Compost for Garden

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#11  
Red Clay is what I need about 3 truckloads full. It is useless for raising anything, but it is great for lining tanks so they hold water. If he is trying to raise a garden, it takes a LOT of compost materials to make a difference. I dumped the equivalent of 4 truck loaads on 1/4 acre garden.
 
   / Compost for Garden #12  
Sure wish you lived closer - we could work trade.

Does anyone know of the relative advantages or disadvantages of dumping large quantities of hardwood leaves on clay soil?

Mark
 
   / Compost for Garden #13  
The old, slow rabbits aren't too bad, but the fast ones . . ../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif OK, you got me; always did need a good proof reader, especially if I'm in a hurry.

And yes, it's been very successful. When I first bought this place five years ago, I asked the neighbors a lot of questions about gardens (and one in particular gave me a lot of good advice and gave us a lot of produce from his garden). Now they ask me, and I give them a lot of produce (That one has big tractors, but just a little walk behind tiller, so I till his garden with my tractor and tiller before he plants).

And I guess you could say it's a completed job, or as completed as a garden ever gets. We'll still run the leaves from the yard through the chipper/shredder and put them in the garden in the Fall, and I'll occasionally run a few limbs from pruning through it, and if I see the crew clearing power lines, I'll tell them where they can dump the wood chips (I let them store their trucks and equipment here at night while they were working in the area).

And instead of a compost pile, I just scatter everything in the garden and till it several times during the Fall and Winter (every time it rains and then dries), so it does it's composting where it's going to be used, and weeds and grass can't get a start.

Bird
 
   / Compost for Garden #14  
Leaves? I don't know the chemical advantages or disadvantages, but I'll put all I can get into my garden. If I'm in a hurry, I just dump'em out there and till them in. Other times, I pour them through the chipper/shredder first.

Bird
 
   / Compost for Garden #15  
You must be fast - I thought you at least killed them first. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Thanks for the info. I always like hearing a good success story. Changing your soil from a poor one to a good one isn't easy and, at the very least, takes a lot of work and time.

As for the leaves, I'm going to try them. They're one of the few things I can get lots of readily. The reason I asked is that somebody once told me that you could introduce a fungus into the garden from the leaves that would get on your produce. Sounds a little fishy to me, but I don't know...

Mark
 
   / Compost for Garden #16  
Mark, a fungus from leaves (or other sources) wouldn't really surprise me, but I've not had that problem, and every Fall I have pecan, oak, plum, fruitless mulberry, and sycamore leaves (in addition to several I've never identified) that I put in the garden.

Bird
 
   / Compost for Garden #17  
I prefer "in the field" results myself, so I'll take your experience over others' theory. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Thanks, Bird!

Mark
 
   / Compost for Garden #18  
You're welcome, Mark. Of course, I don't know whether the results of field tests in Texas apply in Virgina or not./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Bird
 
   / Compost for Garden #19  
Oh, sure they do - dirt is still dirt and beans are still beans. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Mark
 
   / Compost for Garden #20  
Yeah, but do we have the same fungi?/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif And speaking of beans, I like all kinds of green beans, but these Blue Lake beans that I grow are the Amsoil of the bean world. They're just getting started, so yesterday I only got 2 gallons off one of two rows I planted this year; got to pick the ones on the other row tomorrow.

Bird
 
 
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