Hi Stevie,

Youre thinking too much! ;-) It doesnÂt matter a whole lot what good soil feels like, because I donÂt think anybody out here has it anyway! Just start to use the soil you haveÂitÂll work for most things! If youÂre going to plant in a large area, if you can, improve the whole area by spreading a 3-4" layer of a good quality compost on top of the soil and working it into the top 6" or so. If youÂre planting individual plants, keep a bucket of moist Canadian peat with you and mix about 1/3 peat into the soil youÂre going to be backfilling withÂand mix some into the soil in the hole before you plant too. IÂve tried different kinds of compost for this, and, except for the home-grown variety, I way prefer peat to any of the bagged composts IÂve used. DoesnÂt add any nutrients, but I can always do that separately if I want toÂand, actually, I rarely do! As long as things are doing well, I donÂt do much to them.

If you have a place where you can "grow" some of that homemade compost, do it the lazy way like I do. Just start throwing any vegetation or any organic matter you have on the pileÂno meat or fat of any type. I also donÂt use anything that might have weed seeds or any diseases or fungus. Since weÂre so dry out here, I wet mine down fairly often in summer. Then just wait till the stuff on the bottom is black and crumbly and you have home-grown compost! ItÂs about the best stuff you can use to improve your soil. But be ready to wait a while! ItÂs been 3 years since I first started my pile, and IÂm just now starting to get useable quantities of compost. But I live alone, and donÂt have a large yard or any trees on my property, so I donÂt have a whole lot to put on the pile, either! And a wonderful and unexpected side benefit of my compost pile, I discovered, is that I also have a "worm farm!" Mine is directly on top of the soil, and some worms seem to have migrated up into the pile and are reproducing like rabbits! At times I can take handfuls of worms out of the pile, and I transplant them along with plants when IÂm planting things. Having lots of worms in your soil will really, really help it.

Other than that, just come here when you have specific questions! ThereÂs always somebody around to answer whatever you might be wondering about. The most important thing is to just start planting things. If youÂre worried about wasting money because something might die, start with small things that arenÂt too expensive. Then, once you start having success with the smaller things, youÂll have more confidence to move on to bigger and better things. And if something dies on you, remember that none of us are successful every time. Gardening is an art, not a science! No matter what anybody says!

So go out and get your hands in the dirt! YouÂll learn far, far more that way than you will sitting somewhere and listening to somebody! And itÂll be way, WAY more fun!

Dig in,
Skybird

"It doesnt matter a whole lot what good soil feels like, because I dont think anybody out here has it anyway!"

I like that line! Actually, I hate it, because it's so true. It seems like there's no middle ground. The soil is either heavy clay or pure sand. Nothing in between. The common factors are high pH, low organic matter, and not enough water (I think the last one causes the first two).

I agree with Skybird's assessment that the best thing to do is add a lot of organic matter. When I bought my house, I was amazed that soil could be so yellow. I was even more amazed when I found out that the former owner had added a bunch of topsoil to the garden.

I started a compost bin and added compost whenever I could, just taking it from the bottom of the pile. Until recently, I used the "pile it up and let it rot" approach, simply taking more or less finished compost from the bottom. I've had more access to Starbucks coffee grounds lately, so I've been hot composting, and getting compost every few weeks. A lot of that is going to a tree that has trouble with the high pH, but some goes to the garden.

I also mulched the garden heavily every year. I'd use grass clippings (from other lawns, since I mulch mow), leaves and, if necessary, pine or cedar shavings (from the pet department). These would usually be pretty much broken down by the end of the season.

One year, I was laid up and my garden was just sitting. I also couldn't mow the lawn and hired a service. I had him leave the clippings on my lawn, but most of his other customers had him bag them and cart them off. He didn't have anyplace to compost them, so he had to pay to dump them. I told him he could dump them on my garden. I think the pile got about 4 feet high before my wife made me stop. It was still about a foot deep the following spring when I tilled it in.

Last fall, I piled alternating layers of leaves, grass from when I scalped my lawn to reseed, and coffee grounds from Starbucks. I'm planning to do the lasagna garden thing this year.

This is all good advice, and I would re-emphasise that in the beginning, worry about the individual plant you are planting, and amend the soil for that particular plant. Peat moss is helpful, and If you have a Safeway store near you, this week they have bags of mushroom compost for $2.00, and that will do a lot of individual plants.

Mulch is good stuff. Worry about the individual plant, then mulch all around it, a passive way to improve the soil and growing conditions.

