Pine shavings and poop in the garden?

[ravenfeathers]

Quote:
Gosh darn, I wish someone had told me that last year when I started composting the coop litter ! ! ! I had to go out and buy cow manure in bags this year because my kitchen scrap composter was all messed up by non-decomposed shavings.

oops!

there are a lot of factors in the timing of composting. i once had a pile that had usable compost at the bottom by the eighth month, but it was a heavy pile containing more horse manure than shavings. this was in the bottom six inches of a pile that was easily over 12 feet high. come to think of it, if i'd given it another month or two, i might've had coal....

you should get two composters going (or more, if you've got the space) so that you can be curing one pile while you add to another.

Quote:
wow! lesson learned!

i have been known to put one year old shavings "pack" on the garden, but as a mulch rather than an amendment. by the next year, it's ready to be tilled in.

 

[McGoo]

Well I guess I better git my butt out there and rake all the stuff that I sprinkled around and put it in a big poop pile.

Appreciate the advice... cause I don't want my hard work gone down the drain and no veggies to boot.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

I've been using the compost of shavings and chicken manure for 6 years on my veggie garden and I have no problems and bountiful crops every year......

 

[Zookeeper9000]

Sparrow what your doing sounds like what we call compost tea. Great stuff.

 

[Eggseronious]

Pine shavings and any other evergreen are high in acid, it will change the ph of the soil. One must remember that turpentine and tar

comes from pine trees. Myself I dont use it on the garden composted or not.

 

[CarlaRiggs]

Here in the west, we have lower amounts of nitrogen in the soil. I throw pine shavings out into the garden, but add nitrogen to it This helps it break down more easily, and improves the fertility of the soil.
I've also stopped tilling soil. Doing this releases nitrogen into the air, and bothers all the earthworms.

.... and my back!

Carla

 

[BamaChicken]

We put chicken poop in the area where we were planning on having a garden last year. Everytime we cleaned the coops. It was disk in with a tractor by our neighbor this Spring and I can't believe the size of the plants.
I planted a row of zuchinni squash and left a wide row in the middle of the next row so we could easily walk down through and pick veggies. The zuchinni are at least four feet wide. I will take some pics. They are completely on top of thel tomatoes in the next row. Same way with yellow squash. They have been producing very well for over a month.

 

[halo]

Im with the pro-poop people. I have put horse manure and shavings on my gardens for years with terrific results. My soil is gorgeous now, where it was sandy before. Just this year Ive started adding chicken poop too. The problem with adding wood shavings to gardens is that people till it in. That is a major MAJOR no no. Shavings are fine added like mulch. That doesnt draw nitrogen from the soil, keeps the soil cool and moist. and keeps the plants cool. It then composts in place. When I add shavings, I add some alfalfa pellets under the shavings to feed the soil. I never add shavings and till it in; I let the soil organisms work on the mulch on their own time.