I work for a company in Houston, Tx that recycles green waste and manufactures leaf mold compost. Not only do we sell it to folks for amending their vegetable gardens but we also promote it as a top dressing to be applied at least once a year for peoples lawns. It's great for enriching the soil biome with lots of beneficial bacteria and fungi. Static pile composting is the recommended method as it creates larger colonies of microorganisms as opposed to windrow composting. It takes longer with static pile 9+ months for usable product as opposed to windrow methods but after testing there are nearly twice as many microorganisms in the static pile compost.
Everywhere. You're flippin everywhere I go Cody. I'm not complaining, I just, Idk did your dad spend some time in Houston around 1988 or something? Anyway, I was able to get some accelerated decomposition in a small test batch of pure leaf and grass compost by injecting tiny amounts of air into it. I used two nested pvc pipes. The inner one with tiny little holes facing upward to ensure even pressure and slow flow rate. The outer one having 1/4" holes facing down so that the compost wouldn't clog them as it settled during decomposition. A small 6V diaphragm pump provided the air from one side and a factory QC failed flexible solar cell provided power. It got an ~m^2 pile roasting in open air on a concrete pad in 40-60F. It seemed to do fine without being turned and I noticed significantly more worms than I expected when I probed the bottom of the pile... Then an animal distributed it in like a 2" layer on the slab on a cold night, which killed the heat and I couldn't pull it back until spring, by which time my negligent weatherproofing had killed the pump and it all became a "will plant X grow in failed bug ridden experimental compost" project. So far ginger and russet potatoes grow aggressively in it. At any rate, it might be worth a try scaled up for your purposes.
Cody, I love your vids firstly. Secondly, where are you located? I could maybe hook you up with some for free as long as you have a way to transport it. I work for a composting company!
AS a maintenance gardener, I do quite a few hedges, at first I used to dump the waste in a skip, but now, 99% of my waste is composted. then put back on customers gardens, it has saved me so much money. watching your videos has helped a lot to understand the process I even made a large sieve after seeing your videos.
Here in Italy the recycling facility of each city produces its compost and sells it to the citizens at a very low price (1€ per tonne, at least in my city). For me it is very affordable to buy the compost...
I have heard the same in other places. I think my parents got as much compost as they wanted from their municipality, and only had to pay for the delivery. Not here unfortunately.
In my city, the municipality charges us just as much as they do at Lowes or Home Depot. I refuse to buy it because they stopped the coffee shops from giving out free spent coffee grounds to gardeners. So they take it themselves and then charge is for the compost. This is what happens when you have a city run by ultra capitalist liberals. They take everything from us then turn around and try to sell it back to us.
@@delphzouzou4520 It's the government. They own everything, even your home. Try not paying property taxes and see who really owns your home. They own your home and apparently they own all the spent coffee grounds, too lol. They own everything. Govt is a violent disease. There is no such thing as benevolence in governments.
Appreciate your remarks and dilemma, as always, useful information. I have bought 'compost' and always felt it frivolous. Spending money for something I could produce myself at a very high cost for the quantity available. On the flip side it is an incredible amount of work to produce at any scale useful to even my small Urban vegetable garden. I have watched your videos targeted at compost appreciating your experiences and do hope you continue to compost and share those experiences. And will look forward to results of this large-scale purchased compost.
Thanks. I agree that spending money on something I can produce myself is a problem. I have been thinking since making the video that I really need to scale up my operation, and to explore ways to do it with less work.
I recently acquired an old gardening book from the 1930's. One of the interesting snippets is that the French salad growers of those times spread 50 tons of rotted manure per acre over their land, every year. That was a few cart loads !
50 tons is a lot of manure! I was thinking of how that compares to the amount I have added to my No-Dig garden. Assuming that 1m3 is about the same as 1 ton (which is the basic equation that many people seem to make) then I added the equivalent of 180 tons per acre. But the rotted manure those French salad growers used would have be much richer than the stuff I used, so probably much more fertility would have been available to the plants.
I'm glad you finally "gave in". It's for a good cause, for good people, and the land will do fine. Using the commercial compost as mulch has worked for me. I used it to cover grocery store veg waste, paper, & cardboard with compst on top. I allowed it to sit a season & made all the difference in fertility, at least for my two little beds. Observation is key and you do that very well. Thank you for the videos and your wonderful work. You totaly rock!
I buy in compost and mix it with my homemade compost which I think works because it bulks out my compost and because my compost adds fertility to the bought in compost
I have done this also as i find garden made compost is not good at holding water at all and dries out quickly. However adding bought compost weather peat or coir makes a big difference.
Robert Miller What a great idea. I’m live in a city and will add used coffee grounds, biochar and sand to my finished compost. This adds bulk to my small amount of homemade compost.
I made raised beds that were very deep filling them with organic waste to eventually for down into a bed to plant in. It took 2 years for them to be useful beds. I worked for my small half acre. Each year I start another making it useful for someone in her late 60s. Birdy
Nobody has enough compost! Unless they have a serious farm, 5+ acres. Often, you can either do soil improvement fast, or you can do it cheaply. Wood chips take ~four years to decompose in my climate, but they're free and plentiful. I compromised this year by having 2 tons of compost delivered (wasn't happy with the quality though) and after planting mulched with strimmed leaves from last autumn and then wood chips. It's not easy being patient, but I know in five years, I'll have a more fertile garden with less rock-hard clay (which at least is full of nutrients--gotta give it that). This year, I'll be combining a "good deed" by raking some elderly (more elderly than I, which is plenty! lol) widows' yards in my neighborhood and taking their leaves home. I bought a mulching leaf vacuum so I don't have to add the step of strimming. Native worms seem to eat a pretty thick layer of shredded leaves in about 4 months.
Good way of looking at it - you can have it fast or cheap. It makes me think iff a version of what is called the builders triangle - You can have fast, cheap, and good, but only two of them, never three. (I.e. you can get a house built quickly and cheaply, but it won't be very good.) I think it might be the same with soil improvement.
Right on the button. You state my problem too - making a couple of m2 of finished compost by hand is pretty hard work. Not least the collecting, storing mixing turning etc etc. For the first time, I have been thinking of buying in some compost. Now the old horse that provided out manure has died, I need another source for that component. We have an area of grass that provides three big barrows of clippings per mow three times a fortnight, but it needs incorporating pretty quickly which is something I can't always manage. I noticed a chaff cutter on ebay for not much last week - chops a regular bale into 2" lengths ideal for mixing with grass. For me getting sufficient browns has always been the most difficult part. That and finding room - compost making can be quite an extensive process. The time before, when we had a man do it, it took us three days to transport the "waste" to our "local" recycling centre. Last year we savaged our front privet hedge ourselves. We used our old push mower to pick up the leaves and stems. It was then blatently obvious that this was a much better base for compost than grass. It had reasonably chopped small brown stems, and of course lots of greens. Mixed with our other waste it made lots of excellent compost, and pretty quickly too. Slightly rough, but that just helps drainage... Thanks very much, another of your very thought provoking videos Nick.
I LOVED that you put the amount of compost in a "feel-like" spreadsheet!!!. Amazing amazing job also. Quite interesting also the topic about producing compost for our own operations. I have to ask, how much land are you planting rn and how many square meters is the entire lot that you're managing (with your house and other buildings) I want to have find my father a land for him (and kinda me) for starting a sort of this type of projects, is quite interesting for me and my dad also. Great channel, out of those that share "permaculture" or "farming" you're the most empirical of them, the structure you give to your farm and the way you show it is far more great (for me) than thosw just showing for "entertainment". Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for your supportive comments. They mean a lot, and it is good to know that people value the work I do and the approach I take on these things. This season I have about 700m2 under fairly intensive vegetable production, with about 200m2 under two polytunnels. Out of that I expect to harvest about 4-5 tonnes of vegetables, a lot of which I distribute to my neighbours. Next year I hope to double the area under production. The project that I am working on is located on common land within the ecovillage that I live in, so a bit away form my house.
Wood chips from tree people are free if you have the space it rots down over a couple of years but can be speeded up by the use of chickens, It usually comes by the truck load and is usually organic. If you find a local company you could get several loads a week delivered. A long term project but worth the wait.
Suggestion: Fill the space below your compost sieve with 5 gallon buckets. Then they are already filled when you need to move the contents to the garden beds. Really enjoy your videos, especially during a rainy spring while I wait to create a new garden.
Had similar experience this year, expanded to a much larger area, needed compost for top dressing and bought in bulk from local place. Fertility was extremely low and that are has struggled this whole year, with much being pulled or havign a low yield. Its a large are so hard to afford the higher quality bagged stuffed that I use in our smaller raised bed garden area. Need to keep looking.
@@REDGardens yeah did a mix of different things, unfortunately too little too late, learned for next year. Had other issues as well, its far from the house so irrigation is a daisy chained hose, low pressure, will be fixing that for next year as well, plus issues with gophers
A little tractor with a front end loader could help increase your composting output. A tractor could also help move materials. I'm thinking of a 18 to 25 HP sub compact tractor.
Compost like this generally suffers from having a high C:N ratio. This is the case with the horse manure compost we get (since it is mostly bedding). Adding extra chicken manure (or other nitrogen sources) gives us amazing results. Also, have you tried using less compost? As I recall, you have over 10% organic matter in all of your gardens, which is past the point of diminishing returns (and is potentially even too much, at least according to the Solomon approach).. The other main benefits of compost are phosphorous and potassium, but there are cheaper ways to supplement those (potassium sulfate is quite cheap). Phosphorous can be a bit more difficult, but it does build-up in the soil over time.
Your point about the levels of compost being beyond the point of demising returns is an interesting one, and a similar idea drives the approach to my Extensive Garden. The reason I use so much compost in a few of the gardens is, quite simply, because other people think it is a good idea. So I am trying it out, to see what the impact is..
Thankfully my city offers free composted mulch and I get several cubic yards a year. It needs to be sifted and it is usually of higher salinity than I prefer but it gets the job done. I have very sandy soil so it's critical for water retention.
Have you thought of placing slotted drainage pipe at the bottom of the compost piles to introduce more oxygen to the piles, speeding decomp? A little more complicated then a standard pile, but more oxygen creates compost faster. Turning the pile does this but the extra oxygen is used within a day or two. Drainage pipe allows air exchange more readily at the bottom of the piles, which increases decomp, which heats the pile which draws in more air. Etc...
Here in Brazil we use Castor Bean as a nitrogen source. There are some other ways in which inoculated soybeans, corn, beans, white clover, are plants that help fix nitrogen in the soil.
At the scale I am working at, I find it better to just buy in nitrogen sources, rather than taking up part fo the growing season to grow fertility. At a large scale it would make a lot more sense to grow the green manure.
you need a machine to load / unload bulk materials, like an old tractor with a front end loader. then you can mechanize your production of compost. usually theres some one who runs a chipper and cleans gardens / prunes trees around, typically they are always looking for some where to get rid of stuff.
Yeah, machinery like you mention would help. There are a few people around clearing/chipping trees, but not usually in our area. It has been tough finding enough wood chip in my context.
@@REDGardens What about possibly getting an animal that can pull a wagon? Maybe a small pony or a large goat? Then their manure and bedding would become part of your ecosystem too, and they'd be literally "pulling their weight" with the labor they'd save you! It's a longshot and maybe you don't want to deal with animals. I'm just wondering.
@Marialla Yeah, I don't really want to deal with animals for the time being. A neighbour went down that route and seemed to be nothing but hassle for him.
You seem to be a farmer with the size of your garden.., still for a home vegetable garden of 4 beds I buy in bulk and 1 cubic metre is a practical size that is sufficient.., plus the local supplier of compost near me has a good price and good quality mix. So even though my home made compost degrades slowly.., it is a alternative source that gives a change to the plants. Thanks for your information. Subscribed.😊
I tried this for this season- did not find that the higher price increased yield but I made some significant mistakes planting as well so I'm going to try again next year. I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah and we have several commercial as well as municipal composting supply lines. The cheap stuff can be gotten from the municipal source but they require self loading and delivery which is impossible for small car owners. Great tips on what I can do next year- thanks for reminding me compost does not necessarily mean rich in Nitrogen.
Have you seen some of the videos on here with automatic trommels made with concrete mixers? Combined with your use of a bucket rather than a spade it could be very efficient or with a bit of ingenuity, a hill or ramp and a welder it wouldn't take too much imagination to get a wheelbarrow to feed a makeshift hopper. Actually I think I've found an idea for a video myself!
I do miss southern Ontario. I imagine some land is cheaper, just depends on where you go. But at the small scale I am operating at, land isn't such an issue.
