Grass clipping are my most important waste material. I use them heavily on the most difficult to weed vegetable crops like carrots, onions, and the broccoli family. Then of course it just decomposes over the summer.
One of my neighbors is planning on bringing in a truck of manure next year as that is what they used on her old farm and she knows it works. I kind of wanted to say, "hey, I live next 600 acres of BLM land that has cattle on it all the time. I will jump the fence and bring you a couple of bags of manure for free".I was watching a travel show that emphasizes restaurants and cooking with local ingredients. The host visited an organic farm. I don't believe that they said how large it was but there was was an aerial view and it looked to me that it was about 5 acres.
The farmer said that they brought in between $50,000 and $70,000 worth of compost each year to fertilize the soil
Home Gardening. It would likely take some additional soil amendments in the first year or so. How many square feet of garden could one person keep fertile simply with his or her kitchen scraps?
I imagine that this two person household consumes more fruit and vegetables than the average American couple. I don't collect lawn clippings for the compost but some tree leaves and ornamentals from the yard are composted. I applied my compost to the front lawn once, about 20 years ago and thought "what am I doing? This stuff is much too valuable to use on grass!" Ornamental beds receive conventional fertilizer.
Because of the climate, gardening here is fairly short-term/limited production meaning that not a lot of nutrients are pulled out of the soil through each year. Frozen in place ...
My 3, 5-gallon buckets of kitchen scraps are also frozen in place. Soon, there will be 4 buckets! It's unfortunate in that way that my "stealth compost pits" aren't larger but I've also used the three garden beds, an 18' by 20' garden, for both compost placement and kitchen scraps. My approach is to try to limit that to every two years but I actually do a little better because there is "excess" compost. Imagine me making that claim! How is there excess compost ever? Well, darned if I'm putting it on the lawn grass and I sure ain't gonna haul it out to the distant garden more than a dozen miles away. It's for the fertility of those 360 square feet.
Two people and 360 square feet ???? Subtract the frost-killed flowers and tree leaves - what is that? Easily 1 person's kitchen scraps/100 square feet?
Steve
If you are going to run a for profit farm you have to invest. I do not know the answer to how much makes what with compost for your personal garden. If you have room to collect leaves they break down into very rich soil. I have landscapers deliver their leaves and then use them as mulch on my flower beds, and leave them to compost for my vegetable garden. Farmers are always looking for place to dump their manure, but you need the room to do this. A giant pile shrinks down to a nice little hill of compost.
She already ran a farm. This is her retirement garden. So far, it is not that big, so a couple of bags would do it.
That would be difficult for me to know, Ducks'. The "finished" compost in 2022 is from 2021. Additionally, I have been limited by what space the stealth compost provides and had space in the backyard garden to bury kitchen trimmings.
I also discovered some mildew on some of my snap peas. Time for everything to come up. Maybe I will plant kale here next year as it’s in shade part of the day during the spring/fall.
