Back to Eden Gardening and Hugelkulture and other non-conventional garden methods

[GardenNut]

I plan to use all my newsprint packing to pile on the garden of my new place this fall. I'll have a lot of boxes too. Some I'll save for my daughter, because they're good and sturdy, but any surplus will go on the garden too. I saw a brush pile on the property too when I was there. Just thinking while I wait.....

 

[Teresa Lundquis]

Can I jump in with some questions??????

I have been doing BTE this past year or 2. I have my woodchips 4-8 in on raised beds. Some beds are 4 x 8 some 4x12 6 inches high. I live in Colorado High Mountain Desert zone 5.
I was wondering can the chicken poop be added to water and watered into the planted beds as an instant fertilizer? I know composting chicken manure is very hot and will take a few weeks or more. I only have 3 hens 3 yrs old. I got them to eat the grass hoppers and not so much for eggs but I also like they give manure. The grass hoppers decimated my garden and I was thinking watering in chicken manure in water would help revive some of the stubble of the cabbage, and the greens. I don't know much about chickens. I go to classes on BTE once a month. This late class they group found out 2 wood chip sources are contaminated with Round up and it ruined the gardens. The plants came up all deformed and stunted. All that work ruined. One of the gardeners noticed the odd plants and did a test of bagged topsoil, garden soil no wood chips and wood chip and found the wood chips were the culprit-well the contaminated chips.

Thanks

 

[lazy gardener]

Wow! I find it odd that wood chips would be round up contaminated. But, anything is possible. I fear that if you do a manure tea with fresh chicken poo, it will definitely burn your plants. Best to let it compost first. What I do: I do a deep litter in both coop and run. When I take litter out of the coop, I toss it into the run. I also add garden weeds, grass clippings, leaves, wood chips. Basically, anything I can get my hands on that will compost. (I do save coffee grounds and any thing that is moldy for a compost pile outside the run.) The chickens work this stuff over very well. It creates a healthy run for them, and they create some healthy compost for me.

 

[Kiki]

Hi!
I'm going to start at the beginning.
See ya'll soon!

 

[Teresa Lundquis]

I love the fact the hens do all the mixing lol. I have my hens in where the goats were so lots of old alfalfa hay stems, a small bit of old goat poo. I have been picking up the hens poos as it's easy and it has been attracting flies. Now I think I'l add to manure pile and water I'm just so impatient. I did scoop some worm manure and make for worm tea.

 

[lazy gardener]

Got a whole truck load of cardboard last weekend. So, am able to mulch the rest of the orchard. Have a seedling apple that I need to find a home for. Hope to learn to graft on it. After the remainder of the existing wood chips are used up (about 2 cu. yd. left) I'm hoping I can get an other load delivered instead of having to go get it by the truck load.

 

[Greenthumb83]

DH is bringing me home cardboard from work so we can get started here in the garden. How big is your orchard? I have no experience with grafting. This fall we will be starting our first peach pits. We have plans to recover a few acres of the farmland around us and start an orchard. With all we are doing it may take a while to get started. How long have you had your orchard?

 

[lazy gardener]

I put it in last summer. It's about 150' long (not sure of the exact length.) The trees are planted all in a line. Luckily, it gets good sun, with the tree line behind it not casting much shade on it at all.

 

[Greenthumb83]

Sounds nice.

I am not sure how/where would start ours. The whole property is surrounded by a double row of pines (in between house/yard and the corn fields. There is an area that has the fallen trees next to the big coop though. We've been thinking about just clearing that area up to the field. Might be the best place to start. I could just let the chickens range there once it's established.

 

[henless]

I was not trying to order sawdust. I need what you are referring to. I live in a very rural area and not sure what options I'll have. There is no local tree service that I am aware of. I did find one an hour away with a 1.5 start rating lol. We had a tree down yesterday in the storm and the highway dept just pushed it off the road like they usually do. I do know the owner of the sawmill though and figured if they didn't have the chips I need, they could point me in the right direction. Thank you though.

Try calling your electric company. They usually contract out to tree companies to trim their electric lines. Mine contracts to 3 different places. I called my rural electric and they put me on the list for all 3 companies. So far, I've gotten 2 loads. I still need a bunch more, but it's more than I had.

Can I jump in with some questions??????

I have been doing BTE this past year or 2. I have my woodchips 4-8 in on raised beds. Some beds are 4 x 8 some 4x12 6 inches high. I live in Colorado High Mountain Desert zone 5.
I was wondering can the chicken poop be added to water and watered into the planted beds as an instant fertilizer? I know composting chicken manure is very hot and will take a few weeks or more. I only have 3 hens 3 yrs old. I got them to eat the grass hoppers and not so much for eggs but I also like they give manure. The grass hoppers decimated my garden and I was thinking watering in chicken manure in water would help revive some of the stubble of the cabbage, and the greens. I don't know much about chickens. I go to classes on BTE once a month. This late class they group found out 2 wood chip sources are contaminated with Round up and it ruined the gardens. The plants came up all deformed and stunted. All that work ruined. One of the gardeners noticed the odd plants and did a test of bagged topsoil, garden soil no wood chips and wood chip and found the wood chips were the culprit-well the contaminated chips.

Thanks

I agree with LG. If you use fresh poo, it would be too hot for your plants. If you could compost it a few months first, that would help a lot. Have you tried liquid fish emulsion? That might help.

I've wondered about the round up. Around here, the state usually sprays their right of way along the highways with some kind of weed killer. It kills all the grass & trees, so they don't have to mow/trim as much. Thankfully, the counties don't do that. They get tree companies to do the trimming. I have noticed that some of the companies when chipping the trees just shoot it back out on the ground instead of into a truck bed.

Wow! I find it odd that wood chips would be round up contaminated. But, anything is possible. I fear that if you do a manure tea with fresh chicken poo, it will definitely burn your plants. Best to let it compost first. What I do: I do a deep litter in both coop and run. When I take litter out of the coop, I toss it into the run. I also add garden weeds, grass clippings, leaves, wood chips. Basically, anything I can get my hands on that will compost. (I do save coffee grounds and any thing that is moldy for a compost pile outside the run.) The chickens work this stuff over very well. It creates a healthy run for them, and they create some healthy compost for me.

I throw my coffee ground into the run along with everything else. I had a compost pile, but took it down to expand my garden. I decided it would be much easier to let my chickens turn it for me. That compost gets heavy and hard to turn at times.

Thanks for starting this thread LG. I try to read anything I can on the BTE method.

I started my BTE garden last fall. I wasn't able to get chips, so I used leaves. I put down cardboard, composted cow manure & leaves/pine straw. I left it all winter & as long as I could in the spring to give it time to cook. I did end up planting late due to a lot of rain we had during the spring. I started out small since this would be my first garden I've done by myself. We did have one several years ago that did really good since it was planted where we had our horse corral. Lots of horse apples in that soil.



I finally got everything planted and it slowly grew. Then it really took off. I thought I had everything spaced far enough apart. But it turned into a jungle.



I finally got a load of chips, so used part of the first load to expand my garden. My chips had lots of leaves & twigs.



I used the rest of my chips to put on my new orchard. I don't know if I like it or not. I have grass growing up everywhere!! I have no desire to get out there and weed my orchard. I'm seriously thinking about pulling most of it up to use in the garden. I did not put down cardboard or paper. I would put it deeper, but I don't know when/if I will be getting any more chips. I could leave it and then just pile leaves on top this fall. I really don't know what to do.