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Martin |
Trench composting can't be compared to a municipal dump. Decomposition of organic matter isn't much different if it is 3' high or 3' deep. That in a pile has to rely mainly on airborne microorganisms whereas that in a trench also has soil-borne invaders from all sides as well as the top or previous exposure. With a layer of soil on top, rain or irrigation takes it down through the material and speeds up the natural process. Material breaks down faster as a result of the soil mixing with it.
Also, if one has composted for awhile, it soon becomes apparent that plants will readily grow in it as soon as it cools down to where it is warm rather than hot. There's been many stories about the huge melon or pumpkin vines which grew right out of the center. Material doesn't have to be broken down to where it is no longer recognizable in order to begin releasing its nutrients. It's basically the same material as when it started but different form. Trench composting thus has the advantage of being able to compost a lot of material while also using the same area to produce plants. Martin |
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I'm not knocking trench composting. As stated above, that's what I did with good results on a suburban lot. I agree it can be a space saver. However, I'm not aware of any real value in such deep trenches unless perennials will be grown there. |
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www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137toc.html Martin |
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In a drought, those roots will go a lot deeper..........
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Reading all of this, aerobic composting (piles) seem much easier provided you have the land to get it away from potential persnickety neighbors. I would think that trench composting would be the method of choice if you didn't have any choice. Otherwise, it sure seems like a lot of extra work. Plus, when you're composting in piles, you have the option of moving it to the location of choice when you need some. If you're trenching, it seems like you have to plan more and will be leaving it there for future plantings. You'll have none to 'go get' when you need it, unless you want to dig it back out of the hole or trench. Ummm, not me, thank you.
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Trench composting does not have to involve digging wide or deep trenches. It may need only a 5-gallon hole to handle a week's worth of kitchen scraps and done anytime that the soil is not frozen. It may be done between rows or between plants. A post hole digger may be used to dig hole for the same purpose. It is less overall work than having a large pile which must be turned manually several times. A pile would only be needed for storage during winter months in the northern zones and that could be in the garden if there were no other place. Even that would not be needed if pails, bags, or trash cans were used. It's the ideal method for the gardener with limited space and material availability. If done to the depth of a 5-gallon pail, eventually one will have accomplished the equal to double-digging but just one hole at a time.
Martin |
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And again, that isn't a knock on any other composting method; except for a few freakish and rare examples, all compost is good. There are lots of good reasons to want to process compost fast, like when the horses keep providing compost source material and you are limited in pile spaces. There are lots of good reasons to want to use a trench, like my HOA would have prohibited a big pile in my backyard. Available equipment is also a big factor. What you may or may not have available in terms of chipping, digging, and spreading equipment makes a huge difference in what is best for you. |
Idiots.
All of yuh. I maintain that anyone who does not follow my methodology to the letter is an insufferable buffoon, at best, and you deserve to die a slow and painful death!!! :) Just kidding. I only wanted to see what such a rant would look like, in print. :teehee: |
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Hu-poo score
I have been looking for months for either a cheapo dump trailer or truck. Finally picked up this one this AM and think I got it for about 25% below market, not a great deal, but one I could tolerate. On the way home I stopped by the village dump and picked up 9K lbs of composted hu-poo for my future orchard. The trailer will carry 7 tons, but the brakes aren't working (there is a cut wire and hopefully the seller didn't lie when he promised they work), so I was afraid to risk trying to stop a full 29k lbs (truck, trailer, and full load) with just the truck brakes. The dump is over 60 miles away so I can't justify the trip just for the sludge, but I have to make the drive to within 4 miles of there once a week or so regardless and will add a stop to pick up poo. In addition to using it in the orchard, I have not quite 4 acres piled 3 ft high with logging slash. Up till now i didn't have any N source to add to the pile to accelerate the decomposition. |
Oh, yum. :)
How black and granulated, even. I wonder what that stuff would do, wet down a bit and mixed with horse stall cleanings and wood chips, plus a dead critter ever' now an' then. :shrug: |
to the right of trailer is an 8 ft high pile of chips with a sprinkle of roadkill, 12 ft pile of clay, and about 50 stumps which i can't decide if I will bury or burn. Once I find the horse source, I'll set to work on answering your wonder.
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I'm thinking just pile them stumps and cover with some richer material and let 'em sit for a few...... I've seen old piles of stuff at sawmills that'd set yer mouth to waterin'. :eek:
Maybe one roadkill, three bushels of hu-poo and one commune per stump, on average, and build the pile from there. :shrug: |
Not unlike your initial post here in reply to my 1st post ?