Wanted to share a couple ideas that have worked for me in the past. Wood chips are great, but as you know a source of N is important. Making friends with a local dairy farmer could be a way to get waste corn silage or grass silage. Typically there is waste on the front of the bunk and along the top, sometimes more spoilage gets in. It all has a shelf life and when it's bad, it's bad. Usually the waste is pulled off and spread with the manure. It may take some time for them to build up a big pile, but it will be rich material. I'll bet you could offer to trade produce for waste silage, they may even load your trailer for you with their machinery....fresh produce makes friends fast! I've composted 1/3 waste corn silage and 2/3 wood chips mixed with a manure spreader. Bulk raw poultry litter mixes well with wood chips too.
You do SO MUCH for one man! Any average home gardener would have just one of your gardens and feel they were putting in plenty of work at that. And you've got, what, six? And they're BIG gardens, too, not even just the side-salad type! So of COURSE you are overworked trying to do the labor necessary for six times (or more) what the average home gardener would grow! Don't feel bad about outsourcing some of that labor if possible. I hope you find a source for the compost you need at an affordable price.
Thanks. Yes, it is a lot of work, but this is my 'job' and not something I do on the side as a hobby or occasional task. Though I still take on way more than I can manage.
Also brought in green waste compost, own its own it doesn’t hold water very well. I was told by the guy at the green waste site where they process it the farmer by it to plough into the top of the fields use it as a soil conditioner.
I used to live in an area that had the green bins (green/plant waste)to use beside the black bins (trash) and they would sell the compost on the other end. It is nice when your community does this, but it's not always available. You will need to consider how to automate some of your process in any way you can if you are going to scale up at all, but I'm sure you are already thinking about that. Your time is valuable. Good luck!
I don't think that there is much available from my local council, but I really should check. You are right about the need to automate some of the processes of composting if I am going to scale up, and it would make sense to get in machinery to do the heavy lifting.
I was down my council tip and saw the gutter sweepers coming in and dumping their poison into the green waste section. Oil, rubber, fag ends, dog poo, needles etc etc etc. Farmers are poisoning their land by getting free "green waste" from their local councils. Madness.
If you get this message it might offer some sound advice. Here in my local area we have a family with a rabbitry. We buy in several tonnes of his rabbit manure at the cost of human labor and a few dollars per tonne. Have you considered using rabbits as a source of compost material? The animals will add two sources of end product for your operation - manure and meat . We find it offers a much higher quality material and a little goes a long way. We add straw, grass clippings, table scrap and cardboard from our local area. Just an idea from a rookie backyard gardener. Cheers and excellent progress from when I first watched a video of yours a couple years ago.
Eating is just an option. Selling as pets is popular in the states. I rather enjoy them simply for their manure. Thank you for the reply. I really am impressed at your scale and the tenacious attitude you put into your work. Keep up the videos.
Have you checked out Justin Rhodes, re chickens preping garden in situ. Tilling, fertilising, add some near finished compost and they spread it for you.
Love your site and style and scientific approach and your desire to avoid machinery is laudable but isn’t the need to buy in compost.... which can be very expensive.... indicative of a need to embrace some simple machinery and also to a different type of slower composting ? I have big garden and am a good bit older than you but I have a very long and very high wooden structure into which I have dumped tons ... and I mean tons ... in a lasagne method.... of horse manure , spent hops , seaweed. , grass , hay and straw andweeds etc and this is stuff that would never hot compost as it’s too compact with wrong ratios and would need mega machinery to turn but very soon it is full of specialised worm farm type worms and I just keep adding everything on top and the worms are everywhere and in great quantities and there is a little warmth in it all... about 10 c above normal soil... in May I plant potatoes in this and what a crop I get ! ....and in This June put in some squashes which are doing really well so far.... a couple of years ago I took planks off one side and had huge amounts of phenomenal compost which I think was mostly worm cast compost which is the undisputed apotheosis
I don't know how that purchased compost is but it looked comparable tot he stuff we have available around here. We've learned that it usually isn't done yet. I do see it cause deficiencies in gardens (in fact, it's notorious for it), however, it might partly be that they were just not finished decomposing. Around here, they are often still hot when people buy it! We had one pig pile of purchased compost which we left sitting under a tarp for perhaps a year and when we spread it over the garden bed, at about 2 inch deep, it produced dark green kale with very large leaves for the next year! The kale is only now staring to slow a little. So maybe the compost just needs to sit longer to mellow out.
We have started experimenting with deep compost mulch. My main concern is that we might end up with really unbalanced soil chemistry because of the excess phosphorus. Lettuce seems limp and things like chard and fennel tend to bolt early
I share the concern, and I think it could be a critical issue with the method. I would have thought that excess potassium would be the issue, but Guess it depends on what the origin of the compost is. The supply I got seems to be a lot higher in K than in P. Have you got a soil test?
I ve learned that compost is stabilized Organic Matters (OM), in other terms, already eaten and mineralized OM. It is the left over from the decomposition process. That means, all the energy (sugar) has been consumed (mineralized by bacterias : energy lost in heat and gas) Compost increase the amount of OM in the soil, and this will help to keep up with moisture and give back a bit of elements to feed the plants, but it won’t feed the life of the soil (worms, mycelium, insects, bacterias that are literally a stock of potential NPK and complex compound useful for the plants etc...). The plants will of course be able to catch up some minerals from compost, that hasn’t been washed out by the rain or the watering (within compost, minerals elements are soluble, a soluble state that could be avoided by having this elements attached to complex molecules, like within the argilo-humic complex, that also a reason to keep the compost away from the rain). Depending with what the compost has been made originally, some will have more Nitrogen than others, but nothing comparable with manure. Although, manure too does not feed the soil either, it will feed the plant quickly on a short amount of time, but then it’s close to an aquaponic system. An aquaponic system does work, but in the case of manure on a tilled garden soil, element comes and then disappear very quickly and the plants can be stressed out by any lack of element (because they suck up elements and they didn’t learn how to get it on their own) and in the worst case get sick or vulnerable to insects of fongic attack. I see a potential solution in order to avoid this sudden change of accessibility to nutritious elements, it is by having an active micro and macro wildlife within the soil that will eat, poop, block elements, release some other, create complex compound and structures the microporosity of the soil. The increase of life within the soil, help the process of humification. (Humus, are complex molecules of carbone attached to Calcium that can retain Otherwise NPK solubles elements. This humus compound can then be break when the plant needs it and this represent a stock of fertility for the plant. ) Useful humus (there are many Humus type) is made by anecique worms, (not the red one that live in compost ) they eat OM and create a bound between Calcium molecule and mineral molecule within their glandular organ. The life in the soil keep and create a lot of different compounds, that are ready to use building blocks for the plants, whereas, NPK require a lot of energy from the photosynthesis to recreate this compound in order to build their tissues. My point is: compost didn’t feed the life of the soil, it only feeds the plants, if compost does not feed the life of the soil, there is no life to structure the soil and to create complex molecules able to retain elements within none soluble compound (complexe argilo-humic or lively organic tissues like mycelium net). Without structure made by the life of the soil, you need to till the soil in order to bring oxygen in it. If you till the soil, you destroy what’s left of the life of the soil, you mineralize all the elements into soluble elements and your soil lost fertilities and the capacity to fight against erosion (somehow you make coffee out of the ground) You then need to add more compost and manure. One way to bring back life into soil is to use fresh high carbonated organic matter like chip of branch of the year (ramial chipped wood) or dry straw. If there is still a bit of life in the soil, it is possible to add this straw, or wood chip at the end of the summer, and mix it with the top 10 cm of soil soil (the amount can goes up to 25t/ha according to Francois Mulet and Conrad Shreiber) The mycelium will attack this high carbonated element first, and capture all the nitrogen in the surrounding area in order to build their cellular structure leading to a temporary “end of Nitrogen” (the more carbonated element you use, the longest the end of Nitrogen may appear, although this end of Nitrogen can be compensated by using manure like chicken manure, or fresh grass the first year. You could also plant only nitrogen fixer plants, or green manure. The best is nitro fixer green manure.) The longest and hardest the end of nitrogen is, the more you fix nitrogen in your soil through mycellium, nitro fixer bacterias and nitro-fixer plant (by the way, nitro fixer plant only fix nitrogen on a soil where there is an end of nitrogen, if there is accessible nitrogen to them, they won’t create symbiotic nodulosity). After some time, mycellium will die and compost whitin the soil and release the nitrogen and other compounds. The whole system will be Kickstarted, and a huge amount of nitrogen will be available to the plants AND the life of the soil. The whole system will keep up like that as long as, the soil is fed every year with carbon (not compost or high nitrogen manure, approximately 20 to 25t/ha on a very lively soil, it can also be understand to a minimum of 1cm of Ramisl wood chip per year), the soil is not tilled, and the soil is protected with a thin layer of straw or wood chip. That was a little “résumé” of what I’ve learned from the French You tube channel : Ver de terre production, and MSV (maraîchage sur sol vivant) Maybe you have an opinion about it? I was wondering, if it wouldn’t had been a good idea to use straw or ramial wood ship for the No Dig garden (rather than compost) and see how/if the life increase and if it has any consequence on the structure and the fertility of this garden. Many thanks for all the videos you made!
Depending on how cold it gets during the winter in you area, you could sow in a cold resistant pea or bean variety in Autumn, like Austrian Winter Peas, and harvest in the early fall. Peas and beans are nitrogen fixers, so they don't take nitrogen from the soil, only the atmosphere. Once you harvest the peas, just chop up and sow the debris from the pea plants back into the soil to give the soil a nice nitrogen boost.
Fixing nitrogen with a green manure would be very useful, though it wouldn't solve the issue I have will not enough organic matter for the gardening methods I am using. The amount of biomass that is needed is huge.
@@REDGardens Oh, for sure it wouldn't solve the issue outright. I was thinking of small additions that would help lessen the issue. Another thought I had was to plant sacrificial crops. I have done it in the past for pest control, but it also provided me with extra compost material. To maximize biomass though, hardy crops with high biomass production would be ideal. Crops that wouldn't have much issue growing in the native soil and don't require much attention. I'd offer suggestions on what those crops might be, but unfortunately I don't know much about Irish soil. Good luck in your endeavors and I look forward to seeing more great videos from you.
I wonder if there's any rough relation between the amount of vegetation matter you take out of each garden compared to the amount of compost you use each season. The nutrients that get taken out of the soil system by human consumption and discarded plant matter would in theory represent the gap that's filled in with compost. Also, keep up the great work! You're living the dream
Thanks. Good points/questions. Looking at it from a fertility standpoint, it would be interesting to figure out how much compost is need - of what quality - to replace what is removed each season. With some of the gardening methodologies I am following, another key part of the large amounts of compost that is recommended to add is to feed the soil organisms, and to improve the water holding capacity of the soil, among other benefits.
What industries in Ireland produce masses of organic waste? Might be worth hitting them up, building a giant pile and leaving it to do its thing. You could try brewing/food manufacturing companies, supermarkets/restaurants/cafes, arborists/logging/milling companies, orchards and seafood companies.
Around here it is mostly just cattle (with slurry tanks). There are a few other industries that may have organic wastes that I could get, though I would need to set up a better area for unloading and processing it all.
Windrow composting, and free horse manure, is one way to increase compost production, especially if you have acces to a dump trailer. Window composting of free wood chips, makes excellent fungal dominant mulch also With your operation, in bed composting as rough compost material for mulches will be the most efficient. In bed composting by using it as mulch that feeds, while it further breaks down. Tarping between crops will be necessary to eliminate weed seeds from some manures. Another option to reduce need for compost is get free woodchips, to use it as a mulch layer, on top of your in bed rough compost, especially when growing big crops like zucchini, potatoes or tomatoes; then when your beds are resting, its an option to use mobile electric netting and chick shaw coups: so an egg laying flock will be adding their manure to the bed, for that beds rest cycle. Chickens make quick work of green manure crops, and if there's anything left, it can be tarped for a few weeks: so the worms will get whats left. Check out Justin Rhodes videos, on how he uses his chickens to fertalize and spread compost on his garden beds. If you have enough extra beeds to rotate in green crops, creating enought beds to rotate in chicken flocks, will be well worth it, especially if you have a market for the organic eggs. Chickens are like living composters, either quickly turning it into manure or mulch, then spreading it, so you just compost right into the pen, weeds, clipping, scraps, horse manure, everything. You can set up and in bed pallet bin, to pasturize the material if its of concern with pathogens in your garden bed. When the chickens are done working the beds, leave a few weeks to tarp before planting, so any weed seeds sprout then smother, and your good to go for another few seasons. The chickens will even spread your mulches, like woodchips or hourse manure. You just have to figure out what will be most efficient for you in the long run. Things like: establishing a market for eggs, letting the chickens turn and spread those hourse manures, investing in some trucking or silage tarps. Which may be more efficient and cost effective in the long run. At least compared to buying compost, or constantly working to haul new material to the compost piles; then turn it numerous times; then hauling it back to the beds to spread. Less trips, less hauling, less turning, maybe some tarping, keep it simple and efficient. Food for thought.
