I need composting help!

[sandburRanch]

I live on a lake. My main garden soil was mainly sandy, and nothing grew very well. For years, I dumped in grass clippings and leaves every year, and tilled all that stuff in every spring before planting. Over many years the soil improved, became blacker, and worms started to be found in almost every shovel full. That was a success.

However, I eventually moved on to raised garden beds and the square foot garden method of planting. No more tilling of the garden. That has worked out even better for me. Especially as I get older.

Most recently, I am building taller raised bed gardens (16 inches tall) using the hügelkultur method to fill the bottom 8-10 inches of the beds, and using a good 1:1 mix of quality topsoil and chicken run compost in the top 6-8 inches. That worked great for me last year.

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My favorite planter is my elevated sub-irrigated planter which is waist high. It has 4 inch perforated drain pipes filling the bottom, which provides a water reservoir for the planter. There is an overflow hole drilled at 3 inches, which provides a 1 inch air gap between the full water level and the top of the drain pipes. That makes a water reservoir of almost 15 gallons. On top of the drain pipes, I put my mix of top soil, compost, and vermiculite making it into a wicking planter system. You need that air gap so the roots of the plants don't drown in the water. The planter mix will wick up water as required.

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At the far right (picture above), you can see the fill tube with a swimming noodle (slice) I cut to use as a water level indicator. When the noodle is flush with the fill tube, it's time to refill. Even I can't mess up with that watering system!

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In a normal summer, I only have to refill the planter maybe once or twice a month. Last year we had a severe drought with no rainfall from June till late October, and then I had to refill my planter almost twice a week in that drought. But you can see home many bean plants I can grow in that planter and why it takes up all that water. When everybody's gardens were drying up and dying last year, my sub-irrigated planter had a bumper crop of fresh green beans!

I have become more passionate over the last few years with gardening, now that I have my chicken run compost system pumping out all that great compost for my garden beds. I don't think I could afford all my garden beds if I had to buy compost at the big box stores.

Although I am still in good health, the older I get, the less I like to bend over to work in the garden. Which explains my evolution from planting in the ground, to planting in raised beds (6 inches tall), to building taller raised beds (16 inches high), and my elevated sub-irrigated beds (36 inches high). To be sure, the poor quality of my sandy ground soil had something to do with all of this. But the increased height of my new garden beds allows me much more comfort without needing to bend over all the time. Maybe some of you of a certain age know what I mean.

Nice healthy garden , but where is the wood chips ?

 

[gtaus]

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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It takes about 1 year to turn wood chips into soil under the proper conditions. How Long Do Wood Chips Take to Create 1 Inch of Topsoil?

Like many people, I first became aware of the Back to Eden Gardening method using wood chips from YouTube videos made by Paul Gautschi. But, I think it is important to understand what he refers to as wood chips is maybe not what most people think and understand.

You can chip up only wood to make wood chips. That would take a very long time to compost because there are no greens in that mix - only wood.

There is an arborist type of wood chips with is a mix of wood chips and leaves. Since the leaves provide some green nitrogen, the composting is faster, all be it not all that fast.

According to the Swedish Homesteader on YouTube, who actually visited Paul at his home, he says that what Paul calls wood chips is what most of us would call mulch. It is full of green organics, chicken poo and other animal manures, and of course, wood chips. But Paul calls that mix just wood chips.

So, you can see why Paul's "wood chips" breakdown so well and make such beautiful soil. You can't just dump a load of sawdust on the ground and expect the same results.

I can get all the free arborist wood chips I can haul from our county landfill. I add them to my chicken run compost along with grass clippings, leaves, and just about anything else organic. I harvest my chicken run compost every 6 months, but I use a cement mixer compost sifter, so any wood chips larger than my sifting screen will be screened out and thrown back into the chicken run. Over time, the wood chips break down and make great soil.

I use wood chips in my garden beds as top mulch, not mixed in the soil. I simply rake the wood chips off to the side when I am ready to plant, and them put them back when the plants are growing well. It works for me.

I'm sorry that you don't like wood chips, but I have had great success with them in my setup.

 

[gtaus]

Nice healthy garden , but where is the wood chips ?