Compost is good stuff, and making your own is not only fun, it will cut your take-out trash in half. Tear out the plastic windows in the junk mail, and rip up the envelopes into bits, and throw it all in. Lazy way, tumblers, hot composting, they are all viable alternatives. They have a compost forum here on Garden Web. Some of the folks who post over there may be a bit 'over the top' but there are equally folks like bpgreen who try to keep it sane.

After 10 years, my vegetable garden soil is getting to where I like it, I don't need a shovel. But the amount of horse manure, compost, and organic matter that went into it is pretty impressive.

Stevie, one ingredient that is really of help to me in my compost is SOIL. That may not make a lot of sense but good soil aids in composting.

You may be thinking, "Oh no, Im trying to make good soil! Im not going to rob soil out of my garden to put in my compost." But, you are already robbing your garden by making room for your compost bin.

Someone once said that we should plow deep because theres another acre of dirt below the one we are standing on. I try to discourage that kind of thinking, to an extent - my days of double digging are definitely past. However, you dont need to "lose" 32 cubic feet of top soil by putting two 4 by 8 compost bins on top of it. At least, I dont.

Course, I didnt have 12 inches of topsoil to start off with in these gravel patches I call gardens. But, there was 8 inches there and I could take all of it just going down the depth of a shovel. Further, on this rapidly draining soil and with an arid climate, just like Skybird, I need to add water to the compost regularly. (My technique, highly refined, is to let the sprinklers hit it when I water the rest of the garden. ;o) Putting the bins a little below grade helps the pile maintain moisture.

I have a couple of neighbors who have built above-ground bins about 4 by 4 and made with boards and wire. I noticed that one neighbor has removed his collapsed bin after it stood there for about a decade with the same material in it. The other bin is still standing . . . and may be there with its "compostables" after he and me are compost ourselves.

Okay, so Ive dug out all this nice top soil what can I do with it? Well, I can put it back on the pile maybe once in July and then again at the end of the gardening year. That 4 by 4 pile is done . . . Im not going to touch it in the following year, just continue to water it and keep the weeds pulled off. Meanwhile, Im building another pile beside the first.

After at least 18 months of sitting there, the material certainly isnt completely decomposed but any really heavy material (shoot, I throw small branches in there :o) can be added to the next batch. And, wherever the compost goes in the garden Im "allowed" to rob some dirt to put back in the next pile.

If theres a drawback to this approach, other than that it never completely destroys all seeds (garbage can material) it is that Im waiting 18 months to 2 years for that compost. Remarkably, Ive always been around to make use of it so far. (Little secret Ive even gone back to a vacant piece of ground where Id had a garden and made off with my compost pile a year after Id left. ;o)

Now having said all this about the lazy guys compost techniques - - my brother gave Dad and me his big compost tumbler. Oh Boy, now were really cookin!

DigitS

WOW, thanks for all the great advice. You guys are great! Maybe if I make cookies and lemonade you could all come over one day and take a walk around? Ah... well.

My DH- or maybe I should say my Mister- built me a 3x3 compost bin last year and he's been filling it up with all of our leaves, extra lawn clippings, etc. I was delighted to see that the contents are actually breaking down at the bottom. For some reason, I thought that would only work for somebody who actively managed their compost pile. I just let it pile up in there over the last year so I figured it would be stratified and preserved. This spring I'm trying to get things going so I'm actually turning and watering the pile and it's looking pretty good. Got some worms in there anyway.

I'm glad for the advice on adding paper, David52. I figure if the grass is clumping up and looking and smelling like cow piles, it needs something to aerate it a little. I will start adding that and my coffee grounds too.

BP, do you find the grass clippings you mulch with get heavy and form a mat? I am seeing that in my compost bin and although I've read they make good mulch, I'm afraid they would be too heavy to just layer on the top of things. Then again, for most of my garden I've been using nothing, so anything would be an improvement.

I also really like the advice of focusing on amending the soil for individual plants to start with. I have this idea that each bed is a unit and if I fiddle with one area, after a few years it will homogenize and the results will be lost. I spent all last summer just knocking back the weeds- there was quite a stretch there where the only thing I did was prune, shovel and rake out stuff. It's time to put something back in! If I think about things one plant (or planting) at a time, I can make a little progress and have something to water instead of yank out.