One of the big issues for me is that I do not have access to a dump trailer, or even a car - I don't drive. So a lot of the options require me to get a favour from a friend, which complicates things. It is also hard enough to get wood chips around here, but I am slowly building up a supply. I set up a version of the chicken composter last year and it seemed to work well, and I hope to do it again next season. But as you say, it is all about working out the efficiencies in terms of labour, cost and material within my specific context.
Have you considered adding activated biochar to this inferior compost. I have seen a marked improvement in my garden with its addition. My impression of chicken manure is that it works better if added in fall and allowed to break down over winter.
I hadn't thought of adding biochar to this stuff, mainly because I am saving my supplies of biochar for another garden. I suspect you are right, that it would be better to mix in the high fertility chicken manure and let it mellow for a while.
Have you had any problems with invasive shrubs? Our neighbor planted something that has taken over and is now in our yard. It's a woody and comes up from runners underground. In 1 year it has taken over an entire 100sqft of What should be our vegetable garden. I've been cutting it at the ground but it always comes right back up!!
meemo32086 no real experience but try covering with lightproof material ie thickly layered cardboard/ newspaper, certain landscape clothsetc, but need to leave it until plant near is dead not dormant. Seen a few TH-cam vids re invasive weed management, but not tried anything yet
Have you considered using different composting techniques to convert your biomass faster? One method that might suit your volume needs is a dedicated worm composter in a series of large bins. Another could be an anerobic digester, which has been gaining popularity in dry areas like California and India. Rather than your batch composting, digesters can operate continuously, and they require almost no maintenance beyond water, food scraps, and a little manure. They can be simply built from a few tubes and a series of large water barrels. However you plan to move forward, I wish you good luck.
I would like to try both a worm composter and a digester. Perhaps I will be able to st up a worm composter next year, but a digester might have to wait a while longer. Then there is still the issue of gettin genius material to feed the worms so that they can produce the amount of fertility I need.
Composting needs loads of space and materials to begin with those with small gardens struggle to have sufficient material and space unless it’s brought in from outside. Here in the uk you can collect horse manure with straw for free from horse stables. You also need sufficient greens to compost so it’s hard. So it leaves little choice but to get ready made stuff. However some of these shop compost seems bulked up with sand. Catch 22 😞
I think that would be a great option. My problem is that I have trouble getting enough wood chip around here, even thou I keep pestering the tree surgeons who work in the region.
Are the chicken manure pellets a UK product? Reading through the comments, I see some folks suggest using livestock to fertilize and till the soil. But animal management adds more layers of time & effort, plus costs of feed & care. Whether practicing no-dig or traditional tillage, many folks(excluding you) may not understand that the soil biology has to be maintained with periodic applications of compost or mulch. Your overall growing operation is large enough, and your composting needs are large enough, that they could be viewed as two separate operations. If you are the primary worker in your gardens, and infrequently have outside help, then buying-in compost may be the cost effective way to go. This allows you to focus the bulk of your time & energy on the growing operation. Wish I could be there to manage the compost for you. :)
I like the way you are thinking, of separating the production of compost from the growing of vegetables, despite them being so interlinked. At least seeing compost production as a separate dedicated task that needs to be done - by someone - not just aside part of growing vegetables.
I resist buying compost too so I go out to the logging roads and get free Red Alder branches (ramial wood) to mulch in my little hammer mill shredder. The bonus is that this kind of mulch, especially if its still leafy, can be mixed in a bit right away to lighten my mucky black double-dug wicking beds, and it composts quickly on top too in our damp climate. The first year I composted Alder mulch with urea for 5 months just to get it in the garden faster. Keyword ramial wood chips and professor Gilles Lemieux for rebuilding farm and forest soil with wood mulch; no-dig will be better for it.
@@REDGardens You may need a small tractor. Bust open the bins and switch to laying material out in rows. Just keep turning it every two weeks with a tractor. maybe keep 3 rows so you always know how aged each pile it. You're just getting to the point where you can't do this one your own with manual labor.
Also, see if you can make a partnership with a local coffee chain to pick up all their grounds once each week. Then match that up with a tree cutting service that can give you woodchips by the 20x20ft truckload. The combination should give you enough material to finish your own. But again don't do all this by hand your going to wreck yourself.
@@wes9451 A tractor would help, though I can't see myself getting one for the next few seasons. Coffee grounds and wood chip are potentially great resources that have had difficulties in getting around here. In this rural area there aren't a lot of coffee shops, and the owner of the one in our village keeps all of the grounds for her own garden. I've contacted all fo the tree surgeons in the area, and get an occasional load of wood chip, but they are surprisingly scarce.
Could you perhaps supplement with large quantities of leafmold? Generally its a much less manual process to manage, and considerably less labour intensive, and matier sourcing is generally much easier.
The problem around here is getting the leaf mould, or even the clean leaves. There is a place I know that has a load of leaves building up in a hollow, but it is on private land.
Everything is risky when you look to outside sources. If any of the leaves are from Ash trees, then it is possible those trees are being treated with TREEage (emamectin benzoate?) for the Emeral Ash Borer. Emamectin benzoate take many years to break down and traces of it are found in worm poop after worms eat waste from leaves treated with emamectin benzoate. It's a sick world we live in. I could have an unlimited supply of Ash tree leaves, but because the trees are treated with emamectin benzoate ever 2 years, I won't touch the stuff let alone use in in my garden.
I was thinking more in domestic gardens in autumn, so untreated leaves. Generally people are very happy to get rid of them from gardens if you put out something to let them know that if they bag them you will collect them and turn them into something useful. We have beech trees lining the street here, and the local road sweeper crew empty their hoppers of leaves for us on our site. There is usually a little debris, but usually the act of simply forking it into the compost bays causes the stones etc to fall through, and a seive before use removes the last of the pieces. We tend to run the lawnmower over it so it breaks down more quickly. If added to a regular compost pile as a brown source it is ready for use in a season.
Good vid,compost is a very time intensive process .with a great deal of labor- that why it's not free,as you know,the only good addition is vermiculture.I don't know if you've tried it it but it's a excellent addition ,but all good things take time,all the best in your future success !
i go to the super market for veg..and offgrid i would do the same and then jar the left overs..i would however grow nice flowers and have bees present..
I've got a question that I never really thought about until you flashed that bee pollinating. How does that work in the tunnel? Do you have problems getting pollinators in there? I never really thought about how they'd get inside if it was all closed up like that. Obviously you can't stop up every hole and they could find their way in with some effort, but with all the other stuff you have just out in the open would they really go through the effort of getting in the plastic tunnel and then finding a way back out?
PKSkeith in summer tunnels are always open both ends for aeration (and in sunny day even in other seasons). Bees can easily find their way in and out if you grow crops that require insects pollination. I used to grow melons in small tunnels (to be removed in summer) and when I started the acclimatization process by cutting small windows in the plastic I could see the bees buzzing inside in no time.
Good observation. As @I lost my pointer mentions, most of the plants are self pollinated, but I do get a fair number of bumblebees coming into the polytunnel and working through the flowers, and most of them seem to be able to find their way out again. My polytunnels are rarely closed during the day, except in the winter.
what do you think about helping the soil producing it´s own compost by feeding it with tons of (kitchen)scraps, clipping of gras etc. so it is covered, stays wet, attracts worms and gradually builds up compost by itself, instead of adding and adding compost?
I have used a version of that approach with my sheet mulching in the Simple Garden. It works really well in that context as I cover it, and grow squash in the red the next season. For other plants it would be a problem.
as I understand it the soil web of life feeds the plants but can only do so if the soil is undisturbed and covered and living roots are present all year round and broken down organic matter is present to feed the soil life. forest gardening creates these conditions but relies on perennials. if we could combine forest gardening with annual vegetable production this would remove the need to import large amounts compost. I am trying to do this by growing perennials in my veg beds some of which I can chop and drop and undersowing and interplanting vegetables with cover crops which are cut down and left in situ to rot down. thus the soil is always covered living roots are always present the soil is never dug . any green material from crop residues or other areas of my garden such as hedge trimmings are laid on the paths between the beds and can be pulled across as a mulch if need be such as when a late crop is harvested and there is no time to sow a cover crop. I have moved to this system after years of digging and making compost and hauling it around. now I only buy compost for seed raising. seems to be working for me so far but early days as I have only been doing this for a couple of years.
The idea of the soil food web feeding the plants is a fascinating one, and I have no doubt that it can be really beneficial. But plants cam=n also grow in a sterile hydroponic solution, so it is plants obviously don't need the soil biology. Which approach is better, or easier to enable is, I think the interesting question.
Very interested in composting. Please do more on the subject. Currently I'm also breeding worms (night crawlers and red wrigglers) to be added to my garden and compost. Much more fun with worms!
Its a prob;em I have as well on a limited budget. Could you mix bought in with your own compost on your scale an old cement mixer may make work less back breaking. Look forward to further updates. Keep them coming as you make brilliant topics
If I was to use it in my other gardens, your idea of mixing with my own compost would probably be a good idea. With the No-Dig garden, I think it owl have been better to add a liquid feed of worm tea, or urine, or some other high nitrogen fertiliser. With such a thick layer on this garden, it would take too much of my own compost, I think.
could you update us on the yield of the potatoes and other vegetables grown in the compost you bought. Like if its the same or more than last year i would consider that well worth the effort despite any nutrient deficiency seen in the plants.
I feel your pain. No shame in buying compost. I have the same issues of low fertility in my local bought compost. I'm in FL with very Sandy soil. I get lots of free wood chips, they just take too long for decomp. I have fallen in love with chicken pellet fertilizer but it gets expensive.
I have heard that the sandy soils of Florida can be really tough to keep fertility in. How long do you think it takes before your wood chip begins to be of benefit?
@@REDGardens I try not to use too much of the wood chips in the veggie garden mainly due to issues with the jang seeder. (I'm just too lazy to hand seed lol) But I have lots of fruit trees and I pile the mulch fairly high (10-12 inches, it settles down quite a bit) and I've noticed after 6 months the stuff on the bottom starts to break down, after a yr the soil underneath looks very good. I think due to the sand soils it burns up the organic material quickly, that's mainly why I use so much and replace it yearly (or whenever I get back to it). I have recently watched the rough draft farmstead on youtube and he says he does chips in the path and as it breaks down he incorporates the soil into the grow bed. So I've thought about trying that, but the compost I buy in is all wood based. Sometimes it comes a bit too young, and if very wood chippy. I pile it high with my tractor and try to heat it back up to finish decomp. I also mix it with my neighbors horse manure bedding. But I find it really zaps the soil initially and I have to use the chicken manure pellets to really stop the nitrogen lockup and get it broken down enough that the plants can handle it. I'm really gonna go nuts with cover crops next summer and before hand cover the entire garden with tall piles of chips. I really want tons of organic material and with my spreading the stick compost alone, I'm not happy with where I'm at. It's always a fight...Esp since this is my first yr on this soil.
@@Swampsquash That is a lot of chip. I wish I could get my hands on a load more to do similar experimentation, though I don't think it would be as beneficial in my context as I already have pretty good topsoil.
@@REDGardens Yeah I get quite a bit. It's FL, stuff grows really fast and nearly year round lol. I would gladly trade my constant supply of chips for your topsoil lol
I have used CRE compost over the last three years. Had to sieve it all but it worked out. I grow pretty good veg of all kinds. But this year I found someone in Co. Limerick that provides cheap compost..PM me for details..
Great video! It is the gardeners dilemma to always be seeking to improve your soil. My garden was all clay and rock when I started 20 years ago. I created one new bed a year, removing all the rock and clay that I could and disposing of it. Then I started with new soil and manure. After 10 years I had 10 beds with decent soil, but they need to be topped up continually with compost. It seems you can never get enough good soil, and your soil is never good enough. Almost makes you want to switch to hydroponics!
Cheap and easy synthetic solutions can work - up to a point - and they also tend to have a lot of unfortunate externalities, most of which are not 'paid for' by the person who benefits from their use.
