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| Hey guys,
I live in northern California, valley part and I'm looking for a sustainable compost solution. I currently have a compost bin which I use solely to put kitchen scraps while mixing garden trimming etc. I see so much material being put on the curve every week that it makes me think that there MUST be a way of building a good quality, affordable if not free, compost from garden trimmings. Now I'm wondering if instead of having a compost bin, a focused station, if I could create some sort of composting mulch that I could spread as mulch and that would be composting itself providing nutrients. Basically mimicking nature. My question is what would the right type of mix for this sort of composting mulch be (specially thinking about what can be found locally) ? What I know I can find are
Anybody have a suggestion on where to begin?? Thanks,
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Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Tue, Aug 14, 12 at 10:24
| Lots of gardeners do just that, and it's not that critical to make a certain mix for it. You can pull weeds and lay them between the rows as mulch, for example. A high concentration of greens will not be too much of a problem as long as it's not too thick. 3" of fresh grass clippings is OK for example, but a foot deep might heat up and produce too much ammonia and damage your plants. Be careful with the manure - if it's pre-composted, it's OK, but no fresh manure as mulch. OTOH, mulch that is on the brown side will just decompose more slowly. Your list sounds like a good mix. I would say you can use whatever you have, observe and adjust. |
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| Many of us have been doing that very thing for years, adding various kinds of vegetative waste, organic matter, to our soil as both compost and mulch. As the Soil Food Web in your soil works on that they incorporate it into your soil and help feed the plants growing there and as they digest that vegetative waste it "disappears" except for the undigestable material. As long as sustainable materials are used, not non renewable resources such as peat moss, doing that is sustainable, but there is no way that organic matter can be added to soil and not get digested unless you kill the Soil Food Web. |
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- Posted by tishtoshnm 6/NM (My Page) on Thu, Aug 16, 12 at 14:02
| I do not think a good mix is essential, as stated above. The only caveats would be checking for signs of disease, if a clipping looks it is diseased, throw it in the trash and if you pick something up from the curb, consider pesticide use (i.e. from grass clippings). Otherwise, have fun. To me one of the biggest benefits of using yard waste for mulch is that you are only moving it once. Clip it and put it where it is needed versus the compost pile where you clip it, maybe turn it a couple of times and then later move it. You can also bury the kitchen scraps in different places around the yard too. |
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| Just a note on horse manure--rarely is it available as JUST manure. Most often it is mixed in with bedding. Straw, wood shavings, wood pellets, peat moss, shredded paper, rice hulls--the list is endless and it can be according to geography as to what's available and used. Wood products are very popular. Personally, I use wood pellets because the combination of the pellets, manure, and urine is a pretty perfect mix for composting without the addition of anything else. I'll spread this as mulch on my gardens, usually before the composting is completely finished--but certainly well "aged." I know people who throw manure straight from the horse on their gardens with no burning issues, so that's not something I worry much about. If your goal is simply a sustainable supply of compost for mulch, just go get the horse manure w/the bedding, finish the composting and you're done. If your goal is to find an environmentally responsible way to compost existing material that may be different. (It may depend on how you use the word "sustainable." :-) ) |
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- Posted by Coconut_Head 5b (My Page) on Mon, Aug 20, 12 at 14:07
| The only real problem I can see is inviting critters into your beds with raw kitchen scraps. Even though you would have mixed them into the curbside stuff, hopefully chopped or shredded up, you might still get some interested parties into your beds, and if they notice the fresh stuff on the vines while they are browsing the "compost mulch" they may prefer the fresh stuff. CH |
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| Manure should be composted before being used in the garden. Mulch and compost are different materials - that's why each has its own name. I would use materials that best suit mulching for mulch, and compost the rest. Pine needles can be used as a mulch - manure or kitchen scraps, not so much. Regarding mimicking nature - nature works slowly, and doesn't collect pickup truck-fulls of manure. Gardening is an artificial process - man messing with nature to suit his needs. If you 'compost' on the surface of your garden, you won't have compost where you need it most - around heavy-feeding plants like tomatoes, or in containers. For general soil improvement, I'd look at green manure crops in the fall, and save the compost for where you really need it. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Mon, Aug 20, 12 at 15:07
| "nature works slowly, and doesn't collect pickup truck-fulls of manure." Agreed...although I couldn't help thinking that a brontosaurus might have been able to fill a pickup truck with one shot... :-D |
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| Nature also doesn't put horses in stalls for 12 hours a day where their manure is then concentrated in one place. ;-) I don't buy my compost and instead remove it from the aforementioned stalls. Being free and in unlimited/continuous supply there is no need for me to "save it for where I really need it." It working great as mulch! This is a much better system of getting rid of stall waste than having it hauled to a landfill, no? The NOP guidelines for raw manure in gardens IR is 30 days for edible crops that don't touch the ground/manure. My perennials don't care. |
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| subk3 I agree. I have a 4 season garden & the few times that I have tilled Raw manure into a bed, I skip a season of vegetables & use a cover crop as green manure. The 90 day rule is met & 120 rule will be met by the time seedling/transplant are blooming, so all is good. Nature dose not till in a truck load of raw manure or compost a truck load of manure or post on a web site or live in man made houses.Nature dose not bathe or comb her hair. Where are we going to draw the line? :-) |
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| "The NOP guidelines for raw manure in gardens IR is 30 days for edible crops that don't touch the ground/manure." I'm pretty sure the 30 days is incorrect. Lloyd |
Here is a link that might be useful: Previous thread with NOP guidelines
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| The National Organic Program (NOP), the Organic Trade Association (OTA), National Institute for Health, Center for disease Control, Food and Drug Administration all tell us that animal manures should be used with care. If animal manures are not composted before being spread where edible crops are to be grown then they should be incorporated into the soil, tilled in, at a minimum of 90 days before harvesting crops that do not touch the soil (above ground), or 120 days for crops grown in the soil (root crops). |
Here is a link that might be useful: OTA's statement on manures
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