Thanks again, and if anybody else has any pearls of wisdom, I'd be grateful.
steviewonder

The year I had them piled really high, they matted, but last fall, I did a modified lasagna garden approach. What I mean by that is that I didn't go "by the book" (I think there is an actual book), but I just put grass clippings, then leaves, then more grass clippings, leaves, an occasional bag of Starbucks grounds, and the partially composted contents of the bin after it froze, then thawed (I wanted to start all over this spring). I haven't tilled it or moved any of it around since, so I have no idea what it looks like. I'm planning to plant directly, without tilling or anything, maybe putting a little dirt on top to give the seeds something to start in. I've already got a pumpkin started (some of the leftover halloween pumpkins didn't get the compost hot enough)

Hi Stevie,

I just want to add a couple things. Since Digit brought it up, I want to second the "add soil" suggestion for your compost pile. I thought of it after I posted my reply. I dont usually just dig up soil specifically to add, but anytime Im digging out sod I shake off part of the dirt and throw the rest of it on the pile, and when Im digging holes to plant, if I run into a spot with REALLY heavy clay, I dump that on the pile too, and fill the hole with soil from somewhere else in the yard thats a little bit better. Soil has microorganisms in it that will help your "pile" "compost"! So whether you dig up some soil specifically to add to the pile, or if you just put some on the pile from something else youre doing, it is definitely a good idea to get some in there somehow. And I always empty my paper shredder onto the pile too. Its my own private paper recycling program! Shredders are cheap these days, and (Im lazy!) its a lot easier than tearing it up by hand. And also be sure youre keeping a bowl or something in the kitchen for all the trimmings when youre preparing veggies. It really adds up! And somebody else mentioned small branches. I do that too! My neighbors have (my favorite tree!) cottonwoods, and every time we get a gentle breeze, my backyard is full of small branches. They go on the pileand if theyre not "finished" when the rest of it is, they get pulled out and tossed back on top of the pile. (Branches and other "thick" stems will decompose faster if you break them into smaller pieces first. The more exposed surface, the faster they break down.) And the cottonwood rootswhich Im endlessly digging up and cutting outgo on the pile too. Sometimes it doesnt happen, but the more variety you can get, the less likely it is to mat down too much. When Im cutting down perennials and annuals in fall/winter/spring, that all goes on the pileexcept for the snapdragons that ALWAYS get rust really badly! When I cut down my agastache last fall, I had the most WONDERFUL smelling compost pile for a couple days! If you have any pines on your propertyor somebody elsesthat would help add a little acid to the pile. When you get in the habit of thinking about it, you come up with all kinds of things to add. Whatever you wind up with in the pile, just dont let it get too dry or itll just sit there and look at you! :-]

And I use my grass clippings to mulch the veggie garden too! I dont have that much grass, so theres never a whole lot at one time (and I dont water it a lot, so in mid-summer theres not much at all), but I just keep adding thin layers wherever it seems to be needed the most that week. Since the thin layers dry each time between applications, they never mat down and get moldy or slimy. Little by little it keeps working itself down into the soil, and in the fall/winter, when I turn it over, whatever is left is just worked into the soil. It works really well to conserve moisture and to keep the soil surface soft, and it really, really helps keep your feet clean when your working or picking. This year Im thinking of putting a few layers of newspaper down between the rows and then putting the grass clipping on top of that so I dont have to look at the paper! The only thing I DONT like about using the clippings is it gives me less to put on the compost pile, but Im thinking of asking a couple of the neighbors for their grass clippings this year too. They just put them in the dumpster anyway. Good for me and less stuff to the dump!

Now youre "learning from the ground up,"
Skybird

One thing to mention is newspaper, some do's and don'ts. I have a daily subscription to the Denver Post, so thats a box full a week. It's so dry here that a lot of the ideas that work elsewhere don't do too well here. I tried to lay it down as a mulch and cover it with grass clippings. The grass disintegrates faster, and then I have newspaper blowing all over the place. I tried adding complete sections of the paper to the compost heap, they're still there 2 years later, barely broken down at all. A standard catalog from LLBean or something is gone by then. I then tried soaking them in water, same thing. Soaking and tearing them into strips, same thing.

Now, I have a large plastic trash bin, like the kind out on the street for the trash guys, and I dump a weeks worth in there, fill it half way with water, leave it over night, and use an electric drill and a bulb - planting auger to turn it all into slush, like one would for paper maché. That, mixed up with lots of grass clippings, gets really, really hot.

"All the news thats fit to compost"

David, that's very clever and conscientious.

I'm assuming that you are using a recycling bin and not a 30 gallon garbage can, right?

I'd like you to consider posting that on GW's "Going Green" forum - link's below

D'S'

Instead of grass clippings, I put manure on top of the newspaper between the rows in my veggy garden. Then I wet the whole thing down, which sort of bonds the whole thing together which keeps the paper from blowing away. This works pretty good considering we live in a really windy area. Plus the manure has some nitrogen left in it to help break down the paper, which is always rotted to nothing the following spring when it is time to till.
Ya'll should see my veggy garden soil. After twenty years of putting loads of manure in it, it's so soft and tillable. You could have made pots with it in the beginning.