Well, that's my point exactly. I composted the wood chips along with all the grass clippings, leaves, and other organics in my chicken run. Then I used my cement mixer compost sifter with a 1/4 inch hardware cloth to screen the compost for the raised beds. The sifted compost got mixed 1:1 with topsoil and filled in the raised bed. You can't see the wood chips because they have turned into soil. Did all the wood chips turn into screened compost? No. But maybe an inch or two of the bottom of a 4 inch wood chips base was composted enough to make it through the screen. The larger bits, bigger than 1/4", were rejected by the screening process and dumped back into the chicken run for another round of composting action.

Other than that, I use wood chips as a top mulch around my plants once they have grown and are well established in the bed. I put maybe 1 or 2 inches of wood chips mulch to keep the moisture in the garden beds. I also use wood chips in my main garden in the walkways between my raised beds. There, I just add new wood chips every year to block out the weeds. Over time, they break down into soil, but, like I said, I don't plant directly into the ground anymore.

I never mix wood chips directly into the soil. The wood chips always are composted first. But, wood chips will break down into wonderful compost soil given time and the right mix.

 

[gtaus]

Nice healthy garden , but where is the wood chips ?

OK. Found some pictures that might show you my setup.

You can see my converted cement mixer with the screen barrel attached. I have different sized screens for the compost sifter - 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, and 1/2 X 1 inch screens. I take a pitchfork full of chicken run compost and throw it into the barrel for screening. The screened compost falls into the wagon below the screen. The stuff too large for that screen, gets rejected and falls into the other wagon. The rejected material will get thrown back into the chicken run for another go around of composting.

I timed myself making screened compost this way and found I was making about 24 cubic feet of compost every hour. That's like 12 bags of compost that I was buying at the big box store for $5.00 per bag. In other words, I am saving about $60.00 per hour when I sift my homemade chicken run compost! It would have taken me hours, and hours, and hours to sift that much compost by hand.

Although I choose to dump the rejected material back into the chicken run, lots of people would be more than happy to use that stuff as top mulch for their gardens.

Here is a close up of the rejected material - the larger wood chips that are not fully composted.

Here is a close up picture of the screens I used. In this picture, it looks like I had the 1/4 inch hardware cloth inside the drum.

I can't tell you exactly how many wood chips break down into soil in how much time, but I get almost a 1:1 ratio of screened compost to rejected material. I would estimate that maybe I get about 1 inch of compost ready wood chips for every 4 inches of wood chips in the compost pile over a 6 month period. So, let's say 25% of the wood chips disappear every time I process them through the screener. Like with anything, the larger pieces of wood chips take longer to break down than the smaller pictures.

I wish you could smell how great that screened compost smells. It is a rich, dark, earthy smelling compost that you just can't seem to get from bagged compost at the big box stores. I think you might change your mind about using wood chips if you saw how well it works in my setup. But, it's not just the wood chips. It's also all the grass clippings, leaves, and all the organics that get tossed into the chicken run. And chicken poo, too, of course.

 

[Ascholten]

My wood chips typically are id say 33 to 50 percent broken down in a year. Worms LOVE them and they really improve the breakdown as well. As I dig thru them and get to the bottom where it's mostly composted and worm castings, I can see them crawling all thru it and in fact it's a bit of an issue keeping the girls out of it. Every so often one of them will hop up and dig thru the bark on top and see some wiggly goodies and then I end up yelling and chasing them again.

I'll take this mix, do not separate it, but mix it up well, the mix it in with grass and leaves that got mulched by the mower, mix it all in, and cover it with a few burlap sacks about november, and about feb march when the sacks are really looking ratty, heft it all over with a pitch fork and it's perfect for planting, and my stuff takes off stupidly good in it. Just look at my garlic I got posted in the garden thread.

Aaron

 

[alexanye]

I do a very hands off approach to compost. I picked a spot that already had good insect activity, under a cluster of trees that had leaves collected for years.

I used bricks to make a pit, then filled it with the leaves from the ground around. After that I bring out my kitchen scraps, and I bring out basically everything to include chicken carcass AFTER I have used them yo make broth. After simmering for 24ish hours the bones literally crumble in your hands.

When I add anything to the pit, I dig a hole put the new things in the hole then bury it. I go around the pit systematically as I add things in. The compost gets turned when I dig holes to add new things to compost. When I dig a hole and I turn out nice dirt, I dit that spot out into a bag - usually an empty feed bag because who doesn't have those handy like always?

