Sheet Composting in the Potato Patch

[digitS']

I had a garden in Dad's backyard from '95 to '09. He had some old concrete blocks, enuf to build a good sized compost bin. It also started about 8" into the ground. The bin was in 2 parts.

I would pile material in one-half and around the 1st of July, cover it with either manure or fertilizer and soil. I liked to use chicken manure with soil on top. Everything thru the year was piled on that side and at the end of the year, it was about 6' by 8' and taller than me! I'd cover it all with soil.

The next year I would use none of that. I would begin building a 2nd pile in the other half the bin using the same schedule of covering it good in July and then piling it high at the end of the year and covering again. The "old" pile would have to be weeded thru its 2nd year. I liked to grow basil on it . Squash would have worked fine but the basil was a little more controllable and easier to weed in.

The next year I would use what was first piled, now at least, 18 months old. It was a long while to wait but I was there "a long while." It wasn't going anywhere . . .

This "pit" I have in the little veggie garden "disappears" the compost! It depends on the time of year but I think I'd have to "rescue" the compost about every 2 weeks during the heat of summer. I don't notice it getting hot - it is nearly all below grade within a day or 2 of me piling stuff in there . . . the key is covering it well with the soil and the "remnants" of the compost that is still there. I haven't quite got the scheduling down pat on the pit! If it keeps eating my compost, I'm gonna go out there and beat the tar outta it with a shovel at some point in time!!!

I should say that the pits under my greenhouse and chicken coop steps do the same thing! The 3 of them are in it together to rob me of compost . . . after all my hard work.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I had a garden in Dad's backyard from '95 to '09. He had some old concrete blocks, enuf to build a good sized compost bin. It also started about 8" into the ground. The bin was in 2 parts.

I would pile material in one-half and around the 1st of July, cover it with either manure or fertilizer and soil. I liked to use chicken manure with soil on top. Everything thru the year was piled on that side and at the end of the year, it was about 6' by 8' and taller than me! I'd cover it all with soil.

The next year I would use none of that. I would begin building a 2nd pile in the other half the bin using the same schedule of covering it good in July and then piling it high at the end of the year and covering again. The "old" pile would have to be weeded thru its 2nd year. I liked to grow basil on it . Squash would have worked fine but the basil was a little more controllable and easier to weed in.

The next year I would use what was first piled, now at least, 18 months old. It was a long while to wait but I was there "a long while." It wasn't going anywhere . . .

This "pit" I have in the little veggie garden "disappears" the compost! It depends on the time of year but I think I'd have to "rescue" the compost about every 2 weeks during the heat of summer. I don't notice it getting hot - it is nearly all below grade within a day or 2 of me piling stuff in there . . . the key is covering it well with the soil and the "remnants" of the compost that is still there. I haven't quite got the scheduling down pat on the pit! If it keeps eating my compost, I'm gonna go out there and beat the tar outta it with a shovel at some point in time!!!

I should say that the pits under my greenhouse and chicken coop steps do the same thing! The 3 of them are in it together to rob me of compost . . . after all my hard work.

Steve

We did do something like what you said with your compost and 18 months, but before the rabbits came. We did not have that much to compost, so it was no problem to wait, but we did not have any underground. What do you do with your chicken bedding? Basil on the compost pile sounds neat. I threw a bunch of little bitty potato sets in the compost bin and covered them up once. I ran out of room in the garden and they were really small, so I thought it was worth a chance in the bin. I got these huge plants, some pointing up, some north, east, south west. There were not very many potatoes, but it was fun to look at. They were bigger than the plants in the garden that I had planted earlier.

 

[digitS']

Chicken bedding has usually gone into one of the few beds here at home. Not much fun transporting a tarp covered with such, out of the driveway and down the road in the back of the pickup - transport to and from by wheelbarrow.

I have also put a little of it with a lot of green compostables in the pit under the 4' by 4' board deck outside the coop. If you are having problems with the shavings decomposing, what would you think about adding a high nitrogen fertilizer? That stuff from the commercial chicken outfits is 100% poop & feathers. It may seem a little strange buying chicken poop to mix with what is coming out of your own coop. Still, I like the bagged, composted stuff .

