Finding Ammendments...Close to Home!

[jack]

Gidday

Well you sure are on lucky old bear Eh!

[Pharmer Phil]

Excellent !
and WELCOME, sorry, I been rather busy fixin, breeakin' things!
Glad to have you on-board, and so glad you are a advocate of organics!
That, what we call Zoo Doo, will be great for your soil, get it on there and let it go to work, come spring, you'll have Garden Gold!

[Deleted]

It don't come from no zoo
But then, it is still poo
Pig, sheep, chicken, rabbit, horse or cow
I just know it all works, and how!!!!!

[jack]

Gidday

A bloody poet as well.

Good onya mate.

[oh2fly]

I have both compost piles and a tumbler. I spin the tumbler twice a day 5 spins. It takes 2 weeks for a batch to be ready. The last 2 batches I used leaves that I bagged last fall. I mowed my lawn for the first time this year and bagged it. MIXED THE GRASS, LEAVES, A BUCKET OF KITCHEN SCRaps, 2 shovels full of coffee, some dirt from the compost and I always leave 10% roughly of the last batch in the tumbler as a starter. If I remember I add molasses to a little seaweed liquid and pour some over the batch when the tumbler is full. It got hot in 1 day and was done in 8 days. New record for me. My piles don't get hot, but do they ever fill with worms. I layer the piles with leaves, gaRDEN CLIPPINGS, COFFEE, SOIL AND REPEAT. i AM LAZY ABOUT TURNINg THEM, BUT THEY STILL MAKE GOOD STUFF. I hate the caps button

[Pharmer Phil]

I get hung up wit dos darn CAp LOCKS TOO

I am trying, and likin more each day a way to turn a pile. I have a sheet of poly plastic that is about 8' x 16' long, I piled leaves, sheep manure, straw/chicken poo, coffee grounds and kitchen scraps in, and I pile it on one end, the pile is really about 12 cu. ft. I grab the end and pull it backwards, and roll the pile over, then next time back....No shovel er pitch fork required...The proof will be in da Puddin, er, in this case compost!

[oh2fly]

Phat phingers, what can I say? >:(I just started using molasses in my garden and have already seen happier plants, especially my strawberries. My newly planted lettuce all of a sudden has yellow outer leaves and darker green new leaves. I may have gotten carried away with the molasses showers. I put a couple tablespoons of molasses in my watering can and doused the plants and soil with it. Probably a gallon per 16 sq. feet. Sound like it Phil?

[oh2fly]

I left out an important detail. These weren't baby seedlings. They were 4" tall transplants.

[mickee311]

I have a question about those tumblers. What if you can't find that much material to fill it? I mean, take me, for example. We don't have a bagger on our mower for clippings (And I sure ain't raking it up), leaves are plentiful in the back woods, but I'm not sure of the amount now that it's spring, we don't drink coffee and we rarely have kitchen scraps like leftover veggies and stuff (we don't usually have leftovers), all of our scraps would be meat based and dairy based.....What would I put in one, and what if you just can't even come close to filling one up? Does that mean it's not even worth it for our family to have a tumbler? Or even make the attempt at a compost heap? Since we never have the necessary ingredients for good compost, I'm wondering if it's a lost cause as far as compost making goes...

[trudy]

Mickee I've gotten leaves, grass clippings from curbs b4 for my bins. The neighborhoods I go in I feel pretty confident they don't use chemicals. An if they did, I feel they would be leeched out by the time the compost is ready. Lots of pholks bag this stuff for it to be picked up by the cities so its easy to just throw it on the truck. Also you could check with the local town pickup crews, if its got that service they have it do something with it. May be a place they have to unload it an they may let you have some. A nearby town here they just dumps out the bags on their yard back lot anyway. Which decomposes over time. If I need some I get with the manager and they will save me some bags. Just a thought. I didn't start out with any kitchen scraps, but as I got more into it I found I had more that I thought I would. Vegetable peelings, garden debris when I'd pull out the seasonal veggies to replant, also if you have a produce stand or a produce dept in your town they may save u some of their scraps or "throw" away type "greens" (produce). May be worthy of a few phone calls. Trudy

[oh2fly]

Compost tumblers aren't for everybody. We are lucky because we are on a 5 acre farm with just the right amount and variety of ingredients. If you are serious about making compost, try a pile first and do some homework to gather leaves, coffee grinds from a coffee shop, greens from a grocer, leaves and clippings from neighbors. When the leaves are falling, I get as many bags of them as I can and save them until I need a bag. Once you see the benefits of good compost, you will be motivated to make more, more, more of the black gold.

