Do you want to make compost or do you want to digest OM ?

[rot]

..
If you're tilling raw leaves into the ground then yeah, I can see some nitrogen drift. I'm not sure how much but them microbes need to suck nitrogen from somewhere to digest the carbon in them leaves.

Why not compost the leaves first and then add to the soil?

I will use crunched leaves as a mulch to protect the surface. They'll take a long while to break down but the soil underneath doesn't dry out so much in this dry land. Haven't noticed any depletion of nitrogen but then I cover with a lot grass clippings and I'm not that observant.
..

[2cents]

Gary350
I've double-dug 1-3 feet of loose leaves into the soil, in the fall for year and never needed a nitrogen suppliment.
This year, I've added 6" to 2 feet of ground(storm debri) wood and leaves(some on top and some double dug). All will be double dug, before planting. I am fearful, the nitrogen depleation issue may come into affect this year, but the dirt is looking good(maybe a bit too much wood chips).

I started(September) a new(free form) raised bed(10x16). 100% rough wood chips, fine wood chips and ground leaves(storm debri) leaves, ground leaves, coffee grounds, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, garden debri. There was a wheel barrow sand and wood ash and some of the garden debri had dirt on the roots. It has composted down from 4+ feet to under 2 feet. I am putting 1-2 feet wide dirt rows 4" deep across the bed for planting into. There is no question, it will need Urea/Nitrogen suppliment. This is going to be a test for me to see how well it does in almost pure compost(with lots of fresh/6 month composted wood)

[hendi_alex]

I've also read that although leaves will decay to form a neutral product they are often acidic when going through the decay process, so you may need to add some lime if the pH gets too low.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Alex, you needn't use lime, just add bacteria...

"Greens" like we mix with our "browns", in this case leaves, are really about nitrogen, which bacteria need a lot of (low C/N). Greens can be like grass clippings, manures, food waste, anything with a high N is basically "green". Bacteria are also triggered by sugars, as they are by root exudates from plants, so EVERY compost tea recipe calls for molasses to boost bacterial side. When you boost bacterial levels, you boost a predator/prey reaction that gets a lot of trophic levels feeding, and their little exoskeletons add lots of calcium as they munch and be munched. Bacterial soils tend towards base and fungal soils tend towards acidic, hence leaves ('brown", carbon) go acidic and manures ("green", nitrogen) go baser. You are adding the calcium carbonate you get with lime, without the magnesium of dolomitic lime (and yes you can get the calcerous stuff SOMETIMES, but not regularly, and it still involves a mining operation and trucking etc.; the biological way just involves some molasses water and some bacteria you likely have in your pile already).

Nature always balances itself given the option, and it does it pretty quickly. Mineralized calcium stays that way for a long time without the biology to etch it back out of the soil (weak acid reaction); I have seen really high calcium levels in soils that were completely unavailable to plants, becuase it was mineralized without the system to undo it; the biology was dead. Balance your bacterial to fungal ratios and your ph balances itself, your soil chemistries unlock and provide for plants and compost cooks a lot better...

HG

[2cents]

HG,
How do we know when to add sugars and when to add greens/nitrogen, or do these actually do the same thing? What does the bacteria want?

[The Helpful Gardener]

Bacteria will ramp up on sugar but that is not a sustainable source; think of it as doing shots but if they keep that up all night, well, ... We want to do both things, fast and slow (beer AND shots), so why choose? Add both...

Boosting the bacterial levels boosts their predators and so on and so on, but let's get back to the title of the thread. What are we trying to accomplish? (I think the title is a false syllogy as it is one and the same, but I suspect that was Rot's intent, to portray the compost PILE as an unecessary step, and just sheet compost in place.) In sheet composting in place on the bed, we are doing all the above AND providing mulch, but we are doing it very slowly and we cannot add manures and foodscraps if we are doing food crops (trying to avoid E.coli and vermin infestation). Sheet composting has it's place, to be sure, but to those of us looking to diversify soil biology, reduce kitchen and yard waste, and maximize potential nutrition for our plants, thermophilic composting makes excellent sense, and yes, that means digesting OM, AS we make compost...