The basil had a little more trouble from the earwigs & slugs on the compost but pretty much, outgrew them!

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

Right now, my "compost pit" is the one fallow 5X10 raised bed. This method had worked so well last year that I just had to try it again. This spring I dug all the finished compost out and spread it among the other 12 beds, then planted my pumpkin and squash in that bed. The vining veggies ran rampant and did very well. The most compost I've ever added at one time and perhaps the best overall garden I've had.

This year I started a new raised bed with the winter's chicken litter. Then I added all the weeds I pulled, veggie waste, and grass I collected through the summer. Haven't turned it quite as often as I did last year, but once I get the last of the chicken litter for this fall, I'll turn it again, toss a bit of dirt on top, and wait for spring.

*Hummm, I totally forgot, the chicken litter from my first year with chickens is still in the two black compost bins out back. I'll have to remember to empty them into the garden next spring. I haven't been impressed with the City-Sponsored compost bins I purchased. I much prefer the results of using an empty bed.

 

[digitS']

Observation by Linn Bee

which reinforces through high probability and nearly confirms the hypothesis!

Might also be called a bed check!

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

For some reason my mind just goes blank with all this. Did you mean put chicken fertilizer on top of the shavings? I got that book from the library today. Better Vegetable Gardens the Chinese Way. I will read it tonight and see if I can get some ideas.

 

[Smart Red]

I know what the Chinese use for fertilizer.

The wood chips - shaved curls of wood - go on the chicken coop floor to make it absorbent. The chickens take care of adding the fertilizer and scratching through the shavings to break it down. I take the nearly powdered remains out of the coop and put it on the compost pile with clippings and veggie matter.

 

[digitS']

. . . chicken fertilizer on top of the shavings? I got that book from the library today. . .

Hey! I bought that old book sometime ago. It was fun going back thru it. Peter Chan is a plant pathologist at Portland State University.

Yes, I have bought bagged, composted chicken manure and added directly to compost when there has been too much "C," "browns" in the mix of greens & browns. I used to use ammonium sulfate and have added it to stable bedding. Some folks just keep too clean of a horse stable & chicken coop !

Steve
edited: Sorry, I had to go back and figure out that there are 2 Peter Chans who have written gardening books! One was a bonsai specialist. The other a professor at an American university. (Amazon is a misleading source for information at times!)

 

[bobm]

In Cal., I used to spread horse manure + urine soaked wood shavings 6" thick on top in my gardens, and around tree drip lines spring and fall every year. All excess manure I spread out on pastures. Produced great soil tilth as well as abundant crops. Now, here in Washington, I get all the lawn clippings from 4 neighbors and spread them out about 4" thick all over our lot ( 2-3 x during the year). Then the soil bacteria and numerous worms break the grass clippings down to nearly a trace each time within 2 months and the last fall clipping ones by spring. All of our new plants have literally exploded in new growth.

 

[digitS']

This year, I should have plenty of compost for mulching the spuds!

I took nothing, nada, zilch, zero - outta that compost pit in 2013. Built it up in the fall of 2012 and just continued to put bucket after bucket of compostables in there in 2013!

I wonder what the property owner thinks when he goes out there and finds a 4' by 10' pit, 8" deep and empty . . ? It will be better than the "tiger trap" I had there by spring of 2013. The ground looked level but step on it and drop 6"! Even after bucketful after bucketful was buried into it in the spring, it was still that way when I needed mulch for the potatoes! Fluff.

What I had to use - well, what was available close-by, was terrible stuff. The neighbor pretends that it is compost but it's really just leaf mold and so full of weed seed that it is just terrible. Nothing like having to weed the mulch!

The beds in the veggie garden were not all dug out and filled with compostables last fall. There are, at least, 2 that can be used for spuds. The ground is plenty fertile and mulching with that nice compost will just add to that. Those beds will be prime for sowing to fall greens after the early potatoes are harvested.

Steve