Here's another question on compost -- I have one of those lazy piles that is half compost I would use and half weeds that are just waiting for a turn to go into the trash bin (since I don't actively manage the pile, I'm afraid the weed seeds would still be alive). Next to that, I have had some tree and shrub limbs piling up for a couple years. Not having a chipper/shredder for the branches, I decided to get a burn permit this year, and I burned all the branches, plus the weeds that were old and dry enough to burn.

So, the question: Is it OK to use the ashes from that stuff in my compost? Does ash do anything bad to the compost? Some of the fire actually smoldered into the good compost and made ashes out of part of the good pile, so I have quite a bit of charred stuff out there now. Hopefully, I can use it, but I'm also concerned the smoky smell will permeate my garden beds, so I may have to mix it with a lot of other compost over another year or so till it dilutes the campfire smell!

I don't know the technically correct answer to that one, Steve, but I'd mix them into your compost pile. After all, when a forest burns, the ashes become part of the soil! And the topsoil in forests is generally pretty good stuff. I don't use my wood burning fireplace much here at this house, but when I do clean it out, the ashes will go on the compost pile! It's organic matter! No campfire smell to mine though! But I suspect that would get "diluted" pretty quickly.

What does everyone else think?
Skybird

Yeah, I recall learning about "slash and burn" agriculture in S. America and how the locals use it to return the nutrients that are trapped in the forest canopy to the soil so they can grow crops. I know it's not a GOOD thing that they do this technique in the Amazon jungle, but I recall reading that it works, at least in the short run.

I had thought about posting a new thread called "Slash and burn gardening?" but this thread seemed convenient to post in!

This is one of those 'hot button' issues over on the compost forum, where some people, who have never added ash, and have never visited countries where they practice slash and burn agriculture, will swear that adding ash will likely drastically change the soil pH and kill everything in your entire garden for 500 years. Theoretically, here on our alkaline soils, it would be even worse.

Practically, I burn wood for heat in the winter, and we go through 6 cords of firewood, and I have a 3 gallon bucket of wood ash about every 10 days. If I'm sure there are no coals, I just heave it out on the grass, or dump it on top the compost heap. I routinely wash out my charcoal burning hibachi right out on the lawn. None of this has ever done anything, perhaps the grass greens up a bit quicker in the spring. This spring, the greenest part of the lawn is right around where I burned out a huge stump and covered the place with 3" of wood ash.

So I wouldn't worry about it.

When I do pruning, like I did this morning, I leave the sticks that are less than an inch out on the lawn and then run the power lawn mower over them, which turns them into mulch. For some of the fluffier branches, I'll tip the mower up on its back wheels and then set it down over the branch. I bag them up and into the compost they go. The sticks clean out the base of the mower pretty well, which is an added advantage.

Another question (due to laziness, in lieu of searching the compost threads)...does the pile have to be in the sun or is shade ok as long as there is circulation? I am interested in starting a pile to reduce the amount I throw away and have a great spot in between the garage, back fence and side fence. However, it never gets any sun. Thoughts?

Thanks for all the advice! You ARE great! I too, have been doing the plant by plant method of amending. If I keep at it long enough hopefully all the beds will be workable.

I dont really know if it makes too much difference if its in the sun or not. Mine gets morning sun till about mid-day, and I always figured that would help speed it up by warming it up somebut it also dries it out faster. My compost pile is where it is because its the only place I had to put it! And, similar to what youre describing, mine is between the side and front fence and the side of the house. Just a hint if you havent decided exactly how youre going to do it yet. I got some large sheets of galvanized steel (I think they were 3' X 4') and attached them directly to the fence on the two fence sides, and on the other side the compost is mostly piled against the concrete foundation and comes up against the brick a little bit, but I could probably put a sheet of steel there too if I wanted to. Its a really cheap way to build a compost areawithout rotting out the fence. Got the sheets of steel at HD or Lowes.

Im curious what other people will think of the sun/no sun question.

Skybird

I don't think it matters all that much, its a bacterial action, not a solar one. I do mine in shade, but the last one is in the sun, but thats because the other ones are still full of un-decomposed past issues of the Denver Post (Rocky Mountain News on Saturday!!!). In a retrospective, having it convenient to taking stuff out and toss it into the mix is probably the most important issue.

as in tissue, and the box, like the stuff my spiffy new shoes came in today, all of which is compostible.

My bin gets a couple of hours of sun a year, it that. There's a fence, a shed, and a few trees conspiring to ensure it stays shaded. I got a compost thermometer, so I now know my bin get at least to 145 degrees F.