[crazy1]

Great posting oh2fly. But remember one thing, if they use chemicals on their lawns, there is a chance you'll be doing your pile an injustice.
The chemicals can definetly harm the microbs that are doing the work.
Just a thought.

[abirdseyeview]

WOW! This is my first time really taking the time to read through some of the stuff here. Great stuff.
Crazy1 on May 29, 2006, 6:43am said:

Straw...Then in the fall I till it all in. It has done a great job loosening up the hard ground and helps to hold moisture in the ground the next year.

I have found this to make a considerable difference through the years, along with the addition of compost and the autumn leaves toward conditioning our soil. We live in an area with hard clay and lots of sandstone rock. It truly has made a difference. Over the twenty years + we've been there I can visibly see the difference in the soil and how it heaves differently in the winter and how the water no longer puddles, etc. And too, the use of straw, which we use around our maters and all of our vine crops makes for less weeding.

We've gotten away from chemicals and tend to have little problem with pests, with one exception; I've yet to figure a way to deal with those tiny little hard shelled black bugs that seem to single out egg plant. Any suggestions?

[Pharmer Phil]

Flea beetles, yer lucky if only your eggplant get attacked. they also attack:
cole crops
tomatoes(seedlings)
potatoes
peppers
turnips
radishes
corn.
they are hard to control, so you can take your pick or combine, if you want to stay organic.
trap crop
botanical
barrier

Barriers of reemay (agricultural fleece..work well IF, you don't have them in the soil, if you do, then your going to remove your reemay to find some pitiful looking plants.

botanicals insecticides:
neem, rotenone, pyrethrin, sabadilla

Pyola, sold by "gardens alive"..just a note though on this, the price at GA, is extreme, Pyola is...

Canola oil and pyrethrin mixed, so buy yerself a bottle of cooking oil and mix a tablespoon of oil with a pyrethrin insecticide mixed to label reccomendations for one gallon

The kaolin based SURROUND...this pholks will reduce your yields considerably..I reccomend staying away from this product after blossom set of any crop

Trap crops= Giant Mustard...you may have to replant once they completely destroy the first planting....
and they will still attack your crops similiar to mustard.

I always used straw, but I always got lotsa oats...
Our neighbor, set me onto grass hay, we used some this season, and had NO weed seed germinate, so we used it to layer on a 4 inch winter cover....
This neighbor, could very well be reading this, as she has the Phorum in her Favorites, so:
THANK YOU RUTH, for your sage advice

We should all use Ruth as inspiration, she is 89 and still gardens every year, and no little garden either!
now, you can come whoop me wit a stick Ruth

[abirdseyeview]

Phil,
I use cheese cloth to protect the cole crops from the moths, can i do the same with the eggplant? I'm thinink though that those little varmints

"Flea beetles"

won't be deterrred by that. Are they at all moved by pepper? I know I can't likely use nicotine as its a relative of the tomato. HELP! I love eggplant.

[Pharmer Phil]

I don't know if cheese cloth will be fine enough Abev, infact; the reemay would probably need to be the grade that allows only 70% of the light in.
we get ours from Pinetree gardens
there you buy it off the roll, and it's much cheaper.
We use 1/2" pvc cut into pieces as hoops, and cover the edges with soil...
But, again, that don't keep them from coming up through the soil.
thing bout them flea beetles, you can't wait long or your eggplants leaves will "be" cheesecloth
the truth is, there's a bunch of natural sprays, and chemical sprays that will kill and deter them....
but there is a whole bunch of them......
the ones that kill, will take care of the ones you get a shot at, but not their reinforcements
and the detered FB's...they'll be back after a couple days or a good rain.
check the Homemade concoctions thread bro.

[abirdseyeview]

O'tay, thanks.

