Extreme Composting

Ronald Reagan's fave Russian proverb? Trust, but verify. And clearly, am1too is more trust worthy than you. Everyone knows that you deal in ...ummm...manure by the truck load.

We planted our potatoes in wood chips last year. Actually, we planted them in a little hole (with soil), and then kept hilling them with coarse chips. They didn't need much watering. I would think sawdust would be similar?

What are you doing with those chips for this year? Pulling them aside to mulch again, or tilling them under?

I might hesitate to plant my potatoes directly in sawdust.

I can see how laying them in shallowish dirt rows and then covering with wood chips might be a good thing. Straight sawdust might just suck up a bit much nitrogen from straight soil, in that application. The sawdust, being finer, offers more surface area to bind N, whereas the coarseness of the wood chips prevents them binding N quite so vigorously.

I wouldn't be too afraid to lay an inch or so of sawdust or chips between my garden rows, though I might hold off from so mulching my heavy N feeders, such as corn.....

In that hay field, there is already a layer of partially rotted and rotting humus to buffer the N-sucking effect of the sawdust from the soil. Also, half an inch to an inch is somewhat minimal to begin with......and, if you have legumes already growing as your hay crop, they will contribute N to the equation.

I read somewhere that the general rule is, if you remove X tons of hay per acre/per year, replace with X tons of organic matter, each year, to compensate.
That can be done in any of several ways, but I prefer the extremes, and I simply multiply X by a hundred, or so, every couple of years, to be safe, while technology makes that possible.

I'm goofy, that way......or so they tell me.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

while we are talking about pastures and compost...

I have a section of old pasture that is more or less an acre of grape vines. I've been vigorously mowing it for 2 years but it doesn't seem to be dieing back, in fact the patch seems to be getting larger. The local extension and few local farmers i know have one recommendation, Roundup. I'm not religiously against Roundup, but I'm trying to see if I can deal with things organically.

What do you think of several inches of wood chips covering the whole area? That would be a big, time consuming job and grape vines are awfully tough to kill. Maybe fire the area first? Any other ideas?

We don't till. We will be pulling back the chips to the soil level with a garden rake, planting, and then tucking the chips back around the plants as they grow.

We did it just like FR said, and just planted in shallow dirt rows. The kids went along and helped dig a little hole with their trowels.

Cesum.....for long term, I'm-in-no-hurry results and overall soil improvement, a thick layer of chips would slow those vines down, especially after burning.

I'm trying to envision such a patch of vines. Are they laying on the ground, or is there something for them to climb ?

Goats ?

Disc and ripper ?

Trellis them up and open a winery ?

__________________
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Unfortunately, I've never seen any grapes on the grapes else I would be inclined to keep them and teach them some manners. On the edges of the area are a few trees that were covered with the vines when I first bought the place. I cut the vines at the ground around the trees, let them die, then pulled them from the trees months later.

The field of vines, prior to mowing, was just a 3 or 4 ft high mass of jumbled mess, all growing on top of one another. I mow them down to ~6 inches and they leaf out beautifully again. I think the goat idea is best, it will just have to wait a year or so till I'm ready to be on the farm full time and my fences are in place.

Talk about self-inflicting organic mass incorporation !

I'd get a disc and have a good old time, every couple of weeks.

Refresh my perspective, do you have a tractor, yet.....preferably with a loader ?

__________________
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

I have a JCB 214 loader/hoe and could use the root rake to tear up most of the grape area, but i wouldn't want to get too close to the tree roots. I do have a small 30 HP Kubota that I borrow from a neighbor on occasion but it won't pull the disk I pickup up cheap at auction.

I'm close to buying a new Kubota M7040. Have been looking for a year for something used in the 100 hp range but in all cases, the ones I found that were worth buying were too expensive. I bid on several at auction but they all sold significantly more than i was willing to pay. I had to admit that my expectations are not in alignment with the market. So I started looking at new.

Now that I think I would shy away from.

