Well , here it is late August , and the garden is starting to slow production . Sometime this week I'll get the burner finished so I can can the jalapeno peppers , since I don't want to freeze them . We have several gallon size freezer bags full of whole frozen tomatoes , and about
30-something bags of shredded zucchini - 2 cups per bag , since that's how much she uses for 2 loaves of Z-bread... are you open to suggestions? :) or do you pretty much know already what you are going to do?
songbird
Oh , I'll always listen to advice . Won't necessarily use it , but I'll listen . I have a good idea of what I want to accomplish , and if I can find a better/easier/cheaper way to get results ... -- Snag For one thing , I want to plant something as "green mulch" this fall to be tilled in to help increase the organic content of this soil .
If looking around for ideas, "green manure" is the more common term.
I personally favor things that will winter-kill - does mean it has to go in early enough to get established and grow before it's killed, but it also means it's not coming back from the dead in spring when you try to till it in. Builds some fertility, and holds soil through the winter so you don't lose it. Some things that will grow through winter might be less prone to coming back when plowed/tilled - check with the extension agent or other local growers for ideas to suit your climate. If you can give a section of garden (or "a part of your rotation") over to growing green manure through the growing season, your options increase.
If you have a truck or trailer, also keep an eye out for horse people, and brown manure. Most of them don't have a spreading plan, so they get piles. Best bet is to re-pile at your place and see what the weed content is like, while giving the pile a few turns (inside to outside, outside to inside) to try and do in the weeds. If the pile is uphill of the garden, so much the better (runoff/leachate gets into the garden.) Then spread it. If you get on a regular collection run, it is a far faster way to build fertility than green manuring.
Chicken houses abound around here ... not so many cattle operations , but there are a couple of horses-for-hire places . Might be a good pace to start , if someone else hasn't already got a deal with the owners . My only problem with composting is a shortage of green stuff to add to the pile . We don't have a "lawn" , just the wild grasses/weeds that were already here , and which I cut occasionally with the weedeater . I can get all the brown stuff I want , got about 12,000 trees that drop leaves every year ... maybe make a deal with a lawn service or something for green -- Snag Exploring options .
Cows' and chickens' output is usually spoken for or used by the farmer (or the chickens' is available, but at a price. Still, does not hurt to ask.) Horse is the one most commonly available for free, since most horse people are not farmers. Horse people who are farmers will use the manure themselves.
"Compost color" can be deceptive. When I refer to brown manure, I simply mean the actual color. From a "compost" perspective it's green material (high nitrogen), though it's often mixed with enough "brown" (high carbon) bedding that it can be composted as-is. Chicken, if you get it, is usually in need of a LOT of additional brown material and a year or so of aging/composting before use - it's very high nitrogen, as anyone who's cleaned a chicken coop knows - ammonia city.
As for leaves, make piles, don't sweat the green/brown content, don't worry about turning them, and 3 years later you have leaf mold, a very desirable substance. You might also consider burying wood (dropped limbs, brush, etc) under your beds (hugleculture is the trendy German term.)
Your "wild grasses and weeds 'lawn'" could get some alfalfa, wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat etc. added to it and serve as (more of) a source of local green material. Or you can simply rake what it does grow when you cut it, and use for mulch or compost.
If your garden is a "hole in the trees" you might also benefit from cutting a bigger hole - it will give you more room to grow green stuff, but more importantly (depending on the size, shape and aspect of your current hole) it might give your garden more sun, which can be a limiting aspect of "hole in the trees" gardens. If that does not apply, then you should ignore it, but it can be a large factor if there is shade for any appreciable period during the growing season (though I gather that some mid-day shade can actually be a good thing in the south
- not something I have any direct experience with - local knowledge rules.)
We call ours "Our Ladies of the Coop" and when I clean out the henhouse I put the hay/manure on a compost pile . 3 hens , and we usually get 3 eggs every day .
I can rake up all the leaf mold I want ... but our trees are all oaks , is that going to make the material on the acid side ? Somewhere I read that , but that was a long time ago and I don't remember where .
It's not exactly a hole in the trees , our clearing is probably like
100-120 feet and 60-70 feet wide . The garden gets limited morning sun , but from around 10 AM on it's all in full sun . I'll be moving it a few feet to the SW next year , the best results were further from the tree line . My wife's a bit miffed about losing half of the wild blackberry patch , but I can move those and only lose one year's crop . And in the move I can make them much easier to harvest and prune . That patch of wild berries is just that - wild , and while I did clean out a bunch of dead canes this spring , it's still a pure bi**h to harvest anything without loss of blood . -- Snag
Chicken is good for adding nutrients particularly N and P but not so good as a soil conditioner to add organic matter.