[Tonnymonk]

Most of ya know I have a pig and would like to use the poo for the garden, but have a couple questions.....

We had to dig a trench out to allow water to drain and there is mud/muck coming out- can I use that un-aged/uncomposted in the garden(just till it in when I make the beds)? Or does it need to be composted?

Also- How long does pig poo need to be composted before it is "safe" in the garden??

[Compost Pharmer]

I would suggest composting it over the summer and then till it in, in the fall. That way it can finish decaying over the winter. In your compost mix 'greens' with 'browns'. For greens I use grass clippings and browns I use dried up weeds from the garden. You mix the pig 'poo' in with it and you will have some mighty fine compost come this fall. Plus it will speed up the decomposition process.

[notherdigger]

Abirdseyeview, I am the same as you. I haven't read near everything on this phorum yet. And this thread I have read some of but not all till now but I have learned so much, even from parts of this thread that I already read. And there is a wealth of info to yet be gleaned from what's already here. The things that surprise me the most are the braindead simple things that phil says that I never thought of.(not calling you braindead phil) just saying the ideas, many of them, are so simple I don't know why it never occured to me before. But they just make sense. The molasses is one thing I tryed that really does work. And I like the idea bout the plastic to turn compost. Gonna have to try that too. Well I hope everyone has a great garden this year, especially you botesbabe.

[Pharmer Phil]

pig manure is really dense, and will break down slowly, add some straw to it to loosen it up, the liquid coming out is leachate, a good sign it's breaking down, yet is a bit smelly, you add some perforated pipes to the bottom of that pile, to let in more air, the pile will work up quicker and the smell will drop to sniffable

[Tonnymonk]

Thanks Northerndigger! I agree that sometimes it is the simplest things that get overlooked. Looks like I need to get some plastic or get Doug to throw some pallets together to make a compost bin(mostly to keep the chickens out of it).....Gotta love "free" fertilizer!!

[Pharmer Phil]

botesbabe said:

Thanks Northerndigger! I agree that sometimes it is the simplest things that get overlooked. Looks like I need to get some plastic or get Doug to throw some pallets together to make a compost bin(mostly to keep the chickens out of it).....Gotta love "free" fertilizer!!

I should mention, that Poly I used, was once the white tops you see on the old greenhouses at walmart.
most have the fancy garden centers now, but when they had the remote greenhouses, the roofs (Not sure how many Mil (thickness) Polyproplene) any local plastics recycler should be able to find you something. Or just some heavy construction plastic.

The pallets work great, I would suggest finding Oak pallets, they'll last longer, but not as common (or cheap) as the other woods.

I seen a pheller doin a three foot tall, 10 ft long pile, and he'd constructed sorta a battering ram for his ridin lawnmower to "push" it over, one "ram width" at a time...

guess where there's a will......

[DayLilyDude]

So do shredded leaves have a NPK value?

[Compost Pharmer]

If you are doing composting, shredded brown leaves are considered 'browns' or carbon, but if they are still green, they are considered 'greens' or nitrogen. About 80% of my compost consists of shredded leaves. I leave them in the bags until they turn brown, then shred them.

[DayLilyDude]

Ok, but i shread them in the fall and put them straight in the garden? They break down most of the way during the winter, am I doing this wrong?

[Pharmer Phil]

We apply them directly too DLD, same difference I suppose, but It works here because of the harsh elements, warmer climates, like CP in Texas may need the extra cookin in da bag time to break down completely...I do mow over them to shred them, sorta wind row them then rake them up and ut on the beds prior to snowfall..somewhere here on the board I posted the NPK value of composted leaves...will see if I can find that

[bluelacedredhead]

I have lots of Squirrel S...tuff in my garden, but I don't see it on the list, lol

[Pharmer Phil]

Jan 4, 2011 14:04:53 GMT -6 bluelacedredhead said:

I have lots of Squirrel S...tuff in my garden, but I don't see it on the list, lol

Now dats phunny, Dunno, reckon I never seen any NPK rating fer Squirrel S...tuff

How does it do for ya??

[Rita]

I have a S.....stuff load of squirrels so I am sure I too need to know the values