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“The roots of even a sweet potato for example penetrate far beyond this depth, however, usually to the 4-foot level and spread 14-feet in all directions easily and beyond for even the sweet potato mature plant after even just a little over 3 months’ time.” http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...10137ch25.html Moreover, this thread is about composting, and includes many such methods, nor was it I who said : Seems ok to limit discussion to anything but Trench Composting to some and to assume therefore that the now 15-feet left-to-right and 8-feet front-to-back as deep as 9-feet just outside the canopy of the Pecan Grove in the back-yard, which has by necessity become on its own divided into 3 holes over the now over a decade of successful trench composting relies upon discussing only that at the bottom of a 9-feet deep trench at some convenient points as if it is full of water when of course, that by nature is impossible. Each year, I have to use the next space over which I removed and spread-out in my yard, don’t I ? I empty the trench from 2 years’ prior in the 3rd year. I use that soil. The trench composting area from 1-year prior is loose and easily moved because I have to have soil to mix with the grass clippings leaf clippings and ashes from the fireplace, don’t I ? Seems to be this thread is about discussing Composting other than Trench Composting ? Did I get that right ? As for the Gators, we’ve beaten them 2 years in a row, haven’t we ? We ended up # 4 in the Coaches’ and # 5 in the AP Poll to Florida # 9, right ? We have Aaron Murray return for his 5th season to set all SEC Records for Quarterbacks, and remind me again who your Quarterback is 2013, either ? How Bout Them Dawgs ! Seems you’ve been busy since I had started to vacate this thread forever supposedly on Composting ? I got a private e-mail from a wonderful lady asking me. I replied and in getting that notification to my e-mail of the private e-mail herein, I thanked her for spurring me back. Perhaps you’d prefer she hadn’t happy in the ignorance that only putting up trashy-looking cheap wooden structures with wire-mesh or piling only on-top of the ground with smelly stench reeking the only defensible composting method. Obviously, I have air at the top-layers of the pile. Obviously too, I have in year 2 to get slightly mature composting material to put on the new pile in year 3, right ? Obviously, I use the soil and have described it, have I not ? Hole A – Year 1 Hole B – Year 2 Hole C – Year 3 Dig Hole A B C. I said myself not someone else how much exercise I got digging-out with a top-grade shovel pick and axe to begin with, over a decade ago it was Hole A. I longed many days for equipment, and were I flush, I would have purchased equipment to do it, or even rented it. I did what I could in a day. I got back to it when I could. I am here. I have them dug. I dug in fact Hole A only. I filled it up that Summer and enjoyed the leaves that Fall. I dug Hole B in year 2. Again, good exercise done on my timetable. Hole A was not completely ready to spread-out. I needed dirt layers in Hole B. I took it from Hole A. Year 3, I had the Hole A and the Hole B full. I dug an addition to be Hole C. I placed the dirt upon Hole B. And, the top soil on Hole A. I filed up Hole C in Year 3. Near the beginning of Year 4, I began to dig out Hole A. I spread the astounding soil throughout the yard that Spring. Any which was not the best soil, I put on Hole B, as it seemed the Holes indeed grew on their own out of necessity. Each year since, I’ve spread out the soil from the oldest pile, piled high above the ground, as high as you pile compost in the only approved methods allowed discussed herein. I dig it up easily now, each Spring. By the time grass starts to grow, I’ve got the hole empty and the nitrogen-rich soil spread out for fertilizer, filling bare spots, re-routing water away from my home, covering roots near the several Pecan Trees in the front yard, and more around those in the backyard. I made the flower beds. I lessened the severity of the steep hill, too steep to cut sideways. I do so apologize my efforts are not to your liking, that is other than the ridicule provided immediately upon my sharing of what I and many others worldwide already knew, that it works and works well. I believe what Forerunner said was : Quote:
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The answer to which we’ve now looked at herein, and determined it I somehow who started it, and that the thread itself is not suited therefore for discussion of Composting, but only then bins and piles upon the earth would properly drain and decompose. That is what is said. “There are always different ways of doing the same thing. Like the old saying goes: 'There's more than one way to skin a cat!'.” Of course, unless, the thread forever ruined by asking such an innocent question as : Hey, what about Trench Composting ? Silly me. Air of necessity fills any void. Voids are large or voids are small. Voids above ground or voids below. Aeration is not looking upon a pile 3 years later as if it only then is as it was therefore always every day prior. Surely, everyone sees the aeration upon just flinging a poor man’s lawnmower’s clippings upon a pile above or below. Do pardon me so for so offering humbly, as was provided upon my initial post to this thread and the immediate full and complete rebuke accompanied with eeks and Holy Cows and it would not drain and would not decompose, and Only : “A simple pile, or a simple bin made from pallets or straw bales, would be much more satisfactory a setup for composting.” And, even : “Why not start a thread on "trench composting" and enlighten us all?” Sorry to ask the humble question herein on www.homesteadingtoday.com Why not change the name of the thread from COMPOSTING to Composting only if no discussion of Trench Composting is offered up at all by anyone for any reason, even to ask humbly, can I ? And, if the soil so improved under a pile, why not dig down 9 feet under where you have your piles above ground all these years, and look ? Or, study the study of simple sweet potatoes and their 4-foot level. I believe were you to look 4-feet beneath a simple old-fashioned pile upon only this earth, that you will find your dirt there at the 4-foot level completely unchanged from prior to your only approved method of composting along with yet another unsightly bin with wire-mesh above the ground, also doing nothing at the 4-foot level beneath it. But, what do I know ? Other than of course, I’ve dug 4-feet and a lot more and you ? Discarded the entire concept out-of-hand, despite even such as : http://www.dummies.com/how-to/conten...omposting.html ______________________________ The National Gardening Association ______________________________ despite such revelations as even : “informative and surprising. I had no idea a tomato had some roots 4 ft deep.” and, “In a drought, those roots will go a lot deeper..........” and, “research has shown that pile turning is to benefit people, not compost. Turning gives you a finished product faster, but the quality is lower, especially lower if you are using the compost on perennials that prefer a higher fungi- bacteria ratio. And again, that isn't a knock on any other composting method; except for a few freakish and rare examples, all compost is good. There are lots of good reasons to want to process compost fast, like when the horses keep providing compost source material and you are limited in pile spaces. There are lots of good reasons to want to use a trench, like my HOA would have prohibited a big pile in my backyard.” And, frankly it would not matter if there indeed any benefit from any humble question. After all, this thread is Composting and that eeks Holy Cow does not include cannot drain and would not decompose Trench Composting, which must then therefore be its own separate thread, not a part of Compost Thread at : www.homesteadingtoday.com Thanking you kindly for answering my humble question so openly and warmly. |
The thread title is "extreme composting", and your method fits that description.
It wasn't I who told you to go start another thread, but a forum participant who recognized a little angst on your part. Sounds to me like you've got an axe to grind, and it sure didn't take much to get through that paper-thin skin of yours. It took me a little time, myself, once online, to learn to roll with the punches, and to be able to see beyond the typed word and into the real intent of the poster. I have lots of hope for you, yet. :thumb: |
Wow-o-freaking-wow.
Can you compost thin skins? |
Sure yuh can.
They just don't have quite the protein/nitrogen value of the thick ones. :shrug: |
What is the best way to add compost to an existing lilac hedge that was planted in poor soil? The plants are about knee high.
Wanting to plant some apple trees this spring but I don't have much compost ready. Would I be better off waiting one more year and planting the trees in deep compost? Thanks |
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Thomas - I just wrote you a long post that the ether ate. short version - we all compost differently due to our own circumstances, some of us like to campaign for our preferred methods, but all composting is good. don't sweat it. Just come post about compost and enjoy the process along with the rest of us. No one here meant to give offense.
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Stud-H...... you could side dress or lightly hoe and thus incorporate good compost around those lilacs. ....Or, you could dig a deep trench all the way around each bush and fill the trenches with a good balance of composting materials.
I understand that trench composting is all the rage, these days. :bouncy: For those apples, what I did was dig deeper than I needed to, and mix some of the native soil with compost, a little wood ash, some bone meal, a rotten egg or two, and a random spot of roadkill. Do you remember the story of jack and the beanstalk ? :eek: If you don't have finished material, either wait, or root the tree into mostly native material with the raw compostables surrounding, so they'll be more broken down when the roots reach them. |
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If I had finished compost to use as back fill, how big of hole should I dig to plant trees in? CesumPec, Nice trailer, never saw a dump trailer with triples, nice find. |
War Eagle
I used a dozier three years ago to clean up some property where my ponds are. I scraped off all the small brush and small trees so I could bushhog the rest. I left all the large trees standing. It was in the late spring/early summer so I had a lot of "green" in the three 12 foot high piles/20 feet diameter. I have not touched them since. I am going to check them tomorrow with shovel and pitchfork to see if they are ready to "harvest". If they have had time to turn to compost then I'll go back later(few weeks) with loader bucket and trailer to bring back to the house and my garden. I'll report back tomorrow with what I find in the piles. Maybe the "trench warfare" will be over by then. I agree with forerunner that to participate on internet forums both sides of an issue have to be careful not to take things personal. |
Stud-H.....I dug mine about 3x3x3 feet.....and they were fairly small trees.....three or four feet tall.
