Extreme Composting

I have started bringing home the coffee grounds from work. Nothing extreme, a couple of 5 gallon buckets a day. They had previously been spoken for but that person no longer wants them.

Have you got any sort of worm farm going on, Cascade ?

__________________
“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

Just the ones that crawl into the piles.

You're in good company.

__________________
“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

Thanks everyone!

Diskidmore

This is a brand new garden space in fact I'm still cleaning it up. It was timberland last year. So I would rather not use chemicals. I have about 3-4 medium size loads of manure from a friend to bring in and work into the soil. Right now everything is waiting on drier weather as my road is 4 wheel drive only at the moment. My hauling truck is of course a 2wd .

I do have enough room to build a pile or three and as soon as my road dries enough I plan to start. We've had over a year of heavier than normal rain and snow about two years worth in one.

Larry

PS I always water seedlings from the bottom forerunner. Thanks

I'm jealous and green with envy. Wish I could find something that close.

I hope your place is drier than mine, I'd never get the garden started in time if I waited for it to be dry enough to drive on.

Haha we've got water running out every step you take. I have a jeep with 6" lift and 33" mud terrain tires and its dragging going in and out the road. Might do better if I drove in the garden space.

Larry

Sort of off topic. I've been experimenting with "moveable" garden planters. Perhaps something that would start off the ground during our flood season maybe even in a greenhouse for starters then move them outside once things dry out a bit. Playing with building something on pallets that can be moved with a forklift. due to the heavy rains/flooding we are really limited to what can be started outside in the spring. And transplanting has its own issues. Do you guys think my thought might work? I'm mostly thinking about produce that doesn't like to be transplanted. I'm pretty new to gardening and seem to kill 50% of what I plant as is. Then transplanting I've had seasons that I end up with a total loss.

My goal is least trauma possible to the plants/seedlings. Its rather depressing to put all that work into a garden and end up with only enough usable produce to feed my family for a day or two and still be forced to go to the grocery store or farmers markets.

Holy smokes 2; 5 gallon buckets a day? Where do you work? And that's not extreme? My husband has a fit when I bring home 55gallons of wvo a week from work. Even though I process it into biodiesel and soap almost immediately.

I work at a hospital. While I value the score, with the guys around this thread I would have to bring home a truck a day to be extreme.

I'd use newspaper pots or soil blocks which are cheaper than peat pots. That way there is no root disturbance.

Assuming your forklift is a tractor with forks, I would think that big, deep planters on skids would be better, easier to manage, but that's a guess.

My concern is that in a garden, roots on many plants go very deep. I was surprised to learn that tomatoes can send roots 8 ft deep. Of course, maters will produce with more confined roots, but limit the roots and you most likely are limiting production. Maters transplant easily. So maybe the easy transplants just do in pots, and the hard to transplants you do in your boxes.

I don't have any science to cite to back this up, just an observation. Soil in pots and planters tends to get much heavier than good garden soil. It needs to be lightened with perlite (which I don't like to buy), or fine chips, or half finished compost, or something similar. If you are starting with soil that has a lot of clay, add sand to loosen it up.

I just purchased fruit trees from a local nursery and they use 100% half finished compost and have an extreme pile going to keep them supplied. It looked to be 6 ft high, and about 50' x 50'. Their system appears to be they fill pots from the front and add new material to the back, so the pile must slowly crawl across the field. Not a bad idea as the worms would naturally move towards the newer material.

Ready made natural compost. I have a couple of dry ponds on the farm. This one had wild pigs rooting in a hole 2 years ago, but that dried up and they moved on. It became nothing but a field of brambles. So brambles were pushed aside, and about quarter acre of peat, 6 - 18 inches deep, became this pile which is getting moved to the orchard. Based on what I've already loaded with a 1 yard loader, it appears to be about 150 cu-yards.

The fellow in the photos is my neighbor.

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Any idea what something like that might look like?

Thankfully I've not had any issues with tomatoes. it's more the ground covering plants I have issues with, squash, cucumbers, bell peppers etc....

I've only ever used the black gold compost that we get from our own compost piles, should I be using something else?

Skids - I've seen folks build small barns/sheds or chicken coops on 2x8 PT, flat side to the ground and the tow end cut off at a 45 angle so that it doesn't dig end. I've never gone that big, but have done something similar and used the 3pt hitch to take the weight off the front end as I towed.

Your compost is probably perfect. If you have used it in pots before, take a look and see if it is packing down real tight or if it is remaining loose. Loose is better.

Following you guys I feel like I might be able to get the compost right. Now I just need to learn to keep the plants alive better in my high desert climate.

Need some ideas. About three months back, I cut a bunch of trees down to mill into lumber for the rebuild (house burned down back in July). I have my little 26hp kubota with a FEL and a 6" chipper. I have chipped up all the branches that are smaller than 6" but I still have tons of tree tops, big limbs, and other junk. It is really a mess and I'm sick of it. I looked into renting a big chipper but the only thing I can find is 12" and is $350 a day and would cost another $50 in gas to go get. If it could cut everything then it would be worth it but half the stuff is over 12" and very knotty. I'm thinking that I'm just going to burn it. Momma isn't happy seeing it and to be real, neither am I. Just looks like a big mess out there. I've put an ochard where the pines used to be and it will end up being a great place but right now it is a mess.

Thoughts?

thanks
Austin

Bury it in nitrogen rich compost. Let it rot down. Plant something pretty in top to please the Mrs. In a few years you can level the pile and the wood will be rotted and fragile if not gone.

Rich compost is a great idea but I have none. What I have on hand is tons of carbon. I'm not saying, carbon is a bad thing to have around but nitrogen rich is something that I long for....

I would love to put all this stuff in a hole or something but it is just too much.