Return to the Soil Forum
| Post a Follow-Up
Surplus of seaweed
| | |
Posted by
josko Cape Cod (
My Page) on
Tue, Oct 30, 12 at 8:51
Sandy's dumped an amazing quantity of seaweed, mostly eelgrass, on our beach. I have to either use it, pay someone to haul it away, or hope another storm takes it off the beach somehow; my question is how much can I use on my garden without adverse effects? I've already got ~5 lbs per square foot on the veggie garden, sort of as a winter cover or mulch. I've got flowerbeds, rosebushes and berry patch thickly mulched with it, too.
I think I'm kind of maxed out in terms of what I can put on the garden (and have it mostly decompose by spring) and am not sure what to do with the rest of the stuff. I could just mound it up in a corner of the property, like a huge leafmold pile, and let it decompose at its own pace. Does it make sense to layer it with leaves? I know eelgrass decomposes very slowly when left alone in a pile - does anybody have insight how to speed up desomposition?
I'm talking about tens of cubic yards of volume. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
| How many tens of cubic yards are there? I had 60 cu.yds. of mulch delivered this year and it's really not a huge amount. If you have enough land to pile it up and ignore it until it decomposes that would be the best solution IMO. The goal would be to get it to decomp as quickly as possible with the least amount of work. Perhaps adding nitrogen as well as the leaves would help as you'd need as hot a pile as possible to get it to break down. Anyone doing bulk composting in the area who will be interested in it? If so and you deliver it you might get some free finished compost in return. |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
- Posted by claire z6b Coastal MA (My Page) on
Tue, Oct 30, 12 at 18:12
| Can you just leave it there as a beach stabilizer? Here the seaweed collects sand and nourishes beach grass, which helps with beach erosion. I don't know where on the Cape you are, but some areas are constantly fighting erosion. Claire |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
- Posted by josko Cape Cod (My Page) on
Thu, Nov 15, 12 at 8:51
We ended up renting a small backhoe and stacking about 15-20 yds of eelgrass, layered with whatever leaves we had, (couple cubic yards when compressed) and about 200 lbs of fish scrap 'strategically' distributed around the middle of the pile to provide some nitrogen. The pile is about 3x3x2(tall) yards and has been running about 100 deg, measured with a 20" thermometer. Animals don't seem to be disturbing it to get at the fish scrap, and there's no appreciable odor.
It'll be interesting to see if much decomposition takes place; if not, I have a source of summer mulch for quite a while. |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
| I'd be interested as well in how fast eel-grass can break down in a pile like that. |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
| If it's heating up, something is definitely happening. The big question will be how long it takes to become compost. Luckily it's fall so it will have all winter to slowly break down. |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
| eel-grass, as we call it in the cape cod area, is wicked tough stuff. I have never had it in a such a large pile, but IME it takes a very long time to fully break down. So as I say, this will be an interesting experiment. |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
- Posted by josko Cape Cod (My Page) on
Mon, Dec 31, 12 at 11:07
| FWIW, I noticed our recent snowfall melted off the eelgrass pile; indeed, a temp check showed ~120F in several locations 20" inside. Other than the lack of snow cover, the pile looks pretty much as it did when we made it. |
RE: Surplus of seaweed
| | |
| Ok, that's pretty interesting. it's cooking away. Don't forget to give a report at plating time as to the condition of the pile. Thanks... |
Post a Follow-Up
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in.
If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Soil Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