I just do not have much truck and do not get as much manure. (well at a time)

Mix it 50/50 with soil so that it doesn't dry out too much. Although the sawdust would be almost totally lacking in NPK, it's no factor since there would be no plant roots in the in the hilled area.

Martin

Martin, for one who consistently demonizes the use of sawdust in the garden, I'm intrigued that you so readily recommend mixing it 50/50 with the soil, under any circumstance, merely for the sake of making an argument.



Go get 'em, Tiger.

__________________
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

WOW! I've missed some really good times since I was away for a while.

Martin I have grown potatoes by the acre, not just rows, when I was in my teenage years. And although I might be wrong, the whole idea of hilling potatoes with more soil is to move the root line of the potato plant up to get more potatoes. So, I think hilling potatoes with a 50/50 blend of soil and sawdust would slow the growth of the potato plant quite a bit. I could be wrong though. I would wait until the hills are the height that are desired, pull any large weeds, then put sawdust on TOP of the soil around the plants. If I'm wrong here, someone please use their experienced knowledge to correct me.

__________________
Do not panic, the government will save us...
NOT!

Ok, it is finally time for me to jump in on the fun. Down in houston we had the old compost bin made of pallets that had the yard grass and oak leaves. Made lots of good stuff in there, but we aren't in Houston anymore!

We are currently building a house ourselves near Rusk, TX. We have 30 acres and about half of it is wooded, the rest is mixed pines and pasture. The pasture has had hay taken from it for many years and the top soil is very thin. If you are familiar with the Rusk area, it is VERY hilly and my land is not an exception. We have lots of dead pine from last year's drought.

Most of the soil is red clay and iron ore rocks. Basically, what I'm thinking right now is taking some of the large dead and rotting pines and putting them in low areas between the hills. This is only a five or six foot elevation change between the top of the hill to the lows between them. Then covering them with some dirt. This seems like........wait for it.......trench composting or......wait.......wait......hugelkultur. I would eventually like to plant fruit trees along this natural trench. We will also be doing raised beds in different sunny area.

Equipment: Kubota B2620 (26hp and FEL), PTO post hole digger, PTO chipper (6" max), and four kids.

There is no way I could chip up these trees and build a compost pile. Most of these pines are 18" across and then one or two are 36" across.

thoughts?

thanks
Austin

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Forerunner... Got a question for ya.

Just took my hogs to the locker this morning, and since I'm getting into the large composting pile club (sorry trenchers), I have about a 15 x 60 foot area of hog poo, 4-5 inches thick, sitting on top of a deep layer of lime. I want to scrap off the dung and incorporate it into my wood mulch pile to get it "going". Does the pig dung have a huge amount of N in it? Or will I be making a huge mess/mistake. I've never composted hog dung before, so thought I'd better ask. Thanks!

__________________
Do not panic, the government will save us...
NOT!

Wow.... nice area for sure. Not sure if you want to make some money with cattle or not. But if I owned that, I'd put high-tensil electrified fence around it, buy some South Poll breed cows, and go into serious high density grazing mode to let the cows do the work of rebuilding the topsoil. They'll do it pretty fast too, if you're there everyday working it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll let Greg Judy explain it. Watch the whole presentation if you can. You will learn a ton! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6HGKSvjk5Q

I'm not kidding though. That's exactly what I would do with that property. You have just enough land to do it.

__________________
Do not panic, the government will save us...
NOT!

StayPuff.....that hog manure will go GREAT with wood/anything.

DaBlack........ your hugelkultur idea sounds as reasonable as any....and, at least you don't have to dig any trenches.

Good folks who are compelled to dig a trench just to build a compost pile have got all of my sympathy.

Besides all that, you have got one beautiful chunk of Texas to work with.

__________________
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

DaBlack - any way you can get someone to log the big trees? You keep and chip the limbs. In my area, small scale saw mills will go 50/50 on sawn lumber. Costs you nothing but half your wood. If you preferred, forego the chipping and use the limbs in your hugelculture trench.