I need composting help!

[BabyGotQuack]

It depends on the state of decomposition and what the material is. For example, if you till in wood chips that are not fully composted, they will rob the soil of nitrogen which will be used to decompose the wood chips instead of feeding the plants. But you should be able to till in the "green" materials.

The condition of your soil also matters. I saw a YouTube video where a guy tilled in fresh wood chips into his soil because he needed to break up the soil now.

I have gone to an almost no-till method of gardening in raised beds. But I still have a small cultivator that will gently mix in my top mulch or compost into the top 3-4 inches of raised bed soil. There are many people that advocate the no-till method because you don't want to disturb the living system in the soil unless you have to.

So in my pile I have last years vegetable plants, duck bedding, leaves, grass clippings & more duck bedding. I don’t think I have much green in there.

I don’t know if this matters for this topic of tilling in my pile but I did just order a soil testing kit cause that’s something we’d never done.

I have also been doing no till. We were gonna try tilling this year, just cause it’s something we haven’t done since we started our garden. Just to change things up I guess

 

[RoyalChick]

Not sure how helpful this is, but I keep a birder feeder or 2 on hooks smack in the middle of mine... when the birds drop seed, they sprout in the compost and become compost. To each new bed, I'll add either redworms or nightcrawlers, whichever I find under the leaves I've raked up this spring. (LOL I'm about to run out in the rain to get a pic for ya!) The cinder block bed is asthetic for me, as the sunflowers will come up and I'll have tons of blooms and the finches will come, it is last years pallet composter pile, the pallet composter is where all of everything goes till I move it for next spring. I have a mantis, so it's easy to just set it in to aerate every now n then. Next spring I'll just pitch 3/4 of it on my garden, till n poof. LOL maybe I'm doing it all wrong, but it is working for me. I think that is what makes the diference, no ones will be the same.

Clever idea. I might steal that one!

 

[gtaus]

So in my pile I have last years vegetable plants, duck bedding, leaves, grass clippings & more duck bedding. I don’t think I have much green in there.

From what I have read, if your compost is still mostly unfinished carbon products, you might be better off tilling the garden and using that unfinished compost pile as top mulch for this summer, then tilling it in the garden soil this fall or next spring.

I have also been doing no till. We were gonna try tilling this year, just cause it’s something we haven’t done since we started our garden. Just to change things up I guess

I live on a lake and have terrible sandy soil devoid of almost any life. For years, I tilled in all the grass clippings, leaves, and anything else organic I had available. The soil improved over a number of years. Although I had read about the advantage of no-till gardening, I was still in the process of trying to build up good soil.

Then I switched over to raised bed gardening with the Square Foot Gardening Method. I had much better results with that method because my raised bed mix was just so much better than the quality of my in-ground soil.

I continue to change things up to see if it works better for me, or not. I'm always learning what works better for me in the process. Since I have started having a backyard flock, I am using chicken run compost in my raised beds which has resulted in increased productivity yet again.

 

[sandburRanch]

Research this -- How long does it take wood to make dirt ? Have you ever worked in a garden or flower bed with wood chips . I wouldn't put a wood chip in my worst enemy's compost , garden soil or flower bed . Home centers can use it for a filler but i ain't buying it .


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[Red-Stars-in-RI]

We're in something of a golden age of compost Youtube. Check out EdibleAcres (chicken run composting).

I also enjoy Diego Footer, David the Good, and many more I can't think of at the moment.