@Lapis Manalis I can see your point, if you are running a business you need efficiency to maximize your profit. Agricultural food production is way more productive than traditional agriculture. I just want a nice yard with some nice trees, shrubs and flowers. My experience is that is easier and more rewarding with good soil and lots of money.
This is one concern I have about no dig gardening. I do like the idea of the method in principle but when trying to become self sufficient in food (well veg anyway) it is sometimes difficult to justify the purchase of large amounts of compost from an outside source just to maintain a no dig methodology, if you can't produce all you need yourself. Another great, well rationalised video.
Thanks. I share your concerns about this particular No-Dig method, but the way I see it is that if you live in an context that this type of compost resource is very available, then go for it. If not then use some other method. One thing that I have realised over the years is that every vegetable garden demands more resources than it can generate itself, so you always need resources of fertility and carbon from outside the confines of the vegetable patch itself. Historically, a lot of the manure from the family cow went onto the vegetable patch rather than back out onto the field where it came from. You can manage with cover crops to a certain extent, but it seems only if you have double the area to grow in, alternating between fertility building growing and 'cashing in' that fertility.
RED Gardens Sean and Sasha are great people and produce really good informative content. As far as I'm aware they mainly feed their chickens by collecting scraps from restaurants, buy in grain with the intent of sprouting it, scraps from their own kitchen as well as growing fruit trees around their property for seasonally fresh fruit.
If you're already providing food locally them I'm sure the neighbours would be more than willing to give you their kitchen scraps, although there may not be much left overs in an eco village!
@@MrBeSmArTNRuN Yeah, getting the food scraps form the restaurants is a great way to go. I wish had that kind of access, but lack of transport combined few restaurants in the area means it is not really viable for me. I already get a lot of the kitchen scraps form my neighbours, and should really make the effort to get some more. Last year I followed the suggestions of edible acres and fed my chickens with all this stuff, and it worked well, but it was just diverting it from usual composting systems, so in the end I didn't end up with more compost (though perhaps better and easier). Most of the organic material that I can get relatively easily around here is less nutritious and not really interesting for the chickens.
RED Gardens Local shops that sell fresh produce could also be utilised, although if they are not owned by local people it may be more difficult to get what you want. I have just recently found your channel and really enjoy your content. I would love to get down your way some time. I have been in contact with Owen and mimi in the past to enquire about their dairy. It was only on discovering this channel that I found out Cloughjordan is an eco village, sounds like an interesting place to be!
Do you have spare land that could offer free dumping of woodchip and garden waste? I watched a you tube video were the guy was breeding worms and just adding them to the piles of waste she they had matured a little and was getting a constant supply of compost with very little effort
The problem with horses is they don’t digest nearly as thoroughly as cows. Whole seeds commonly pass through. Of course properly composted manure will take care of it. The other problem is the average ph is around 8.5. Being you already have a high ph soil I wonder how it effects it. Iron is almost completely blocked out above 7.5 making me wonder if the lack of color is from iron deficiently. I bought 4 yards of compost 2 years ago. My crops wouldn’t grow, even store bought plants would die. I suspect the compost, which was made from yard waste, had some sort of herbicide. I hate having things out of my control but sometimes you have no choice. I went from having a garden people drooled over to almost nothing. One crop seemed to flourish, sweet and regular potatoes. The plants grew like weeds and were incredibly healthy. This year I brought in 7 yards of horse and 4 yards of custom blend for the top. I also added bagged mushroom and black kow. The horse was $3 a yard and the custom was $50. I trailered it in myself. Here’s hoping for a good crop.
Don't feel bad buying in Bruce, it looks like it just isn't possible to produce enough for what you need. Also, the better quality compost may be the way to go, to help 'guarantee' a good crop, and save on labour👍 Cheers.
Saving labour is an important thing these days. Though I have been thinking of how much time it would take me to produce a m3 of compost, including collecting all the material. If I am sensible about it, it might only be 5 hours, in which case i could be paying myself the equivalent of €20 compared to buying in the better stuff. That is a big incentive.
Great video. I’m wanting to try composting next year in our vegetable garden. We’re still using starter tomatoes. Would I lay the compost down first, and then dig out a hole for the starter tomato plant to go into? We do seeds for lettuce, carrots, etc. would I plant the seeds in the ground and then lay some compost post over the top?
Thanks. With the tomatoes I don't think it really matters if the compost goes on before or after the tomatoes are transplanted. With the lettuce and carrots, I think it is better to sow them on top of the compost, so that the tiny seeds are not buried too deep.
I'm so worried about rats. I'm considering buying compost instead too but then it won't solve my less waste contribution issue. It's hard to decide. My raw peals of veg and fruit scraps weren't managed properly and started to grow small flies, I then added more soil and dry cut grass and am hoping to balance out the odour but I also worry that my compost won't breakdown or that its too dry since I've added soil. When I opened my container stuff was growing so I take it as a sign that there was too much moisture. My other concern is that the weeds and seeds won't die because my compost hasn't heated up as I saw in your no rules compost video. Complete first timer, but your spirit in all the videos makes failing look attractive with you learning experience mentality, I really admire that and great work keep it up. I'm combining knowledge from your Red Gardens and Farmer Rishi's TH-cam videos to gain knowledge and I thank you
Have you ever considdered wormfarming as the main decomposing method? As I understand it, this takes maybe as little as a quarter of the time to produce the same amount of compost. In addition, it is much less workintensive, and it promotes soil microlife, witch, I guess, must be paramount on a farm like yours. Altso, a healty wormculture doesn't smell as bad as a compost pile :)
I would like to explore worm farming on a more dedicated or focused level, but as @FrankEdavidson mentioned, the worms naturally migrate to the compost pile after it cools down, so a lot of the finished compost will be worm casts.
@@REDGardens I'm sure they do. My understanding is, though, that the workload of the wormcity (wormbin, wormfarm or youknow...) compared to the traditional compost is absolutely to your advantage. And sure, it is the same as what you put on your field in this video. But the video matter is bought and paid for. And , granted, the compost output is the same as this. But the houres of labour put in and the overall time from raw to finish product is in my opinion worth a checkout. But nevertheless, keep up the good work, I (among great many others) get good inspiration from it.
How about a woodchip projekt to reduce the amount of compost? I am not sure how available it is at your place or if you have enough cuttings from hedges you can use with a shipper.
It would be great, and that is the direction I want to go with another part of the project, but getting enough wood chip in this area has been difficult.
@@REDGardens Then maybe with straw or hay. Have seen a no dig video of Potatoes, and onion (Back To Reality) but at your climate slugs will maybe a problem.
You do a lot of mathematics on this channel to determine yields per unit area etc. I’m surprised you didn’t show an analysis of what your time is worth to create compost versus buying it in. Be interesting to see your thoughts.
Good point. I was thinking adding that info into this video, but felt it needed its own video to do it justice. A lot depends on the method I use for making compost. A few years ago when I was turning my no-rules compost every 4-6 weeks, and then sieving it all at the end, I figured that I would have spent up to 6-7 hours on a m3 of compost. So if the compost was €55 then it would be about €8-9 per hour (minimum wage). But I think my compost is better than this stuff, so if I compare it to the other better quality compost that I could buy at €115 per m3, that would translate to closer to €15-20 euro per hour, which is definitely worth the effort! More recently, with some of the batch methods I use, or even with the hen compost system I was trying, it could easily be much better than that. None of those figures include the time collecting the material itself though.
I believe that there are differences between the compost he produces and the compost he is able to buy, so that would factor into whether the municipally produced compost could substitute for all his compost. Also, if he wasn’t composting garden and chicken wastes, he would need to dispose of it in other ways, and there would be labor inputs for that.
RED Gardens thank you for taking the time to address my point. It’s essential you look at the opportunity cost of that time you take to gather compost materials in my opinion. I’m sure you have so much to do. However, I too would much rather make my own almost regardless of the cost compared to purchased. As a top up, I think you have the correct approach. Outstanding channel.
I consider myself lucky that my city gives away free mulch and compost. I just have to drive to get it, and you're only allowed to take so much in one trip.
great video, the no dig will eventually balance? if there is too much carbon will continue to absorb nitrogen but in the long run shouldn't it release it? at least you have options to choose here at Dominican Republic we don't even have the option to buy it, just not available at all.
Did you use the compost as soon as it arrived? From what I understand from the experience of others and my own, the stuff bought in like this is rarely ready and is best left unused for some months. Mine was 65c when it arrived and the same 2 months later but yours looked more mature. Mine also smelled very different from the stuff that I produce on my own
RED Gardens have you considered ducks? They could also help with your slugs issue as described in another video. And what about increasing tree cover on the hedges to increase the volume of brown in your compost? What are your thoughts on this?
@@Mariecl3 Ducks aren't really an option in the open access site where the gardens are located, but perhaps in my larger Black Plot at some point in the future. Hedge trimmings is one source of carbon that I haven't really tapped into - though I think it would be best to get a big chipper first.
I work for a company in Houston, Tx that recycles green waste and manufactures leaf mold compost. Not only do we sell it to folks for amending their vegetable gardens but we also promote it as a top dressing to be applied at least once a year for peoples lawns. It's great for enriching the soil biome with lots of beneficial bacteria and fungi. Static pile composting is the recommended method as it creates larger colonies of microorganisms as opposed to windrow composting. It takes longer with static pile 9+ months for usable product as opposed to windrow methods but after testing there are nearly twice as many microorganisms in the static pile compost.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
thanks for sharing that. Helps those of us who never get around to turning the piles feel better! :D
I’m going to have to do this too. Too much raised bed not enough bio mass to convert. ;)
Hope you can find a good source of compost.
Everywhere. You're flippin everywhere I go Cody. I'm not complaining, I just, Idk did your dad spend some time in Houston around 1988 or something?
Anyway, I was able to get some accelerated decomposition in a small test batch of pure leaf and grass compost by injecting tiny amounts of air into it. I used two nested pvc pipes. The inner one with tiny little holes facing upward to ensure even pressure and slow flow rate. The outer one having 1/4" holes facing down so that the compost wouldn't clog them as it settled during decomposition. A small 6V diaphragm pump provided the air from one side and a factory QC failed flexible solar cell provided power. It got an ~m^2 pile roasting in open air on a concrete pad in 40-60F. It seemed to do fine without being turned and I noticed significantly more worms than I expected when I probed the bottom of the pile... Then an animal distributed it in like a 2" layer on the slab on a cold night, which killed the heat and I couldn't pull it back until spring, by which time my negligent weatherproofing had killed the pump and it all became a "will plant X grow in failed bug ridden experimental compost" project. So far ginger and russet potatoes grow aggressively in it.
At any rate, it might be worth a try scaled up for your purposes.
@@AtlasReburdened I am getting a similar feeling.
Cody, I love your vids firstly. Secondly, where are you located? I could maybe hook you up with some for free as long as you have a way to transport it. I work for a composting company!
AS a maintenance gardener, I do quite a few hedges, at first I used to dump the waste in a skip, but now, 99% of my waste is composted. then put back on customers gardens, it has saved me so much money. watching your videos has helped a lot to understand the process I even made a large sieve after seeing your videos.
Good idea, makes sense. D you compost the material on the customers property, or do you bring it all back to a central compost on your site?
Do you put the waste through a shredder ?
@@richardjones3112 yes
Outstanding vid,, Love the honest approach from this man to the problems he has, keep the vids coming we can all learn from them.
Thanks.
Here in Italy the recycling facility of each city produces its compost and sells it to the citizens at a very low price (1€ per tonne, at least in my city). For me it is very affordable to buy the compost...
t. s. Sigh if Italian politics wasn’t such a shambles (but where isn’t it a shambles) I would just move there for the compost ;)
I have heard the same in other places. I think my parents got as much compost as they wanted from their municipality, and only had to pay for the delivery. Not here unfortunately.
In my city, the municipality charges us just as much as they do at Lowes or Home Depot. I refuse to buy it because they stopped the coffee shops from giving out free spent coffee grounds to gardeners. So they take it themselves and then charge is for the compost. This is what happens when you have a city run by ultra capitalist liberals. They take everything from us then turn around and try to sell it back to us.
@@VladTheImpalerTepesIII That's horrible. Why would the coffeshops accept that ? Did the mayor promised them to lower their taxes ?
@@delphzouzou4520 It's the government. They own everything, even your home. Try not paying property taxes and see who really owns your home. They own your home and apparently they own all the spent coffee grounds, too lol. They own everything. Govt is a violent disease. There is no such thing as benevolence in governments.
Appreciate your remarks and dilemma, as always, useful information.
I have bought 'compost' and always felt it frivolous. Spending money for something I could produce myself at a very high cost for the quantity available.
