You are so right!

Cool! Thanks for the info.

Well, I realized a few years ago that composting has no advantages over mulching, which is the way I've gardened for 34 years now. Composting will not really kill all the germs of some disease. And if only one survives, it can build up to harmful levels again very quickly. Also, the fact that compost breaks down organic matter faster isn't a benefit. Plants need only tiny amounts of a specific nutrient each day, so there's no need for all the nutrients to be available. That just makes it more likely some will wash out of the soil to pollute ground water.
Besides the above, when you mulch rather than compost, you don't have to worry about carbon/nitrogen ratios,turning a pile, or watering perfectly. Mulching is just so much simpler and less work.

I mulch and i do some lasagna gardening too. I also have a compost bin for kitchen scraps, shredded paper, leftover soil, etc.....compost is great for mixing in with topsoil, etc, when building a new bed...

For city dwellers, assuming that people have itty bitty yards at least, you can also make off with other people's bagged leaves at the curb. I have done that a lot, and this year was happy to discover that some people rake their leaves in the spring as well as the fall. Got about 9 bags of leaves this spring when driving to Milwaukee for freecycle stuff. Also I ask for (and generally get) the garbage bags of corn husks that are next to the corn in grocery stores when they have corn on sale.

Tyrell, Why do you think that composting is harder and more complicated than mulching?!? It is very simple to compost without any concern over carbon/nitrogen ratios, ever turning a pile, or watering it at all. You just pile organic material up, and it will rot, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO TO IT. Things like weeds gone to seed, or living crab grass I wouldn't put on my garden, but would compost. The heat really does help kill bad things. Also when I have other people's lawn material I prefer to compost it before I put it in the garden, since I am not sure what chemicals they use.

Marcia (who is lucky to live ex-urban where horse manure is free, too)

"Tyrell, Why do you think that composting is harder and more complicated than mulching?!? It is very simple to compost without any concern over carbon/nitrogen ratios, ever turning a pile, or watering it at all."

Marcia, all the literature certainly says that you have to turn the pile, make sure it's watered right, and that if you don't have the right carbon/nirtogen ration, the pile will either smell or not heat up. Is all the published material wrong? That wouldn't surprise me since I stopped believing everything I read, on gardenig or anything else, many years ago.

"You just pile organic material up, and it will rot, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO TO IT."
This is precisly one of my arguments in favor of mulching instead of composting. Since things, once-living things, do indeed rot, why not just put them in the garden in the first place?
Among the advatanges:
1. They'll start improving your soil immediately. When you put the materials in a compost pile, it delays this.
2. The materials will also immediately keep your soil cooler and much moister between waterings. You will find you need to water far less often.
3. The materials will begin feeding your earthworms, benefical microorganisms, and therefore your plants right away, not weeks later when you put the finished compost in the garden.
4. The materials will eliminate weeds, both those already present, and any new ones that might blow in on the wind.

"Things like weeds gone to seed, or living crab grass I wouldn't put on my garden, but would compost."
I've been mulching with grass clippings, with occassional leaves and crop residues, for 34 years. I haven't pulled or dug out a weed in all that time. Weed seeds are ubiquitos. No way to keep them out of a garden. But mulch prevents them from sprouting. Compost, unfortunately, is an "equal opportunity material." It will help weeds grow just as much as your plants.

"The heat really does help kill bad things."
Yes, some, but it's just not realistic to think it can eliminate any disease organism entirely. I think, and amdit this is speculation, that the reason plants do better with diseases after compost is applied to a garden is simply because the nutrients in the compost make them healthier. But those same nutrients would reach the plants with mulching.

"Also when I have other people's lawn material I prefer to compost it before I put it in the garden, since I am not sure what chemicals they use."
This point might have some merit. Never really considered it, becuase I get all my mulch from my huge yard, and don't use chemicals myself. But I think some questions would need to be answered by experiments, like does the heat in the pile destroy some particular chemical, or might the incredible biochemical actitivy that goes on in mulch do the jog as well or better?

Whether people want to mulch or compost is of course entirely up to them. I just try to present counterarguments to "the conventional wisdom." And who knows how many more people would grow fruits and vegetalbes if they knew how easy it was with the mulch method- never any tilling or digigng in organic matter, no composting (and it is some work), never a weed to pull, and never a cent to spend on fertilizer, soil conditioners, or soil tests. The simplest way for anyone to find out which way is easier, with similar results, is to mulch part of their garden and use compost on the rest.
If there's an easier, cheaper way to garden, I wish somebody would let me in on it?

Tyrell, probably it is different where you live and you can garden all year. In WI we spend half the year planning to garden, half the year actually able to garden. But we make compost all year long. Flinging fruit and vegie garbage around the yard in the late fall and winter would just give the wildlife more to eat, mess up the yard horribly, and it wouldn't do much for you come spring. That is assuming in all the snow you can tell exactly where all your gardens are. And aerating/mixing your compost pile once in a while is no more work than layering stuff carefully around existing plants on a regular basis.

