last fall. I learned a new way to break the soil from a neighbor that plants native grasses in his elk pastures and it looks like a good idea. He said I needed a "maintainer tire" and was surprised that I did not have any idea what that was. Well it was a large tire off a "maintainer" (road grader) and I dragged it around behind my truck and it scraped up the soil quiet well opening areas to let the new seed to have a disturbed area to start. The tire worked well cause when I hit a tree with it it didn't hurt the tree and just bounced off and scraped the soil. Every day is a new idea.

The POWER OF THE TUMBLER lol
sue

we took out a few trees this weekend, Got Shredder? I can borrow.?
and you though you had a big tree Steve? :)
sue

What is that first picture, Sue? Maybe I need glasses.
And good land, Sue, it looks like hurricane Steve made it up to Ohio!

ahahahhahahahah
that is a steaming pile of compost my friend:)))
sue

Yours? No. really? (in a cheesy California accent.)

the power of a Tumbler ! :) my friend.LOL
CA has an accent? :)
sue

(CA has the only technically different dialect in the entire Western US)
How big is that pile? Is that steam? I'm envious in any case.

Seriously, the hops id taller than I as of today. Wild and wolly thing it be:

And the Akebia, before I thwarted it's wold takeover scheme:

Steve here is photo I took this morning just for you after what you said bout having many or most of your trees planted leaning. This is a Magnolia Stellata. Actually was planted conventional way straight up, but too close to my path, so I pruned lots of the branches out of my way and this is what it looks like now.

Donna

What? Are you sure that's a Magnolia stellata? I like the sideways weeping style; excellent. Strait up is nice, but a character is nice to contrast.

Yes Donna you are doing the different tree thing I like it. Your garden is way ahead of mine. My bulbs are just starting to pop through the soil. Hey Sue you got an awesome sh.. pile cooking there. Lots of manure in that pile. It must be some topsoil place. That is bigger than my pile. You caught the morning steam very well Sue. But I do know that that is not yours. No tumbler could shred the material that small. Look at my daily project I shredded all my spring clean up and chipped all the bark from my wood splitting this fall. I photoed all my composting toys with it. Eat your heart out Kenton. Like your hops vine way ahead of mine. Not even started yet.

You are right , not a M. Stellata , don't know why I said that, took photos of white weeping cherry (which is what it is) and the magnolia and cross typed in the lable, sorry about that.

Donna

"ok you got me." Yes we went to the our local compots adn mulch treee service, thought i woudl take a pic and show you some good stuff. I do like t he steam pic.MY Dh thought i had gone mentall taking pics of dirt and so did t he ladies at our photo shop,LOLOL
I finally got my pile knee deep, adding newspaper and some leaves wit h my scraps, it will be used in fall . I slow cook mine steve too , only b/c i can;t get it to get hot, :( maybe when my comfrey grows adding that should reall y heat it up it is one great herb for many purposes, also stinging nettle does wonders i read for a compost pile
Ruth love the tree , i have in my backyard , but i think it is an crab apple weeping type, i do like yours. Mine is more an umbreella type , had to trim the bottom to get to the weeds with out being attacked by bees lol
Hi kenton i m envious too of the pile wish it was mine LOL some day Oh yes , some day it shall be mine, actuallyl it will be mine , with our green lhouse in the works and the garden getting bigger i might not be able to compost to kep up the demand . Yikes.
Should have seen the gus on the skidsteeers staring at me taking the pics, they acutally got out of the dump trucks and were talkingamong themselves and pointing at me, LOL
Dh stayed behind the truck so no one woudl see him , he just muttereed " must be a CA thing" LOL a t rue Buckeye he is.
sue