I've got to weigh in on the slash and burn issue . . . For the most part, Europeans went from nomadic herders to semi-nomadic village farmers. Europeans practiced slash and burn agriculture for millennia before they began to settle more permanently on farms and in cities.

Interesting article in the National Geographic this month on Jamestown. The authors point out that the Indians periodically burned the underbrush in the forests. After they were displaced by the whites, the forests tended to become congested with bushes and small trees. (What the hillbillies call "dog hair thickets" - because that's about how closely everything grows. ;o) Of course, when settlers cleared the land, they tended to cut everything both large and small, high and low, and then they burned it.

The rain forests of the Pacific coast have been over-harvested, clearcut and lost for over a hundred years. It is only when rain forests are "over there" that we seem to show a lot of concern. Those darn poverty-struck natives . . . their survival is going to destroy the world ecology!

Now, on the subject at hand, I once grew a bed of onions - supposedly a vegetable with a high requirement for potassium. I fertilized the entire bed and then put my wood ashes only on one-half. The difference was noticeable and I was sorry that I'd applied the ashes directly to the soil. I think my soil pH was already a little too high.

After that experience, I was far more willing to add ashes to the COMPOST. I don't think that I was doing much to the pH of 2 or more cubic yards of composting plant material by tossing on a couple shovelfuls of wood ashes. Altho', I could get back into the pH confusion again here . . .

Stevation, manure ash is a common fertilizer for village farmers. Imagine if your garden is a couple miles up a mountain path from your home and livestock corrals. Are you likely to be interested in carrying manure on your back to fertilize a your plants?? On the other hand (or shoulder ;o), a bag of nutrient-rich manure ash might be well worth the effort.

Dad talks about doing this also as a farm kid in the Rio Grande Valley. Not sure why but I suppose it isn't all that easy to move heavy manure in a wagon pulled by mules, either. We used to burn boards and such in our corrals and would sometimes catch the manure on fire. Might have been the smell of burning cow pucky on a Summer morning that got Dad to thinking about farming with the mules.

DigitS'

There is something were raw ash, straight from the stove and dumped on green plants will kill them. It doesn't happen if the ashes are wet down immediately.

But then my 80 yr old organic farming neighbor uses wood ash to control aphids and flea beetles.

Last summer, the horse training facility up wind from us burned their manure mountain. A huge pile, many years accumulation, it took 2 weeks to burn completely, just smoldering away. That was awful.

David, there's no way a US farm (upwind or not) should be granted a permit to burn manure . . .

DigitS'

The slash and burn farming comments reminds me of a thread that was on the SCM forum about terra preta. I don't remember all the details, but apparently, the way they burn in the Amazon creates a sort of charcoal that is supposed to make the soil really fertile.

I've read that if you compost the ash, the act of composting can neutralize the alkalinity. I'm still a bit wary of using ash, though, since I have trouble with chlorosis already. It's somewhat moot for me, because we don't seem to have enough "green" burn days anymore (and the SL Trib stopped printing the traffic light on the fron page), so I rarely use the fireplace.

Well, I think I'll just include them in the compost pile and hope the smoke smell goes away after a while. I don't really want to make my flowerbed smell like a campfire! But my compost pile, as I mentioned, is not managed very well, and this stuff may sit around for another year before it's used. Also, the amount of ash is small compared to the size of the entire pile.

Thanks for all the input!

re slash and burn. I spent my career doing development work in 3rd world countries, and we saw an awful lot of that, both on the subsistence scale, some guy with a machete, and the industrial scale, with D9 bulldozers. I was surprised that the industrial scale stuff gives the opposite result; they bull doze the trees into a windrow and then burn it. It takes 10 years for that part of the field to produce as well as the rest of the field. In contrast, with the small scale operation, the best crops are grown where the trees fell over and were burned. In acidic soils, the terra preta use of charcoal that bp mentions is very effective, and I used to do that in the highlands of Zambia in my vegetable garden. I'd bring in bags of charcoal (the real stuff, not Kingsford) crush it up, and mix it in my beds. That was an acidic soil, and the charcoal would make a huge difference.

There is such a difference in soils and climatic conditions around the world, and what works in one area is totally inappropriate in another. There are areas in my 3 acres where I wouldn't dump ash, unless I wanted to do a scientific experiment to see what sort of reaction between that blue clay and ash would create.

Steve, I don't think anybody should burn manure either, but this was next to his house, so he got the worst of it. They don't worry about burn permits around here too much. But I sure wish he'd just dumped in on my place, I would have used it in my garden.