Easier, better soil, less work, in place Composting Part 2

We came from here http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/800670/

And here we go to part 2! :)

Susan

LOL Ruth can't wait all day, ha ha ha ha funny.

xxx, Carrie

Good deal... I want to stay up to date.

It wouldn't do get behind on ones reading!

soulgardenlove, Thanks much better now.

It has either been snowing or raining all day, not hard, just sort of misting. At least it isn't terribly cold.

I planted tomato seeds this morning, so I'm thinking spring.


Donna

Your welcome Donna. :)

We've had some good rain this past week, which was very needed. I had my sons 7th birthday party last night and my in-laws over for lunch and more birthday stuff today and then I crashed :) I see that the days of a simple cake and Pin the Tail on the Donkey are long gone.

I have to get out there soon and get my beds going and get my compost spread where I want to direct sow. This year I'm going to take more pictures to share what the "before" shots looked like and show how a bed progresses and what it took to get it there. I couldn't even start to guess how many seeds I have right now...Tons after Suzy's cottage seed swap :) I have wintersown in containers before and anyone who has done that without moderation, has seen the season come and go with the sad little plants yearning to have grow room still in the same containers after the season has come to a close :( I love the method, I'm just too full throttle for it and don't have a staff! :) In wintersown containers, It's really hard to limit your sowing when the seeds are so small and each baby has had to be handled, so I'm opting for more direct sowing in my garden this year.... but then I'm in a warmer zone and know some of you have snow on the ground and do what you have to. Once everything gets going, I will mulch with leaf mold.

:)

Susan

Soul, good luck with all your garden seeding. You are right winter is not over yet here, but at least it is warm enough to think about gardening. Don't have much extra time this morning . Have to go 1/2 hour to dentist this morning, be there by 8:30.

Saw the first robin in the yard this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Donna

Woah, hold up robin, wait for meeeeeee!!! I might believe in spring if the snow would melt enough for me to check on my winter sowing containers! Gritting teeth and willing radiant heating to start working. . . . .

Enjoy the dentist, Donna, yerp, well, enjoy the attention.

x, Carrie

Only saw one squirrel in my yard since I moved here 13 years ago, saw it a couple of days ago. Haven't seen it since, there are lots of Redtail hawks, so maybe it was lunch. Got my tomato seeds planted.

Donna

CapeCod, yes.. it will be like taking pics and sharing what I look like first thing in the morning.. very revealing of the less than stellar start, but then the after shots will hopefully be worth it.. Just think it would be helpful to show "from this".... "to this" by doing A.B.&C..

Our Daffodils are up and blooming here :) The birds are putting on their spring colors.

Susan

lol! I love my before pictures, shows me how far I've come! I took a bunch of before pix, for when all the junk and weeds were in the yard, then I'll take more as I build my beds, and a final round once everything is up and growing.... transformation! Plus it keeps me motivated!

Moi aussi! xx, Carrie

Ok. I'm sold on composting in place. I sifted all my little compost pile into the bean trellis bed, and filled two small boxes with a lasagna: newspaper, decomp leaves, coffee grinds, table scraps, more decomp, and I'm gonna top off with a compost chaser. Now. Tell me what to plant in those little boxes. Here're your choices. Combinations (companion) planting ideas are welcome. Like, I read eggplant, marigolds and the pole beans work well together. Thanks for any ideas!

Please look at the trellis and the boxes, and give me your opinion of what should go where.

Here's what I either have or would like to plant:

Beets, still need to purchase some. I'm thinking in the smaller of the two boxes
Super Sugar Snap peas - 4-5 seeds around each leg of the trellis
Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans - 4-5 seeds around each leg of the trellis
Short n' Sweet Carrots, 4-5" long
Carrots, Red Cored Chantenay, 5-1/2" long
Clemson spineless Okra -- can this go in with the beans?
Spinach, Double choice hybrid , I'll put these in large planters, but is it too soon to plant, or should I wait til end of summer for fall?
Zinnia, Cut and Come Again
Zinnia, Envy & Giant violet Queen, in a large planter
Bush Sugar Baby Watermelon, in the larger box at the end of the beet production?
Banana Peppers
Bell Peppers, coming back from last season -- it never died out completely, plus I have new seeds
Marigolds, I have several different varieties to go near the tomato boxes for the whiteflies (which I don't have) and the hornworms?
Nasturtium, Tangerine Dream
Nasturtium, Jewel Mix, edible flowers! Could I put some plants in the trellis box?
Sunflower, Mexican, Evening Sun, Sunshine, & Incredible - just wild sowed in and out of the back treeline

That's about it. Then I have 10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes to go into my Earthboxes.

I'd like to mix whatever works well together.

Will it be so close together that everything will be a companion to everything else? It looks wonderful, GG, wonderful, sunny, not snowy and dry. XX, Carrie

I just finished my 1st lasagna bed! It was sooo easy! Im going to use this one as my harb garden. Starting on a another HUGE bed for my flowers :o) whoo hoo!

harb?

herb...oh, you guys!

lol! oops! Its those wonderful pain pills! They took over my mind and my spelling!

BTW I learned today: Dont shovel dirt all day while taking pain pills. I didnt feel like I was over doing it, not until that pill wore off! lol! now I just want to soak and sleep!

Gymgirl, What a neat setup you have there. I hope to do something similar. My problem is I don't have much in the way of compost.