On the flip side it is an incredible amount of work to produce at any scale useful to even my small Urban vegetable garden.
I have watched your videos targeted at compost appreciating your experiences and do hope you continue to compost and share those experiences.
And will look forward to results of this large-scale purchased compost.
Thanks. I agree that spending money on something I can produce myself is a problem. I have been thinking since making the video that I really need to scale up my operation, and to explore ways to do it with less work.
I recently acquired an old gardening book from the 1930's. One of the interesting snippets is that the French salad growers of those times spread 50 tons of rotted manure per acre over their land, every year. That was a few cart loads !
50 tons is a lot of manure! I was thinking of how that compares to the amount I have added to my No-Dig garden. Assuming that 1m3 is about the same as 1 ton (which is the basic equation that many people seem to make) then I added the equivalent of 180 tons per acre. But the rotted manure those French salad growers used would have be much richer than the stuff I used, so probably much more fertility would have been available to the plants.
I'm glad you finally "gave in". It's for a good cause, for good people, and the land will do fine. Using the commercial compost as mulch has worked for me. I used it to cover grocery store veg waste, paper, & cardboard with compst on top. I allowed it to sit a season & made all the difference in fertility, at least for my two little beds. Observation is key and you do that very well. Thank you for the videos and your wonderful work. You totaly rock!
Ah., thanks for that supportive comment. Your method of sheet composting sounds like it would really do the job improving the fertility.
Thank you for your videos, I have learned much from you and wanted to let you know how appreciative I am for your work. Please keep sharing your work.
Thanks.
I buy in compost and mix it with my homemade compost which I think works because it bulks out my compost and because my compost adds fertility to the bought in compost
Makes sense. Do you mix it at the end of the decomposition, or do you add the bought in stuff at the beginning of the compost process?
I have done this also as i find garden made compost is not good at holding water at all and dries out quickly. However adding bought compost weather peat or coir makes a big difference.
Robert Miller What a great idea. I’m live in a city and will add used coffee grounds, biochar and sand to my finished compost. This adds bulk to my small amount of homemade compost.
@@winnipegnick Try composting with the coffee grounds. They are 3% nitrogen and will heat-up a pile unlike anything I have seen.
FreedomFox1 Great suggestion, I have so much coffee from work and home so I do that as well!! 👍🏾
I made raised beds that were very deep filling them with organic waste to eventually for down into a bed to plant in. It took 2 years for them to be useful beds. I worked for my small half acre. Each year I start another making it useful for someone in her late 60s.
Birdy
That is a really interesting method for building beds, slow and gradual. Thanks for sharing.
Nobody has enough compost! Unless they have a serious farm, 5+ acres.
Often, you can either do soil improvement fast, or you can do it cheaply. Wood chips take ~four years to decompose in my climate, but they're free and plentiful. I compromised this year by having 2 tons of compost delivered (wasn't happy with the quality though) and after planting mulched with strimmed leaves from last autumn and then wood chips. It's not easy being patient, but I know in five years, I'll have a more fertile garden with less rock-hard clay (which at least is full of nutrients--gotta give it that). This year, I'll be combining a "good deed" by raking some elderly (more elderly than I, which is plenty! lol) widows' yards in my neighborhood and taking their leaves home. I bought a mulching leaf vacuum so I don't have to add the step of strimming. Native worms seem to eat a pretty thick layer of shredded leaves in about 4 months.
Good way of looking at it - you can have it fast or cheap.
It makes me think iff a version of what is called the builders triangle - You can have fast, cheap, and good, but only two of them, never three. (I.e. you can get a house built quickly and cheaply, but it won't be very good.) I think it might be the same with soil improvement.
This is visual therapy for those that live in apartments dreaming of having big garden/backyard!
Excellent!
Right on the button. You state my problem too - making a couple of m2 of finished compost by hand is pretty hard work. Not least the collecting, storing mixing turning etc etc. For the first time, I have been thinking of buying in some compost.
Now the old horse that provided out manure has died, I need another source for that component. We have an area of grass that provides three big barrows of clippings per mow three times a fortnight, but it needs incorporating pretty quickly which is something I can't always manage.
I noticed a chaff cutter on ebay for not much last week - chops a regular bale into 2" lengths ideal for mixing with grass. For me getting sufficient browns has always been the most difficult part. That and finding room - compost making can be quite an extensive process.
The time before, when we had a man do it, it took us three days to transport the "waste" to our "local" recycling centre. Last year we savaged our front privet hedge ourselves. We used our old push mower to pick up the leaves and stems. It was then blatently obvious that this was a much better base for compost than grass. It had reasonably chopped small brown stems, and of course lots of greens. Mixed with our other waste it made lots of excellent compost, and pretty quickly too. Slightly rough, but that just helps drainage...
Thanks very much, another of your very thought provoking videos
Nick.
Thanks for sharing your experiences about the common quest for enough compost material.
I LOVE your videos! They help and teach me so much!
Thank you.
:)
I LOVED that you put the amount of compost in a "feel-like" spreadsheet!!!. Amazing amazing job also. Quite interesting also the topic about producing compost for our own operations. I have to ask, how much land are you planting rn and how many square meters is the entire lot that you're managing (with your house and other buildings) I want to have find my father a land for him (and kinda me) for starting a sort of this type of projects, is quite interesting for me and my dad also. Great channel, out of those that share "permaculture" or "farming" you're the most empirical of them, the structure you give to your farm and the way you show it is far more great (for me) than thosw just showing for "entertainment". Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for your supportive comments. They mean a lot, and it is good to know that people value the work I do and the approach I take on these things.
This season I have about 700m2 under fairly intensive vegetable production, with about 200m2 under two polytunnels. Out of that I expect to harvest about 4-5 tonnes of vegetables, a lot of which I distribute to my neighbours. Next year I hope to double the area under production.
The project that I am working on is located on common land within the ecovillage that I live in, so a bit away form my house.
Wood chips from tree people are free if you have the space it rots down over a couple of years but can be speeded up by the use of chickens, It usually comes by the truck load and is usually organic. If you find a local company you could get several loads a week delivered. A long term project but worth the wait.
Suggestion: Fill the space below your compost sieve with 5 gallon buckets. Then they are already filled when you need to move the contents to the garden beds.
Really enjoy your videos, especially during a rainy spring while I wait to create a new garden.
That is a good idea. i have used a wheelbarrow occasionally, but it is a bit of a hassle.
Had similar experience this year, expanded to a much larger area, needed compost for top dressing and bought in bulk from local place. Fertility was extremely low and that are has struggled this whole year, with much being pulled or havign a low yield. Its a large are so hard to afford the higher quality bagged stuffed that I use in our smaller raised bed garden area. Need to keep looking.
That is tough. Have you tried dousing the low fertility compost with a 'compost tea' or other high fertility liquid.
@@REDGardens yeah did a mix of different things, unfortunately too little too late, learned for next year. Had other issues as well, its far from the house so irrigation is a daisy chained hose, low pressure, will be fixing that for next year as well, plus issues with gophers
A little tractor with a front end loader could help increase your composting output. A tractor could also help move materials. I'm thinking of a 18 to 25 HP sub compact tractor.
That would help.
A mower with a material system works good.
even golf cart would help. lol
Compost like this generally suffers from having a high C:N ratio. This is the case with the horse manure compost we get (since it is mostly bedding). Adding extra chicken manure (or other nitrogen sources) gives us amazing results. Also, have you tried using less compost? As I recall, you have over 10% organic matter in all of your gardens, which is past the point of diminishing returns (and is potentially even too much, at least according to the Solomon approach).. The other main benefits of compost are phosphorous and potassium, but there are cheaper ways to supplement those (potassium sulfate is quite cheap). Phosphorous can be a bit more difficult, but it does build-up in the soil over time.
Your point about the levels of compost being beyond the point of demising returns is an interesting one, and a similar idea drives the approach to my Extensive Garden. The reason I use so much compost in a few of the gardens is, quite simply, because other people think it is a good idea. So I am trying it out, to see what the impact is..
Man I'm impressed with how hard you work.
Thanks. Lots to do!
One can never and I mean NEVER have TOO. MUCH. COMPOST. period!!!
Here in the subtropics I have to mulch two times a year in no dig.
Agreed.
Thank you - from other sources one would think all you have to do..... You have put a practical slant on this. Thank you.
Glad you appreciated my video.
a local horse yard is the saviour of the home composter, our allotmnt gets a regular supply of horse muck and its great stuff!
I need to get out on the community and make more friends - especially those who have horses.
Thankfully my city offers free composted mulch and I get several cubic yards a year. It needs to be sifted and it is usually of higher salinity than I prefer but it gets the job done. I have very sandy soil so it's critical for water retention.
it is great to get stuff like that, if it works.
2:48 looks like you were growing some bud
Nice to see another video! :D
:) I was glad to get this done.
Have you thought of placing slotted drainage pipe at the bottom of the compost piles to introduce more oxygen to the piles, speeding decomp? A little more complicated then a standard pile, but more oxygen creates compost faster. Turning the pile does this but the extra oxygen is used within a day or two. Drainage pipe allows air exchange more readily at the bottom of the piles, which increases decomp, which heats the pile which draws in more air. Etc...
Yes, I have added a few pipes to the base of the batch compost I have been making.
Here in Brazil we use Castor Bean as a nitrogen source. There are some other ways in which inoculated soybeans, corn, beans, white clover, are plants that help fix nitrogen in the soil.
At the scale I am working at, I find it better to just buy in nitrogen sources, rather than taking up part fo the growing season to grow fertility. At a large scale it would make a lot more sense to grow the green manure.
you need a machine to load / unload bulk materials, like an old tractor with a front end loader. then you can mechanize your production of compost. usually theres some one who runs a chipper and cleans gardens / prunes trees around, typically they are always looking for some where to get rid of stuff.
Yeah, machinery like you mention would help. There are a few people around clearing/chipping trees, but not usually in our area. It has been tough finding enough wood chip in my context.
@@REDGardens What about possibly getting an animal that can pull a wagon? Maybe a small pony or a large goat? Then their manure and bedding would become part of your ecosystem too, and they'd be literally "pulling their weight" with the labor they'd save you!
It's a longshot and maybe you don't want to deal with animals. I'm just wondering.
@Marialla Yeah, I don't really want to deal with animals for the time being. A neighbour went down that route and seemed to be nothing but hassle for him.
You seem to be a farmer with the size of your garden.., still for a home vegetable garden of 4 beds I buy in bulk and 1 cubic metre is a practical size that is sufficient.., plus the local supplier of compost near me has a good price and good quality mix. So even though my home made compost degrades slowly.., it is a alternative source that gives a change to the plants. Thanks for your information. Subscribed.😊
I tried this for this season- did not find that the higher price increased yield but I made some significant mistakes planting as well so I'm going to try again next year. I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah and we have several commercial as well as municipal composting supply lines. The cheap stuff can be gotten from the municipal source but they require self loading and delivery which is impossible for small car owners. Great tips on what I can do next year- thanks for reminding me compost does not necessarily mean rich in Nitrogen.
Yeah, it often seems that compost is generally considered to be fertile, or that any compost is good compost.
Have you seen some of the videos on here with automatic trommels made with concrete mixers? Combined with your use of a bucket rather than a spade it could be very efficient or with a bit of ingenuity, a hill or ramp and a welder it wouldn't take too much imagination to get a wheelbarrow to feed a makeshift hopper. Actually I think I've found an idea for a video myself!
Always been meaning to ask you, what was your deciding factor to move to Ireland to farm?
Good question - an Irish woman brought me home with her, and I stayed. Growing/farming came later.
Do you miss southern Ontario. Land must be cheaper in Ireland
I do miss southern Ontario. I imagine some land is cheaper, just depends on where you go. But at the small scale I am operating at, land isn't such an issue.
@@REDGardens that's a great reason!
@@REDGardens I met a beautiful Irish girl when I was there. Sadly she did not ask me to stay. I was only 20 and would have definitely stayed.
Wanted to share a couple ideas that have worked for me in the past. Wood chips are great, but as you know a source of N is important. Making friends with a local dairy farmer could be a way to get waste corn silage or grass silage. Typically there is waste on the front of the bunk and along the top, sometimes more spoilage gets in. It all has a shelf life and when it's bad, it's bad. Usually the waste is pulled off and spread with the manure. It may take some time for them to build up a big pile, but it will be rich material. I'll bet you could offer to trade produce for waste silage, they may even load your trailer for you with their machinery....fresh produce makes friends fast!
I've composted 1/3 waste corn silage and 2/3 wood chips mixed with a manure spreader. Bulk raw poultry litter mixes well with wood chips too.