I started composting personally 19 years ago at my first house. We bought another house, and owned them simultaneously for 15 months. I can assure you that 1) the compost from the old house was moved to the new house, and 2) having bought the house in late August, couldn't start vegie gardening until the next summer. So there was compost both new and old for the new garden, no waiting for nutrients. I did start flower bulb gardens in the front yard that first fall, but I assure you that I could not spread fruit and vegie peelings directly over them a few feet from the sidewalk without getting into trouble with the neighbors. It would basically be throwing my garbage towards the street. If you say to cover it up with something, then there is the covering and uncovering work to be done every time you take the scraps out. How does that save work over flinging stuff into a pile?

My current house I owned for 8 months before I officially moved in, and again I started composting there immediately upon buying it, and when I moved I took my finished compost with me. NO lack of nutrients for my garden! Even for people who aren't weird enough to move their compost with them, there could only be a brief initial period where the the nutrients were withheld from the garden. Once you start composting, there is recurring compost to add to your soil, and that is of the sort that is available over a long time.

Also, for weird people like myself who come home on a given Sunday with 3 cases of rotting oranges to eat and make into juice, there is the highly acidic peels which I have been told it is not wise to add directly to plantings, but which are fine after being composted with other stuff. And the 6 bags of other people's leaves I swipe on a good day.

I once had a letter printed in a fitness magazine that had a blurb about composting - they made it sound hard to do. It is true that some people may be discouraged if they just read about it. Pamphlets about composting also tend to act like you need layers so thick of particular ingredients in a particular order. Of course people mostly compost by throwing what they have into the compost pile when they happen to have it. Works just fine.

Marcia

I just read everything Marcia wrote, but rather than get into a point by point discussion, I'd like to just suggest that people experiment. Try composting on half or more of your garden, and simply putting the same materials that you're tossing in the compost pile on the other half or less. That will let anyone decide for themselvs what is more work, or simply more to their liking.
My original comments merely pointed out that the claimed benefits for composting either are not realistic or not benefits. I'm not saying it has no benefits, just none that can't be achieved with mulching, too. No one has presented any valid counterarguments to that so far.

No-till gardening, in-place composting, sheet composting, & lasagna gardening are all well-known terms for the well-established practice of adding carbon & nitrogen directly to planting areas.

It involves carbon & nitrogen breaking down into----compost!

It isn't a "counter-argument to conventional wisdom" at all.
It *is* conventional wisdom.

Referring to it as mulching is inaccurate & confusing.
Mulching is the use of a "blanket", usually of autumn leaves or shredded or chipped wood or bark, to insulate soil & roots from extremes of temperature & to reduce the evaporation of water.
Mulch eventually does break down. Then you add another layer of mulch.

I started this thread to share a *simple*, frugal method for building compost for the garden.

That's all.

I feel that arguments, debates, & theories on the nature & value of composting (really, *was* there a debate before tyrell decided to trash thousands of years of gardening experience on my thread??) should be posted, *by the person who wants to argue, proclaim, or propound*, *on the Soil Forum*.

Thank you very much.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil Forum Thread

Gardenweb has been helpful for me regarding composting paper. I have a friend who lives near downtown Chicago, has a small yard and garden, and is asking my advice about composting. I am sure he has a paper shredder. I have enough 'natural' materials to compost (I have 5 acres plus I scavenge) that I don't put paper in except incidentally. But for city folks who have very limited grass, weeds, and leaves, etc., it makes a nice carbon source to balance their fruit and vegie scraps. Plus the recycling program in Chicago is very suspect, so it is a rational thing to do with paper there.

Actually the most interesting thing I have learned from gardenweb that you can compost is cotton clothing! Would never have thought of it, but early on I read a long thread (is that a pun?) about composting clothing.

To fit in more with the actual thread we are supposed to be discussing, I have taken other people's bagged leaves almost every year for the past 15 years. It is so convenient. :-) I don't rake most of mine, just let them be. I avoid other people's grass clippings, though, I try to be organic and there is some lawn herbicide that doesn't break down while composting. I don't put my free wood chips in my compost pile, but it does go on the bottom of my lasagna beds. I admit that when I see people are buying compost I often think they are foolish. :-) If you are creative there is always something you could get free to make compost.

Marcia

Becareful when using printed paper as mulch. Many of the garden sites I visited seem to think that all ink used today is made from soy. This is a gross misconception. Soy inks are no safer than conventional oxidizing sheetfed inks. The only difference in the two is the type of vegetable oils used as pigment vehicles. The driers (cobalt and manganese) and the colored pigments are the same. These are the hazardous materials in the ink formula that could leach out of the soil into the ground water. Newsprint printed with black ink is okay to use. Unless you know that a piece was printed using 100% non toxic inks ( which is rare) do not use color ink printed paper as mulch

Here's what I discovered today:

superiorinkco registered on March 21, 2007
& has posted 3 times,
all on Frugal Gardening,
all bringing up old threads,
all trashing the use of colored inks,
all at least somewhat technical in wording.

gardenweb's Soil Compost & Mulch Forum is the best place I know of for technical discussions of chemical components, & even over there, people have differing viewpoints.