Soulgarden, I went out to look at my pile of veggies, torn paper, etc. and it was very wet and icy and smelled like, umm, uhh, garbage. I realize that means too much green, too little brown, but I don't have any leaves and no available soil to add. Can you believe it--way out in the country, but no browns. Can I add partially decomposed mulch? The landscape guy left a pile of it out by the fence last summer and it is much smaller in volume than it was. Can I then use that mixture to start my lasagne bed. I'd like to grow herbs and flowers. How long should I wait before sowing or planting in it? I am eager to dig in the garden after having lived in an apartment for the last two years.

Pam, yes, you know what you should do... you should be covering your green with a brown!! :) As far as how soon you can plant in it... I'd say as soon as you want to..You would always keep feeding the soil with organic matter and building up you soil even after you have planted if you can.. like adding leaf mold. Once we get into the warmer months I will be putting veggie kitchen scraps under the soil.. I will take a shovel into a fallow veggie bed and put it under.

:)

Susan

If you need brown, shred your junk mail. I use my credit card solitations in my compost and get quite a lot. I have one of those confetti shredders. Just be careful what you use. No plastic envelope parts and some slick adds have bad ink.

How can you tell good from bad (ink)? x, Carrie

No glossy inserts, Carrie.

We still have some paper and cardboard from our move that l can use in the layering. Glad to hear I can use it right away, as a kind DG'er sent me an assortment of seeds for a butterfly garden. This forum is excellent. Susan, you could have your own show on HGTV or PBS.

Glad to help Pam :))

This is a wonderful thread, thank you all!

I have a question about the composting in place - I have lots of horse manure and chicken poop. What do I need to do to it before I add it to my raised beds? Or can I add it to my raised beds?

What are you growing in your raised beds? Veggies?? Is the manure fresh or aged? How long? Are you growing flowers?? I have never used chicken, but have shoveled horse directly into flower beds with great results. The experts say not to put fresh into beds for the burn, but I haven't had any. I wouldn't get it right up to the stems though :) I probably wouldn't do fresh manure in my veggie beds though.

Any other thoughts on this??

Susan

Hi, Susan,

I have some pretty dried manure as well as fresh and everything in between. I have flowers (for cutting) and lots of veggies in different beds. I also have brambles and grapes.

I suppose I could use vermiculture to compost the manure. The pasture that is now or the horses used to be a cow pasture, and I've honestly considered stealing some of the soil from it because it has 30 years of cow poop in it - LOL, and it is very rich. But if I can avoid moving dirt all around, I think I would be happier.

then of course use your older stuff and pile it on :) or you could just start planting in the pasture so as not to move the great soil :)

Okay... So I said I would be a little more revealing of the "before" shots so as to share how I do it, so here are some things I've been working on in this great weather we've been having :)


These beds are more for for the instant gratification type...and not someone who has been slowly building up their beds over the winter. I wanted to create a bed here right next to my kids playset and infront of this old rustic fence that for now hides our pool equipment. I had not been building up this area like previously described... I mean while i have collected lots of leaves, my garden planting plans are larger than the amount of leaves I collect, so here we go and see what i did..

Now for covering the grass to smother it out.. No tilling, no chemicals.. And yes, i did use some glossy paper. This was paper I kept from Old Time Pottery when i purchased breakables and the lady really went wild on paper. I kept it in the attic knowing I would use it for this. My husband just loves when i keep trash..... not.

I could not put in edging first casue I didn't know where power lines to the pool might be and I have sliced through them before.. gave off some great sparks... and my shovel handle was wooden :0 Soo... here is where I put the compost directly on top of the paper. Now while the paper needs to be a good thinckness, you don't want it so thick that you can't put a sharp shovel blade though it if you need to dig a hole for a larger plant or shrub.

After finding out where any power lines might be.. dug up the edge and installed the edging.

Connected the edging from the original circle around my kids play set post and made it into one large bed...

Oh yea.. Forgot to tell you about the compost. For years I've known about this stuff the county makes and it's free to go pick up, but they charge a little per cubic yard if they have it loaded into a dump truck. It is all kind of gross stuff they cook up........including human sludge... thats right... it had human waste in it. Well, all I can say in my defense is that people with addictions will take desperate measures to achieve their goals.. so there... The poor dump truck driver that brought it said it smelled so gross and he was about to gag and I just got the giggles and started a gut busting laugh watching him deal with getting it out of the truck. There's this tough looking southern man just having a fit over some large chunks of the stuff not coming all the way off his truck.. It was windy and the dust was picking up. When he was done I laughingly told him what was in that stuff and he said.. "great, now I've really eaten everything". I cried laughing.

I had 15 cubic yards dumped on the side of my driveway.

Really, I should have waited for the stuff to settle, but I could help myself, because I'm a nut and went to my back yard nursery area and started grabbing plants that had been screaming to be planted.

Thanks, and happy belated birthday, and I have been following but I forget what this turns into, or hasn't it yet? x, Carrie

Freshly planted.... Not ,mulched yet. My five year old let me know how disappointed that I put any plants other than bachelor buttons in his play set garden and how dare I put roses in there and he didn't want roses.. Can't please everyone I guess :)

The 3 roses are eden climbing..

Most everything was planted directly into the compost except for some of the plants towards the front where it tapered down. I would take a hand shovel and break though the paper and red clay.. pull out any grass that might be there and proceed to plant. I will let you see how it looks later on in the season.

:)



This message was edited Mar 23, 2008 6:09 PM

Ohh, and you didn't wait a season year etc, for everything to die under the newpaper?
x, Carrie