That is interesting, thanks. I will have to look into sourcing some spoiled silage.
I'm the same never have enough compost I manage to make at least 10 of those bulk bags a year yet never at the same time and always in need of more
I suspect I will always need more, and more, no matter how much I get around to making.
You do SO MUCH for one man! Any average home gardener would have just one of your gardens and feel they were putting in plenty of work at that. And you've got, what, six? And they're BIG gardens, too, not even just the side-salad type! So of COURSE you are overworked trying to do the labor necessary for six times (or more) what the average home gardener would grow! Don't feel bad about outsourcing some of that labor if possible. I hope you find a source for the compost you need at an affordable price.
Thanks. Yes, it is a lot of work, but this is my 'job' and not something I do on the side as a hobby or occasional task. Though I still take on way more than I can manage.
Also brought in green waste compost, own its own it doesn’t hold water very well. I was told by the guy at the green waste site where they process it the farmer by it to plough into the top of the fields use it as a soil conditioner.
I suspect that a lot of the stuff like that is only really useful as a soil conditioner, rather than as a good source of fertility.
I used to live in an area that had the green bins (green/plant waste)to use beside the black bins (trash) and they would sell the compost on the other end. It is nice when your community does this, but it's not always available. You will need to consider how to automate some of your process in any way you can if you are going to scale up at all, but I'm sure you are already thinking about that. Your time is valuable. Good luck!
I don't think that there is much available from my local council, but I really should check. You are right about the need to automate some of the processes of composting if I am going to scale up, and it would make sense to get in machinery to do the heavy lifting.
I was down my council tip and saw the gutter sweepers coming in and dumping their poison into the green waste section. Oil, rubber, fag ends, dog poo, needles etc etc etc. Farmers are poisoning their land by getting free "green waste" from their local councils. Madness.
@@maisiesprocket9135 That's horrible!
If you get this message it might offer some sound advice. Here in my local area we have a family with a rabbitry. We buy in several tonnes of his rabbit manure at the cost of human labor and a few dollars per tonne. Have you considered using rabbits as a source of compost material? The animals will add two sources of end product for your operation - manure and meat .
We find it offers a much higher quality material and a little goes a long way. We add straw, grass clippings, table scrap and cardboard from our local area.
Just an idea from a rookie backyard gardener. Cheers and excellent progress from when I first watched a video of yours a couple years ago.
I have been thinking of getting rabbits - for the reasons you describe. Not sure if my family would be up for eating rabbit though.
Eating is just an option. Selling as pets is popular in the states. I rather enjoy them simply for their manure. Thank you for the reply. I really am impressed at your scale and the tenacious attitude you put into your work. Keep up the videos.
5th Street Market Garden Thanks!
Have you checked out Justin Rhodes, re chickens preping garden in situ. Tilling, fertilising, add some near finished compost and they spread it for you.
Yes. I tried a small version of it last year, and plan to do it again next year.
Love your site and style and scientific approach and your desire to avoid machinery is laudable but isn’t the need to buy in compost.... which can be very expensive.... indicative of a need to embrace some simple machinery and also to a different type of slower composting ? I have big garden and am a good bit older than you but I have a very long and very high wooden structure into which I have dumped tons ... and I mean tons ... in a lasagne method.... of horse manure , spent hops , seaweed. , grass , hay and straw andweeds etc and this is stuff that would never hot compost as it’s too compact with wrong ratios and would need mega machinery to turn but very soon it is full of specialised worm farm type worms and I just keep adding everything on top and the worms are everywhere and in great quantities and there is a little warmth in it all... about 10 c above normal soil... in May I plant potatoes in this and what a crop I get ! ....and in This June put in some squashes which are doing really well so far.... a couple of years ago I took planks off one side and had huge amounts of phenomenal compost which I think was mostly worm cast compost which is the undisputed apotheosis
Glad you thought the suggestion was worth trying. I was in Ireland for a month a year ago, and would have dropped by if I'd known about you then.
Perhaps next time.
I don't know how that purchased compost is but it looked comparable tot he stuff we have available around here. We've learned that it usually isn't done yet. I do see it cause deficiencies in gardens (in fact, it's notorious for it), however, it might partly be that they were just not finished decomposing. Around here, they are often still hot when people buy it! We had one pig pile of purchased compost which we left sitting under a tarp for perhaps a year and when we spread it over the garden bed, at about 2 inch deep, it produced dark green kale with very large leaves for the next year! The kale is only now staring to slow a little. So maybe the compost just needs to sit longer to mellow out.
I think you are right - this stuff really needed more time. Interesting to hear about your own experiences.
We have started experimenting with deep compost mulch. My main concern is that we might end up with really unbalanced soil chemistry because of the excess phosphorus. Lettuce seems limp and things like chard and fennel tend to bolt early
I share the concern, and I think it could be a critical issue with the method. I would have thought that excess potassium would be the issue, but Guess it depends on what the origin of the compost is. The supply I got seems to be a lot higher in K than in P. Have you got a soil test?
I ve learned that compost is stabilized Organic Matters (OM), in other terms, already eaten and mineralized OM. It is the left over from the decomposition process. That means, all the energy (sugar) has been consumed (mineralized by bacterias : energy lost in heat and gas) Compost increase the amount of OM in the soil, and this will help to keep up with moisture and give back a bit of elements to feed the plants, but it won’t feed the life of the soil (worms, mycelium, insects, bacterias that are literally a stock of potential NPK and complex compound useful for the plants etc...). The plants will of course be able to catch up some minerals from compost, that hasn’t been washed out by the rain or the watering (within compost, minerals elements are soluble, a soluble state that could be avoided by having this elements attached to complex molecules, like within the argilo-humic complex, that also a reason to keep the compost away from the rain). Depending with what the compost has been made originally, some will have more Nitrogen than others, but nothing comparable with manure. Although, manure too does not feed the soil either, it will feed the plant quickly on a short amount of time, but then it’s close to an aquaponic system. An aquaponic system does work, but in the case of manure on a tilled garden soil, element comes and then disappear very quickly and the plants can be stressed out by any lack of element (because they suck up elements and they didn’t learn how to get it on their own) and in the worst case get sick or vulnerable to insects of fongic attack.
I see a potential solution in order to avoid this sudden change of accessibility to nutritious elements, it is by having an active micro and macro wildlife within the soil that will eat, poop, block elements, release some other, create complex compound and structures the microporosity of the soil. The increase of life within the soil, help the process of humification. (Humus, are complex molecules of carbone attached to Calcium that can retain Otherwise NPK solubles elements. This humus compound can then be break when the plant needs it and this represent a stock of fertility for the plant. ) Useful humus (there are many Humus type) is made by anecique worms, (not the red one that live in compost ) they eat OM and create a bound between Calcium molecule and mineral molecule within their glandular organ. The life in the soil keep and create a lot of different compounds, that are ready to use building blocks for the plants, whereas, NPK require a lot of energy from the photosynthesis to recreate this compound in order to build their tissues.
My point is: compost didn’t feed the life of the soil, it only feeds the plants, if compost does not feed the life of the soil, there is no life to structure the soil and to create complex molecules able to retain elements within none soluble compound (complexe argilo-humic or lively organic tissues like mycelium net). Without structure made by the life of the soil, you need to till the soil in order to bring oxygen in it. If you till the soil, you destroy what’s left of the life of the soil, you mineralize all the elements into soluble elements and your soil lost fertilities and the capacity to fight against erosion (somehow you make coffee out of the ground) You then need to add more compost and manure.
One way to bring back life into soil is to use fresh high carbonated organic matter like chip of branch of the year (ramial chipped wood) or dry straw. If there is still a bit of life in the soil, it is possible to add this straw, or wood chip at the end of the summer, and mix it with the top 10 cm of soil soil (the amount can goes up to 25t/ha according to Francois Mulet and Conrad Shreiber) The mycelium will attack this high carbonated element first, and capture all the nitrogen in the surrounding area in order to build their cellular structure leading to a temporary “end of Nitrogen” (the more carbonated element you use, the longest the end of Nitrogen may appear, although this end of Nitrogen can be compensated by using manure like chicken manure, or fresh grass the first year. You could also plant only nitrogen fixer plants, or green manure. The best is nitro fixer green manure.) The longest and hardest the end of nitrogen is, the more you fix nitrogen in your soil through mycellium, nitro fixer bacterias and nitro-fixer plant (by the way, nitro fixer plant only fix nitrogen on a soil where there is an end of nitrogen, if there is accessible nitrogen to them, they won’t create symbiotic nodulosity). After some time, mycellium will die and compost whitin the soil and release the nitrogen and other compounds. The whole system will be Kickstarted, and a huge amount of nitrogen will be available to the plants AND the life of the soil. The whole system will keep up like that as long as, the soil is fed every year with carbon (not compost or high nitrogen manure, approximately 20 to 25t/ha on a very lively soil, it can also be understand to a minimum of 1cm of Ramisl wood chip per year), the soil is not tilled, and the soil is protected with a thin layer of straw or wood chip.
That was a little “résumé” of what I’ve learned from the French You tube channel : Ver de terre production, and MSV (maraîchage sur sol vivant)
Maybe you have an opinion about it? I was wondering, if it wouldn’t had been a good idea to use straw or ramial wood ship for the No Dig garden (rather than compost) and see how/if the life increase and if it has any consequence on the structure and the fertility of this garden.
Many thanks for all the videos you made!
Thks cool videos
Depending on how cold it gets during the winter in you area, you could sow in a cold resistant pea or bean variety in Autumn, like Austrian Winter Peas, and harvest in the early fall. Peas and beans are nitrogen fixers, so they don't take nitrogen from the soil, only the atmosphere. Once you harvest the peas, just chop up and sow the debris from the pea plants back into the soil to give the soil a nice nitrogen boost.
Fixing nitrogen with a green manure would be very useful, though it wouldn't solve the issue I have will not enough organic matter for the gardening methods I am using. The amount of biomass that is needed is huge.
@@REDGardens Oh, for sure it wouldn't solve the issue outright. I was thinking of small additions that would help lessen the issue. Another thought I had was to plant sacrificial crops. I have done it in the past for pest control, but it also provided me with extra compost material. To maximize biomass though, hardy crops with high biomass production would be ideal. Crops that wouldn't have much issue growing in the native soil and don't require much attention. I'd offer suggestions on what those crops might be, but unfortunately I don't know much about Irish soil. Good luck in your endeavors and I look forward to seeing more great videos from you.
I wonder if there's any rough relation between the amount of vegetation matter you take out of each garden compared to the amount of compost you use each season. The nutrients that get taken out of the soil system by human consumption and discarded plant matter would in theory represent the gap that's filled in with compost.
Also, keep up the great work! You're living the dream
Thanks. Good points/questions. Looking at it from a fertility standpoint, it would be interesting to figure out how much compost is need - of what quality - to replace what is removed each season. With some of the gardening methodologies I am following, another key part of the large amounts of compost that is recommended to add is to feed the soil organisms, and to improve the water holding capacity of the soil, among other benefits.
Interesting!
What industries in Ireland produce masses of organic waste? Might be worth hitting them up, building a giant pile and leaving it to do its thing. You could try brewing/food manufacturing companies, supermarkets/restaurants/cafes, arborists/logging/milling companies, orchards and seafood companies.
Around here it is mostly just cattle (with slurry tanks). There are a few other industries that may have organic wastes that I could get, though I would need to set up a better area for unloading and processing it all.
Windrow composting, and free horse manure, is one way to increase compost production, especially if you have acces to a dump trailer. Window composting of free wood chips, makes excellent fungal dominant mulch also With your operation, in bed composting as rough compost material for mulches will be the most efficient. In bed composting by using it as mulch that feeds, while it further breaks down. Tarping between crops will be necessary to eliminate weed seeds from some manures. Another option to reduce need for compost is get free woodchips, to use it as a mulch layer, on top of your in bed rough compost, especially when growing big crops like zucchini, potatoes or tomatoes; then when your beds are resting, its an option to use mobile electric netting and chick shaw coups: so an egg laying flock will be adding their manure to the bed, for that beds rest cycle. Chickens make quick work of green manure crops, and if there's anything left, it can be tarped for a few weeks: so the worms will get whats left. Check out Justin Rhodes videos, on how he uses his chickens to fertalize and spread compost on his garden beds. If you have enough extra beeds to rotate in green crops, creating enought beds to rotate in chicken flocks, will be well worth it, especially if you have a market for the organic eggs. Chickens are like living composters, either quickly turning it into manure or mulch, then spreading it, so you just compost right into the pen, weeds, clipping, scraps, horse manure, everything. You can set up and in bed pallet bin, to pasturize the material if its of concern with pathogens in your garden bed. When the chickens are done working the beds, leave a few weeks to tarp before planting, so any weed seeds sprout then smother, and your good to go for another few seasons. The chickens will even spread your mulches, like woodchips or hourse manure. You just have to figure out what will be most efficient for you in the long run. Things like: establishing a market for eggs, letting the chickens turn and spread those hourse manures, investing in some trucking or silage tarps. Which may be more efficient and cost effective in the long run. At least compared to buying compost, or constantly working to haul new material to the compost piles; then turn it numerous times; then hauling it back to the beds to spread. Less trips, less hauling, less turning, maybe some tarping, keep it simple and efficient. Food for thought.