Might be a good
You don't need to add anything. The nuggets will break down to a soft fibrous bulk with very little odour. Horse is one of the least offensive manures that needs the least processing or care in its use. Many people over-think this composting business and make work for themselves. You can put horse pucks straight on to mature shrubs (for example) hot out of the beast. Unless you know the provenance of it a test for viable seeds is in order first as stabled horses can be fed whole grains (but not necessarily) as part of their diet where some grain can survive their chewing and digestion. If there is viable seed and you don't want (say) oats to sprout you will have to partially compost it. If it is damp and the weather is mild the seeds will sprout and be killed off as you turn it.
David
A big _+1_ to D. H-C's commentary elsewhere in this thread. Test the horse apples for viable seeds -- they'll sprout fairly quickly -- and get the stuff into the beds ASAP. All of that green-brown, C:N, etc. is trivial, in my view, when compared to actually getting the goods into the garden where it can do its thing. The time spent calculating and figuring is better spent in the garden actually "doing", IMO. It is true that nutrients leach out during the composting and may be "wasted" and that "green" compost "steals" nitrogen while it's rotting but those nutrients can easily be amended when preparing for planting and the compost and compostable materials need to be in the ground where the microbes can work their magic. The horse manure has a head start because it contains the enzymes and microbes from the animal's alimentary canal. In fact, manures make very good starter when composting garden and yard debris. I can say, though, (and from personal experience) that among a gardener's happiest days is the one on which he realizes that those damnable oats finally are done sprouting.
My apologies. Jesus, what kind of asshole can't even get someone's _name_ correct! Oh, well, I'll have another beer and pretend it was just a typo....
Snag wrote: ...
try a more shade tolerant plant up there like rhubarb. you've already got it cleared so might as well fill it with something instead of letting it revert to potential weed troubles for the rest of the garden. along with the rhubarb plant a nice legume cover crop (clover, birdsfoot trefoil, alfalfa, etc.) as that will also help keep the weeds down and encourage the rhubarb. for free fertilizer you can chop it once in a while and spread it on the gardens.
a winter cover crop in some areas will help keep the nutrients in place (instead of leaching away with the winter or spring rains). also all that green stuff growing through the winter is helping keep your soil community well fed and active.
also keeping some green spaces going at all times will provide harbors for the good bugs and give the worms plenty to feast upon.
any of your fields that you can include patches of mint, oregano, thyme, clovers, alfafa, trefoil (which for us is very consistently blooming most of the summer), cosmos (annual, but the bees love 'em), hollyhocks (plant in places you don't have to cut back as they are picky/irritating to have to cut back).
if you can put in early spring bloomers like the crocus and daffodils that gets bees into your gardens early to explore around. with woodlands you might have to protect any bulb plantings with a cover of wire mesh to keep the squirrels from digging them all up.
songbird
+1 to everything David said about horse plops. I love horse plops.
Snag wrote: ...
i would not use anything from a lawn service as then you are asking for crabgrass and other lawn weed invasion. also, many of them spray gunk that is probably better avoided in a veggie garden.
if you can find someone who does tree removal services, it's much better to get ground up tree branches and shredded bark. wood chips last longer as a mulch and work well enough for movable pathway material. when they are used up wood chips turn into a nice crumbly dark amendment. plus, if you can talk them into dropping off green hardwood sections you can use those for mushroom farming.
by far, the best option for low cost green stuff is to grow your own if you have the space. you can use that growing green stuff to keep the bees happy if you cut it in strips leaving some standing so it can flower while the mowed areas recover. also, never hurts to leave some of the green stuff behind as you cut as then it self-fertilizes and builds that soil too (in case you ever want to rotate your garden into a new space).
songbird
All manure from herbivores is good. Chicken, and rabbit seem to be the best for both nitrogen, and phosphates.
To add vegetative (as opposed to fecal) organic material to your soil (roots) try rye, or buckwheat. For nitrogen, plant legumes or clover.
I'd recommend that you don't till your garden, except in its first year. Tilling accelerates the loss of organic material (OG) from your soil. OG holds moisture. Tilling kills earthworms which aerate and fertilize your soil. Lastly, tilling destroys mycorrhizae fungi, which transport nutrients to the plants in your garden bed.
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