Here is a link that might be useful: superiorinkco's posts

i'm with you, sylvia. composting makes super soil and happier plants. in my old age, i've gotten kinda mellow, and now plan my compost piles over my planned planting beds. after maybe a year or so, i move the compost pile and plant the new planting bed. the ground under a compost pile is pretty much a clean slate, and some of the softest, loveliest dirt on the planet. and not hard work either, really.

Whether via bins, lasagna style, or mulching or whatever...it all works if you make it work. Over the years I've 'migrated' between methods and still use what the situation dictates (like mulching when my bins are full and working). For me anyway its all about being outside playing in the dirt between these *** cold MN winters.
If you're not having fun, don't do it.
Will

I watch every garden show on HGTV so I forgot the name...
but this week a lady named Trudy makes trudy trenches.
She digs trenches any old place hidden in the garden.
She buries old mail, and things listed above.
Once she even composed an entire split rail fence!

I am doing it starting this year because we have more leaves than we can handle.

The problem is I have no good location for the spot?

It's an old, old practice to bury a pile of rottable waste and plant squash on top of it. Lots of other vegetables like rich soil too, so, instead of a trench you could bury your leaves and stuff wherever there happend to be a few empty spots in your vegetable patch.

Kristin

Wow!!
This thread is fabulous!

Another tip--if you have too much "green" material (or what Kristin calls "rottable waste"), you can just bury it in a bed and plant tomato seedlings on top of it. They love anything high-nitrogen and I haven't burned them yet!

Of course, I don't really worry too much about "green"/"brown" ratios--the compost always comes out fine. (Actually, I'm probably low on green right now because it planted it all under my tomato seedlings last month!)
My "greens" are usually kitchen scraps, and my "browns" are usually paper products--home office paper, newsprint, cardboard, and paper towels (as long as they haven't been used to clean up meat or milk spills!) Don't forget the paper towel and toilet tissue rolls--they go in also.

Vicky's blog!

My neighbor who works for a beer company just gave me a case of out-of-date beer for the compost pile!

so don't discard stale beer, old wine, flat sodas, moldy fruits/vegetables/juices...feed 'em to your soil!

I have only been gadening for about 2 years. When we bought our house the property was completely over grown. I thought all I had was a small gravel driveway and a dirt parking spot at the back door the rest was bushes, and trees, completely coverd by the evil vine... some have told me it was japanese wisteria (extremely invasive), oriental bittersweet (extremely invasive), or a host of other extremely invasive vine type plants with runners just under the soil. so hence the new name I have given it, Evil Vine. back to the subject. upon a visit to town hall and several discussions with nieghbors I found that I actually have quite a large yard and began clearing it out.
my driveway actually extended up to the back, covered under the evil vine, A shed unknown to me at purchase covered back in the evil vine and stuff. well low and behold I had mountains of material to compost as much of the soil around the house was compacted junk that wouldnt support the lowliest of weeds. I started just hackin and slashing and leaving it in place. ( the mulch method ) after time I have an almost perfect back yard for the children to play. more than several vegetable and flower gardens, all with soils made from composting and or mulching, I still use both methods with propotionately equal results they both serve thier purposes, and both add goodies to the dirt. Both of my compost piles, one way out back I just toss the stuff on and eventually it breaks down into the good stuff which I just dig up when needed, ans well as the labor intensive pile, which gets smaller and smaller, the only difference is that the labor intensive pile gives me soil faster, the other one ( the easy on ) gives me mountains of soil, it just takes longer.
My point being as long as you are "recycling" your compostable waste it will make your pretty things grow better even if you are starting off with a seemingly ungrowable plot of dirt like substance.
OH and as for the Evil Vine the only way to kill it off for sure and destroy the seed, spore, or however it spreads is to cut it into nice managable pieces and burn it in my fire pit to roast marshmellows and hot dogs over with the kids, and the ashes also composted/mulched.

Happy Composting/Mulching whatever you call it enjoy it!

I've been doing "blender compost", which works very nicely. (I have a VitaMixer, which is powerful enough to blenderize almost anything, even bones, but a good regular blender will work for most things - get an extra blender jar freecycled or at a garage sale and use it only for compost.) I collect egg shells, banana peels, bread crusts, and so forth. If I go out to eat and don't finish it all, I get a doggie bag for the scraps even if they're inedible (I've gotten some very odd looks for bundling up a container of shrimp shells and taking them home).

Every other day or so, I blenderize what I have with some water, pouring batches into a (recycled) 5-gal plastic bucket, then take it out and pour it into the pile of leaves or shredded paper that is the top layer of the compost heap, tossing lightly like putting dressing on salad. Then add a bit more leaves to keep critters from getting in. The next batch, a few days later, will soak that layer, and so on. Dispersing the green kitchen waste over the leaves speeds breakdown, I've found.

Before planting, you can whizz up whatever scraps you have and pour it into a trench or the planting holes. You can also pull aside the mulch under a bush or tree, pour the blenderized compost on the soil, and put the mulch back. You will have very happy plants.