One of the big issues for me is that I do not have access to a dump trailer, or even a car - I don't drive. So a lot of the options require me to get a favour from a friend, which complicates things. It is also hard enough to get wood chips around here, but I am slowly building up a supply.
I set up a version of the chicken composter last year and it seemed to work well, and I hope to do it again next season. But as you say, it is all about working out the efficiencies in terms of labour, cost and material within my specific context.
You return that compost right this instant
Ahhh, ok.
Have you considered adding activated biochar to this inferior compost. I have seen a marked improvement in my garden with its addition. My impression of chicken manure is that it works better if added in fall and allowed to break down over winter.
I hadn't thought of adding biochar to this stuff, mainly because I am saving my supplies of biochar for another garden. I suspect you are right, that it would be better to mix in the high fertility chicken manure and let it mellow for a while.
Have you had any problems with invasive shrubs? Our neighbor planted something that has taken over and is now in our yard. It's a woody and comes up from runners underground. In 1 year it has taken over an entire 100sqft of
What should be our vegetable garden. I've been cutting it at the ground but it always comes right back up!!
meemo32086 no real experience but try covering with lightproof material ie thickly layered cardboard/ newspaper, certain landscape clothsetc, but need to leave it until plant near is dead not dormant. Seen a few TH-cam vids re invasive weed management, but not tried anything yet
@@foggylog19 thank you!!
Have you considered using different composting techniques to convert your biomass faster? One method that might suit your volume needs is a dedicated worm composter in a series of large bins. Another could be an anerobic digester, which has been gaining popularity in dry areas like California and India. Rather than your batch composting, digesters can operate continuously, and they require almost no maintenance beyond water, food scraps, and a little manure. They can be simply built from a few tubes and a series of large water barrels. However you plan to move forward, I wish you good luck.
I would like to try both a worm composter and a digester. Perhaps I will be able to st up a worm composter next year, but a digester might have to wait a while longer. Then there is still the issue of gettin genius material to feed the worms so that they can produce the amount of fertility I need.
Composting needs loads of space and materials to begin with those with small gardens struggle to have sufficient material and space unless it’s brought in from outside. Here in the uk you can collect horse manure with straw for free from horse stables. You also need sufficient greens to compost so it’s hard. So it leaves little choice but to get ready made stuff. However some of these shop compost seems bulked up with sand. Catch 22 😞
There are a few options around here, but none of them brilliant, or easy. So, yes, hard choices.
Beautiful gardens.
Thanks.
Had me scared for a min thought you completely stop I'm wanna start a business in composting your videos are great because you break down it so well
No, didn't completely stop - just supplementing!
Look in to wood chipping the surrounding grass around the gardens tons of benefits WODD CHIPS ARE KING
I think that would be a great option. My problem is that I have trouble getting enough wood chip around here, even thou I keep pestering the tree surgeons who work in the region.
Are the chicken manure pellets a UK product? Reading through the comments, I see some folks suggest using livestock to fertilize and till the soil. But animal management adds more layers of time & effort, plus costs of feed & care. Whether practicing no-dig or traditional tillage, many folks(excluding you) may not understand that the soil biology has to be maintained with periodic applications of compost or mulch. Your overall growing operation is large enough, and your composting needs are large enough, that they could be viewed as two separate operations. If you are the primary worker in your gardens, and infrequently have outside help, then buying-in compost may be the cost effective way to go. This allows you to focus the bulk of your time & energy on the growing operation. Wish I could be there to manage the compost for you. :)
I like the way you are thinking, of separating the production of compost from the growing of vegetables, despite them being so interlinked. At least seeing compost production as a separate dedicated task that needs to be done - by someone - not just aside part of growing vegetables.
I resist buying compost too so I go out to the logging roads and get free Red Alder branches (ramial wood) to mulch in my little hammer mill shredder. The bonus is that this kind of mulch, especially if its still leafy, can be mixed in a bit right away to lighten my mucky black double-dug wicking beds, and it composts quickly on top too in our damp climate. The first year I composted Alder mulch with urea for 5 months just to get it in the garden faster. Keyword ramial wood chips and professor Gilles Lemieux for rebuilding farm and forest soil with wood mulch; no-dig will be better for it.
Interesting options. I need to buy a shredder/chipper, as there is a lot of volunteer willow trees around.
You did not give in ..you made a decision to help your farm flourish..
Fair enough, though I resisted for a long time.
RED Gardens i mean it makes sense why you would resist getting compost, compost can be pretty pricey
@@REDGardens You may need a small tractor. Bust open the bins and switch to laying material out in rows. Just keep turning it every two weeks with a tractor. maybe keep 3 rows so you always know how aged each pile it. You're just getting to the point where you can't do this one your own with manual labor.
Also, see if you can make a partnership with a local coffee chain to pick up all their grounds once each week. Then match that up with a tree cutting service that can give you woodchips by the 20x20ft truckload. The combination should give you enough material to finish your own. But again don't do all this by hand your going to wreck yourself.
@@wes9451 A tractor would help, though I can't see myself getting one for the next few seasons. Coffee grounds and wood chip are potentially great resources that have had difficulties in getting around here. In this rural area there aren't a lot of coffee shops, and the owner of the one in our village keeps all of the grounds for her own garden. I've contacted all fo the tree surgeons in the area, and get an occasional load of wood chip, but they are surprisingly scarce.
Could you perhaps supplement with large quantities of leafmold? Generally its a much less manual process to manage, and considerably less labour intensive, and matier sourcing is generally much easier.
The problem around here is getting the leaf mould, or even the clean leaves. There is a place I know that has a load of leaves building up in a hollow, but it is on private land.
Everything is risky when you look to outside sources. If any of the leaves are from Ash trees, then it is possible those trees are being treated with TREEage (emamectin benzoate?) for the Emeral Ash Borer. Emamectin benzoate take many years to break down and traces of it are found in worm poop after worms eat waste from leaves treated with emamectin benzoate. It's a sick world we live in. I could have an unlimited supply of Ash tree leaves, but because the trees are treated with emamectin benzoate ever 2 years, I won't touch the stuff let alone use in in my garden.
I was thinking more in domestic gardens in autumn, so untreated leaves. Generally people are very happy to get rid of them from gardens if you put out something to let them know that if they bag them you will collect them and turn them into something useful. We have beech trees lining the street here, and the local road sweeper crew empty their hoppers of leaves for us on our site. There is usually a little debris, but usually the act of simply forking it into the compost bays causes the stones etc to fall through, and a seive before use removes the last of the pieces. We tend to run the lawnmower over it so it breaks down more quickly. If added to a regular compost pile as a brown source it is ready for use in a season.
Great video! You would need a Karl Hammer in Ireland! His composting methods seem to be amongst the most elaborated around.
Yeah, I wish i had someone like him around. I guess I'll need to do it myself.
Good vid,compost is a very time intensive process .with a great deal of labor- that why it's not free,as you know,the only good addition is vermiculture.I don't know if you've tried it it but it's a excellent addition ,but all good things take time,all the best in your future success !
I experimented with vermiculture a while ago, and am keen to try stout again.
nice n dark, that'll warm the soil nicely
Thats what I thought.
i go to the super market for veg..and offgrid i would do the same and then jar the left overs..i would however grow nice flowers and have bees present..
I don't think I could go back to eating vegetables from he supermarket. Mine taste so much better.
I've got a question that I never really thought about until you flashed that bee pollinating. How does that work in the tunnel? Do you have problems getting pollinators in there? I never really thought about how they'd get inside if it was all closed up like that. Obviously you can't stop up every hole and they could find their way in with some effort, but with all the other stuff you have just out in the open would they really go through the effort of getting in the plastic tunnel and then finding a way back out?
I think he mostly grows self pollinating plants and manually pollinates things like squash.
PKSkeith in summer tunnels are always open both ends for aeration (and in sunny day even in other seasons). Bees can easily find their way in and out if you grow crops that require insects pollination. I used to grow melons in small tunnels (to be removed in summer) and when I started the acclimatization process by cutting small windows in the plastic I could see the bees buzzing inside in no time.
Good observation. As @I lost my pointer mentions, most of the plants are self pollinated, but I do get a fair number of bumblebees coming into the polytunnel and working through the flowers, and most of them seem to be able to find their way out again. My polytunnels are rarely closed during the day, except in the winter.
what do you think about helping the soil producing it´s own compost by feeding it with tons of (kitchen)scraps, clipping of gras etc. so it is covered, stays wet, attracts worms and gradually builds up compost by itself, instead of adding and adding compost?
I have used a version of that approach with my sheet mulching in the Simple Garden. It works really well in that context as I cover it, and grow squash in the red the next season. For other plants it would be a problem.
I wish you produced a podcast. I could listen to you talk for hours.
Wow, that is nice to know!
as I understand it the soil web of life feeds the plants but can only do so if the soil is undisturbed and covered and living roots are present all year round and broken down organic matter is present to feed the soil life. forest gardening creates these conditions but relies on perennials. if we could combine forest gardening with annual vegetable production this would remove the need to import large amounts compost. I am trying to do this by growing perennials in my veg beds some of which I can chop and drop and undersowing and interplanting vegetables with cover crops which are cut down and left in situ to rot down. thus the soil is always covered living roots are always present the soil is never dug . any green material from crop residues or other areas of my garden such as hedge trimmings are laid on the paths between the beds and can be pulled across as a mulch if need be such as when a late crop is harvested and there is no time to sow a cover crop. I have moved to this system after years of digging and making compost and hauling it around. now I only buy compost for seed raising. seems to be working for me so far but early days as I have only been doing this for a couple of years.
The idea of the soil food web feeding the plants is a fascinating one, and I have no doubt that it can be really beneficial. But plants cam=n also grow in a sterile hydroponic solution, so it is plants obviously don't need the soil biology. Which approach is better, or easier to enable is, I think the interesting question.
Very interested in composting. Please do more on the subject. Currently I'm also breeding worms (night crawlers and red wrigglers) to be added to my garden and compost. Much more fun with worms!
Thanks
Its a prob;em I have as well on a limited budget. Could you mix bought in with your own compost on your scale an old cement mixer may make work less back breaking. Look forward to further updates. Keep them coming as you make brilliant topics
If I was to use it in my other gardens, your idea of mixing with my own compost would probably be a good idea. With the No-Dig garden, I think it owl have been better to add a liquid feed of worm tea, or urine, or some other high nitrogen fertiliser. With such a thick layer on this garden, it would take too much of my own compost, I think.
could you update us on the yield of the potatoes and other vegetables grown in the compost you bought. Like if its the same or more than last year i would consider that well worth the effort despite any nutrient deficiency seen in the plants.
I don't have the yield data yet, but hope to soon.
I feel your pain. No shame in buying compost. I have the same issues of low fertility in my local bought compost. I'm in FL with very Sandy soil. I get lots of free wood chips, they just take too long for decomp. I have fallen in love with chicken pellet fertilizer but it gets expensive.
I have heard that the sandy soils of Florida can be really tough to keep fertility in. How long do you think it takes before your wood chip begins to be of benefit?
@@REDGardens I try not to use too much of the wood chips in the veggie garden mainly due to issues with the jang seeder. (I'm just too lazy to hand seed lol) But I have lots of fruit trees and I pile the mulch fairly high (10-12 inches, it settles down quite a bit) and I've noticed after 6 months the stuff on the bottom starts to break down, after a yr the soil underneath looks very good. I think due to the sand soils it burns up the organic material quickly, that's mainly why I use so much and replace it yearly (or whenever I get back to it). I have recently watched the rough draft farmstead on youtube and he says he does chips in the path and as it breaks down he incorporates the soil into the grow bed. So I've thought about trying that, but the compost I buy in is all wood based. Sometimes it comes a bit too young, and if very wood chippy. I pile it high with my tractor and try to heat it back up to finish decomp. I also mix it with my neighbors horse manure bedding. But I find it really zaps the soil initially and I have to use the chicken manure pellets to really stop the nitrogen lockup and get it broken down enough that the plants can handle it. I'm really gonna go nuts with cover crops next summer and before hand cover the entire garden with tall piles of chips. I really want tons of organic material and with my spreading the stick compost alone, I'm not happy with where I'm at. It's always a fight...Esp since this is my first yr on this soil.