I had dirt I was able to use in my garden in 6 months using this method. I didn't do a ton of research, but I know what my soil needs. My soil is painfully basic, most things can not grow in it. It needs acid, decomposing animals add acid to the soil which is why I do the chickens. This also means that every ounce of energy the chickens have to give me is used we eat the meat, get broth from the bones, then they help the garden one last time.

 

[Alagirl]

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Hello all! I’m needing some composting help. I’ve been “composting” for 2 years and still can’t seem to get the hang of it. I really don’t know what I’m doing even though I’ve bought and read a book on it.

Today I got out to start cleaning up the garden. As you can see in my pic of I have 2 piles of leaves and then a pile of old tomato and pepper plants (I still have corn stalks I need to rip out). I also have probably 3 huge wagon fulls of duck bedding (pine shavings). I have those 2 composting bins to use that you can see in the pic. What can I do with all this?? I need green stuff in it right? What would be good to add? I need all the help and advice I can get!

Grats. Nice base for good soil.
Green helps but it is not that huge of a deal if you don't have any (the poop in the bedding should help)
Besides, there are many books on compost. Just remember that it happens in nature without a precise mix.
It helps to have the stuff in small chucks, but even trees eventually decompose.

you can throw a couple hands full of fertilizer on the pile, some soil if you have any.
keep it moist and aerated.

 

[littledog]

I can get all the free arborist wood chips I can haul from our county landfill. I add them to my chicken run compost along with grass clippings, leaves, and just about anything else organic. I harvest my chicken run compost every 6 months, but I use a cement mixer compost sifter, so any wood chips larger than my sifting screen will be screened out and thrown back into the chicken run. Over time, the wood chips break down and make great soil.

I use wood chips in my garden beds as top mulch, not mixed in the soil. I simply rake the wood chips off to the side when I am ready to plant, and them put them back when the plants are growing well. It works for me.

Similar for me. Ever since I found about "chipdrop.com" from this thread a few years ago (can't remember who first posted it, but a million thanks to them!) and got my first chip drop the day after signing up for it, I pretty much keep an ongoing pile of chips at the end of my driveway to use as needed. When it starts getting low, I sign up for another, and invariably it shows up within the next day or two. I know not everybody gets such good results, but I am lucky to live near where two highways intersect - evidently an attractive location for tree trimmers looking to dump their loads.
Since I always have a pile going, with chips of various ages in it, I can pick and choose depending on where I use them. The older stuff from the middle/bottom of the pile tends to be well-composted and I can use it directly in my garden and mix it with finished compost to fill beds. The newest chips and the dry outer layer that hasn't decomposed from an older load, I use as "beauty bark" in the flower beds around the house or as a top layer of mulch in the garden.

 

[gtaus]

Ever since I found about "chipdrop.com"

I have heard a lot of good things about chipdrop.com. I signed up for it, but, where I live, there was not anybody to drop the chips. Thankfully, I can still get as many free wood chips as I need at the local county landfill.

The older stuff from the middle/bottom of the pile tends to be well-composted and I can use it directly in my garden and mix it with finished compost to fill beds. The newest chips and the dry outer layer that hasn't decomposed from an older load, I use as "beauty bark" in the flower beds around the house or as a top layer of mulch in the garden.

It seems to me that well composted wood chips make excellent compost. I usually mix my composts 1:1 with fresh topsoil for use in my gardens.

I will also use the not yet composted wood chips as a top layer of mulch in the garden. As long as you don't mix fresh wood chips into the soil, I have read that you don't have to worry about nitrogen loss for the plants. The only nitrogen loss you will see is at the very surface of the topsoil and that would not affect the plants roots. So, fresh wood chips make excellent mulch in that respect.

Dear Wife has her flower beds, but she insists on using the red colored wood chip mulch. That, unfortunately, I have to buy at the big box stores. And, as you may know, the red coloring fades during the year, so you need to replace it. l was able to work out a compromise with Dear Wife on the red mulch. I will now lay down a layer of free natural brown wood chips I either make at home or get from the landfill, and then she just puts a top layer of her red wood chip mulch on top of that. Same visual effect for her, but saves me lots of money on not having to buy as much red color wood chips mulch from the store.

Happy wife, happy life. I'm just along for the ride...

 

[Percheron chick]

I just signed up for chipdrop. We'll see. I too live out in the middle of nowhere with limited trees but Denver is only 30 mins away. I would love enough to cover 30 acres of dryland pasture but that will never happen.