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I just planted some peach trees in mounds about three feet tall. I'm in the edges of a swamp and peaches don't like their feet wet.
I started with a layer of half rotted wood, made a hollow cone over that with topsoil, filled the center with a load of compost and planted the tree in the middle. Kinda the opposite of trenching. BTW ThomasBrown, Great rant. Seriously, I enjoyed the read. |
You seem to have some degree of experience in trench composting, Thomas.
I, for one, would like to hear more about it, as I've never made use of this approach and would be delighted to have further opportunity to explore it's possibilities. :) |
"Should we take a Survey : Are these meant to give offense ?"
NO In fact we should drop it, survey would just divide folks on the best thread ever on any subject. I have a hole that I had planned to build a water feature in but now that I am into composting I might start putting all my grass clippings, etc in as another place to build a compost pile. Its 3 feet deep and 20 ft diameter. It never gets standing water unless we get 4 or more inches in a very short time, which we got Sunday night and Monday morning (8 inches). |
Well two of my three year old piles from cleaning up my property were smaller but still just limbs etc. The third one I had mixed some topsoil into it as I had scraped the surface of small vegetation. That one had composted very well. So well that I will have to use tractor to remove small trees that are growing out of it.
The soil in it is either black or black mixed with brown and very soft and humus. The large original pile has been reduced to about three to four feet high(from 12). This wil be a great start to building my raised beds for this years garden expansion along with my compost pile started last year. |
Got Carbon?
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After 10 long years, and a few repair bills, my wife made me get a new truck. Instead of the classic wooden racks, a friend helped me fabricate a metal cattle rack. Of course, one of the design specifications was that I had to be able to get the most carbon that $20 could buy at the local sawmill. :nanner:
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I have a sawmill next door, and one going in across the street. Both guys owe me favors, and I can have all the sawdust, edgings, and slabwood I want. I want all of the sawdust, but I only have a garden tractor, a cart, and a shovel. Soon I will be getting a tractor with a loader, and maybe a build bigger trailer. I don't have a specific plan for the edgings, other than dumping them in a pile to rot. The sawyer said if I had forks, he could bundle the edgings for me. Any suggestions are welcome. |
The sawmill has a drum ripper that they use to debark the locust logs for split rail fencing. I really like locust bark as it is super absorbent and breaks down in about 3 months. When they run out of locust, they start using pine. Because the pine is softer, the drum ripper gets into the wood.
I end up with a truck load of splinters when they are barking pine. They may be 6 or 8 inches long and upto an inch wide, but as a rule they are about 1/8th of an inch thick. Take longer to break down completely, but they doa better job of keeping the animals out of the mud -- which has been a problem this year. So far, we've had 130 inches of snow, but it completely melts and gets muddy about once a week! |
Chunk carbon is the mud-dwellers salvation. :bow:
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Congrats on the truck and the saw mill score. I don't have your mud problem, I have a sugar sand problem. it is amazing how good chips are at fixing all sorts of problems. A couple of inches of chips on the sand and it is almost like driving on asphalt. The roads completely stood up to all my abuse...until the 70K lb logging trucks made about 100 passes. |
Well . . . I really did have the truck for 10 years, and I was kinda hard on it . . . and the price of repairs was starting to approach the price of a new(er) truck payment. A buddy from work asked what that fine piece of metal roofing ever did to me when I riveted and bondo'd it to my fender well to pass another inspection.
I thought about getting some spray paint and writing "FARM USE" on the side, but then I was afraid my wife would want me to paint the rest of the truck . . .:nono: Besides, as you see, I really did need a newer, bigger, stronger diesel :lookout: |
I miss my tandem axle dump truck. :sob:
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I passed up some nice roadkill toady :shocked: I didn't have the hart to chase a bald eagle off of it. :thumb: I did bring home a small dear this weekend, I was surprised to see my compost pile # 4 had shrunk considerably. This was the pile that was frozen and fill with to much dirt. I did put a dear in it about two months ago, that is what brought it to life.
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Now, see, S-Hauler. to me, a "Dear', would be an affectionate significant other, which, if that is what you are referring to, causes me no small degree of alarm. :eek:
But, if it is a roadkill deer that you brought home to compost, then all is well and good. :thumb: |
I never claim to be good speller, but I should have caught that one. I will not edit it so the thread flows well, or should that be flows well, oh gees, now I am all flustered.
You have abbreviation for my username, I have tried to come up with an abbreviation to put on my licenses plate (or is that plait) but all I could come up with is STDHULR |
How far would anyone here go to pick up composted horse manure with not race horse drugs in it?
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