@@Swampsquash That is a lot of chip. I wish I could get my hands on a load more to do similar experimentation, though I don't think it would be as beneficial in my context as I already have pretty good topsoil.
@@REDGardens Yeah I get quite a bit. It's FL, stuff grows really fast and nearly year round lol. I would gladly trade my constant supply of chips for your topsoil lol
I have used CRE compost over the last three years. Had to sieve it all but it worked out. I grow pretty good veg of all kinds. But this year I found someone in Co. Limerick that provides cheap compost..PM me for details..
I had heard there was a supplier in Limerick, possibly the one Moy Hill got their compost from.
@@REDGardens yes.
Great video! It is the gardeners dilemma to always be seeking to improve your soil. My garden was all clay and rock when I started 20 years ago. I created one new bed a year, removing all the rock and clay that I could and disposing of it. Then I started with new soil and manure. After 10 years I had 10 beds with decent soil, but they need to be topped up continually with compost. It seems you can never get enough good soil, and your soil is never good enough. Almost makes you want to switch to hydroponics!
Working one bed at a time sounds like a sensible option in that context.
Cheap and easy synthetic solutions can work - up to a point - and they also tend to have a lot of unfortunate externalities, most of which are not 'paid for' by the person who benefits from their use.
@Lapis Manalis I can see your point, if you are running a business you need efficiency to maximize your profit. Agricultural food production is way more productive than traditional agriculture. I just want a nice yard with some nice trees, shrubs and flowers. My experience is that is easier and more rewarding with good soil and lots of money.
This is one concern I have about no dig gardening. I do like the idea of the method in principle but when trying to become self sufficient in food (well veg anyway) it is sometimes difficult to justify the purchase of large amounts of compost from an outside source just to maintain a no dig methodology, if you can't produce all you need yourself. Another great, well rationalised video.
Thanks. I share your concerns about this particular No-Dig method, but the way I see it is that if you live in an context that this type of compost resource is very available, then go for it. If not then use some other method.
One thing that I have realised over the years is that every vegetable garden demands more resources than it can generate itself, so you always need resources of fertility and carbon from outside the confines of the vegetable patch itself. Historically, a lot of the manure from the family cow went onto the vegetable patch rather than back out onto the field where it came from. You can manage with cover crops to a certain extent, but it seems only if you have double the area to grow in, alternating between fertility building growing and 'cashing in' that fertility.
you need an aerated system that you don't need to turn.
I always feel silly buying compost but it's much more trouble to make large amounts than the happy-talk TH-cam channels suggest.
Yeah, it can be a lot of work.
I prefer to dig and till all my gardens much better results, I do use compost though and organic fertilizers.
I think people should use whatever approach works for them.
I am not against anyones process just how I do it. @@REDGardens
I will add that I am against when people intentionally try and promote bad infromation @@REDGardens
Check out Edible Acres. They have a great composting system which incorporates chickens!
Fascinating stuff. My issue wood be where to get the material to feed the chickens.
RED Gardens Sean and Sasha are great people and produce really good informative content. As far as I'm aware they mainly feed their chickens by collecting scraps from restaurants, buy in grain with the intent of sprouting it, scraps from their own kitchen as well as growing fruit trees around their property for seasonally fresh fruit.
If you're already providing food locally them I'm sure the neighbours would be more than willing to give you their kitchen scraps, although there may not be much left overs in an eco village!
@@MrBeSmArTNRuN Yeah, getting the food scraps form the restaurants is a great way to go. I wish had that kind of access, but lack of transport combined few restaurants in the area means it is not really viable for me. I already get a lot of the kitchen scraps form my neighbours, and should really make the effort to get some more. Last year I followed the suggestions of edible acres and fed my chickens with all this stuff, and it worked well, but it was just diverting it from usual composting systems, so in the end I didn't end up with more compost (though perhaps better and easier). Most of the organic material that I can get relatively easily around here is less nutritious and not really interesting for the chickens.
RED Gardens Local shops that sell fresh produce could also be utilised, although if they are not owned by local people it may be more difficult to get what you want.
I have just recently found your channel and really enjoy your content. I would love to get down your way some time. I have been in contact with Owen and mimi in the past to enquire about their dairy. It was only on discovering this channel that I found out Cloughjordan is an eco village, sounds like an interesting place to be!
Do you have spare land that could offer free dumping of woodchip and garden waste? I watched a you tube video were the guy was breeding worms and just adding them to the piles of waste she they had matured a little and was getting a constant supply of compost with very little effort
Why not enriching the compost with worm castings, leonardite, ems, micorrizhae?...
Those would all be good options.
The problem with horses is they don’t digest nearly as thoroughly as cows. Whole seeds commonly pass through. Of course properly composted manure will take care of it. The other problem is the average ph is around 8.5. Being you already have a high ph soil I wonder how it effects it. Iron is almost completely blocked out above 7.5 making me wonder if the lack of color is from iron deficiently. I bought 4 yards of compost 2 years ago. My crops wouldn’t grow, even store bought plants would die. I suspect the compost, which was made from yard waste, had some sort of herbicide. I hate having things out of my control but sometimes you have no choice. I went from having a garden people drooled over to almost nothing. One crop seemed to flourish, sweet and regular potatoes. The plants grew like weeds and were incredibly healthy. This year I brought in 7 yards of horse and 4 yards of custom blend for the top. I also added bagged mushroom and black kow. The horse was $3 a yard and the custom was $50. I trailered it in myself. Here’s hoping for a good crop.
interesting points you have made about horse manure, thanks. I hadn't thought to check the pH.
Wow excelent compost men. Wow increible color
i think it looked better than it was.
Don't feel bad buying in Bruce, it looks like it just isn't possible to produce enough for what you need. Also, the better quality compost may be the way to go, to help 'guarantee' a good crop, and save on labour👍 Cheers.
Saving labour is an important thing these days. Though I have been thinking of how much time it would take me to produce a m3 of compost, including collecting all the material. If I am sensible about it, it might only be 5 hours, in which case i could be paying myself the equivalent of €20 compared to buying in the better stuff. That is a big incentive.
Great video. I’m wanting to try composting next year in our vegetable garden. We’re still using starter tomatoes. Would I lay the compost down first, and then dig out a hole for the starter tomato plant to go into? We do seeds for lettuce, carrots, etc. would I plant the seeds in the ground and then lay some compost post over the top?
Thanks. With the tomatoes I don't think it really matters if the compost goes on before or after the tomatoes are transplanted. With the lettuce and carrots, I think it is better to sow them on top of the compost, so that the tiny seeds are not buried too deep.
@@REDGardens thank you!!!
I'm so worried about rats. I'm considering buying compost instead too but then it won't solve my less waste contribution issue. It's hard to decide. My raw peals of veg and fruit scraps weren't managed properly and started to grow small flies, I then added more soil and dry cut grass and am hoping to balance out the odour but I also worry that my compost won't breakdown or that its too dry since I've added soil. When I opened my container stuff was growing so I take it as a sign that there was too much moisture. My other concern is that the weeds and seeds won't die because my compost hasn't heated up as I saw in your no rules compost video. Complete first timer, but your spirit in all the videos makes failing look attractive with you learning experience mentality, I really admire that and great work keep it up. I'm combining knowledge from your Red Gardens and Farmer Rishi's TH-cam videos to gain knowledge and I thank you
Have you ever considdered wormfarming as the main decomposing method? As I understand it, this takes maybe as little as a quarter of the time to produce the same amount of compost. In addition, it is much less workintensive, and it promotes soil microlife, witch, I guess, must be paramount on a farm like yours. Altso, a healty wormculture doesn't smell as bad as a compost pile :)
Much of his finished compost already will be worm casts.
I would like to explore worm farming on a more dedicated or focused level, but as @FrankEdavidson mentioned, the worms naturally migrate to the compost pile after it cools down, so a lot of the finished compost will be worm casts.
@@REDGardens I'm sure they do. My understanding is, though, that the workload of the wormcity (wormbin, wormfarm or youknow...) compared to the traditional compost is absolutely to your advantage. And sure, it is the same as what you put on your field in this video. But the video matter is bought and paid for. And , granted, the compost output is the same as this. But the houres of labour put in and the overall time from raw to finish product is in my opinion worth a checkout. But nevertheless, keep up the good work, I (among great many others) get good inspiration from it.
@@gamingnarrativesandstories1700 Yeah, it is important to explore the differences in time and effort between different systems.
It’s time to establish a Humanure system, drawing upon the compost toilet method supplies from supporters of your wonderful garden project
Yeah, that is something I'd like to do, though I am not sure how many of the people who eat the food I grow will feel about that.
How about a woodchip projekt to reduce the amount of compost? I am not sure how available it is at your place or if you have enough cuttings from hedges you can use with a shipper.
It would be great, and that is the direction I want to go with another part of the project, but getting enough wood chip in this area has been difficult.
@@REDGardens Then maybe with straw or hay. Have seen a no dig video of Potatoes, and onion (Back To Reality) but at your climate slugs will maybe a problem.
@@Fjarninger Yeah, tried that, and slugs became a real problem.
You do a lot of mathematics on this channel to determine yields per unit area etc. I’m surprised you didn’t show an analysis of what your time is worth to create compost versus buying it in. Be interesting to see your thoughts.
Good point. I was thinking adding that info into this video, but felt it needed its own video to do it justice. A lot depends on the method I use for making compost. A few years ago when I was turning my no-rules compost every 4-6 weeks, and then sieving it all at the end, I figured that I would have spent up to 6-7 hours on a m3 of compost. So if the compost was €55 then it would be about €8-9 per hour (minimum wage). But I think my compost is better than this stuff, so if I compare it to the other better quality compost that I could buy at €115 per m3, that would translate to closer to €15-20 euro per hour, which is definitely worth the effort! More recently, with some of the batch methods I use, or even with the hen compost system I was trying, it could easily be much better than that. None of those figures include the time collecting the material itself though.
I believe that there are differences between the compost he produces and the compost he is able to buy, so that would factor into whether the municipally produced compost could substitute for all his compost. Also, if he wasn’t composting garden and chicken wastes, he would need to dispose of it in other ways, and there would be labor inputs for that.
RED Gardens thank you for taking the time to address my point. It’s essential you look at the opportunity cost of that time you take to gather compost materials in my opinion. I’m sure you have so much to do. However, I too would much rather make my own almost regardless of the cost compared to purchased. As a top up, I think you have the correct approach. Outstanding channel.
@@bully08873 Thanks. I agree that it is good to have a sense of how much time goes into these things.
I consider myself lucky that my city gives away free mulch and compost. I just have to drive to get it, and you're only allowed to take so much in one trip.
great video, the no dig will eventually balance? if there is too much carbon will continue to absorb nitrogen but in the long run shouldn't it release it? at least you have options to choose here at Dominican Republic we don't even have the option to buy it, just not available at all.
I think you are right about it all balancing out in the end. Yes, it is good to have the option, and the cash to be able to buy it in.
I'm surprised people don't run soft-soil nitrogen fixing plots full of beans and other green-manure purpose crops as finish for their compost.
It would be of benefit, but I figure the tyou would need a really large area to produce the equivalent in compost.
Do you mean grow beans in the finished compost to add nitrogen then use that compost on a garden?
Did you use the compost as soon as it arrived? From what I understand from the experience of others and my own, the stuff bought in like this is rarely ready and is best left unused for some months. Mine was 65c when it arrived and the same 2 months later but yours looked more mature. Mine also smelled very different from the stuff that I produce on my own
Yeah it sucks, but some bigger places can be very reputable, untill you can get your systems stabilized, producing what you need.
I hope to find better sources, and eventually be a lot more self sufficient.
Ever considered cows chicken covercrop rotations ? thanks for sharing
I have used chickens a bit in my larger growing area - and hope to get more soon.
Goats and cows would be a pain I bet.. but chickens make a lot of sense.
RED Gardens have you considered ducks? They could also help with your slugs issue as described in another video. And what about increasing tree cover on the hedges to increase the volume of brown in your compost? What are your thoughts on this?
@@Mariecl3 Ducks aren't really an option in the open access site where the gardens are located, but perhaps in my larger Black Plot at some point in the future.
Hedge trimmings is one source of carbon that I haven't really tapped into - though I think it would be best to get a big chipper first.