Way to play Devil's Advocate, Rot, but I do both styles myself, as I want to do both things...

HG

[2cents]

HG, Love the shots and beer analog
To us simpletons it makes sense.
My original thread question, maybe should have been, How much benefit am I loosing if I don't hot compost?

A current yard issue?
So, if I had alot of heavy woody stuff(logs and heavy sticks) I want to decompose. first is it practicle to do anything but bury them or chip them(I don't own that kind of a chipper/grinder), or put in a pile way out back if you want to use in the garden someday?
Or, can logs be composted? (neighbor has a tree we have chopped into firewood and we don't need that much wood) Can grass, ucg and other greens be added, ?put some sugar on it? and keep adding the nitrogen sources, will the bacteria break this down kinda quickly? under 2 years.
Or is fungus the only option? Likely 4-6 years.

[applestar]

Did you see this thread on "hugelkutur"? http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... .php?t=823

[The Helpful Gardener]

AS's tip is on point, and kind of where I was headed with this...

Bacteria doesn't break down wood. Oh, there's a few that gnaw on this or that component piece, but in the long run, fungus breaks down wood...

Most soils I see are bacterial (even chemical culture doesn't kill ALL bacteria or even it wouldn't work) and getting things bacterial is easy. Getting things fungal is harder, much harder. Introducing leaf mold is a good way to get the fungii that break down wood, and most good compost has a very active fungal component (even manures usually have a fungal side; there is a spiral hyphae I only see in cow manures). There is your wood breakdown...

Speed is a matter of surface area, and aeration, so if you leave it whole, slow. Halve it, a little faster, chip it? Way faster. Turn it? Faster yet... (although that can break up hyphae some too; some debate on letting fungal compost sit or turning it, or something in between. I'm on the fence...)

Thermophilic composting (hot) brings a lot of characters to the dance and does things fast, but it can waste a few cooler inclined microbes along the way. Slow composting doesn't do it as fast or bring as much diversity, but preserves the usual supects (local flora and fauna). Why choose? I do both... sometimes I want fungal compost (slower) and sometimes I want bacterial compost (fast and hot)...

HG

[2cents]

AS,
Thank you for the thread,
Once again, this forum and members have turned on some lights. I am always learning or at some times having defined what I have been doing for years.

1986, I bought a house, I cut down an 85 foot Buckeye tree pushing the foundation of that house in Akron. It was a huge 85 footer.....I was one of the fastest shovelers this side of the Grand Tetons, I could have given Paul Bunyon and Big Blue a run for their money digging the mighty Mississippi.
Being a Gardening enthusiast and wanting to start planting that next spring, I burried the tree as a start to the garden, it was more than 20 x 50 garden spot, dug 3 foot deep trenches and used steel bars to roll the trunk pieces into the trenches. Lots of trunk, branches and sticks twigs, leaves. It was a huge dirt mound when I finished. I worked it every day 4-8 hrs, for over a week. This was basically a double dug technique(term I learned on this site).
That fall, I had an oportunity to come to Cincy for new career.
I kept the house in Akron and rented it to my old roomates, grad students and general misfits. They did nothing the first year, 2nd and 3rd they had small 10 x 20 foot garden.
Fourth year my sister moved in. She had a terrific garden, says it was the best dirt she ever had. She used the whole thing garden and fed her husband and four children.
I never grew anything in that spot because I moved, but it was said to be one great garden spot.

Basically, If me or the neighbor want to start a garden extension, or rebuild a raised bed, the excess firewood we have now would be a good starter with some dirt on top.

I wish I could explain how many times I've used HUGELKULTUR/ENPI and can swear to the affectiveness of this technique, but have never been told the name of it. Grandpa and dad used to say, "just bury it". They are first and secong generation American from German transplants. Guess I better call mine HUGELKULTUR.

[The Helpful Gardener]

All soil is sucessional. The goal for nature is always to shoot for 100% fungal soils; in other words the way plant groups succeed each other is both reliant on, and responsible for, the fungal to bacterial ratios...

We start at bare rock and the first thing to show up is lichen, who exudes weak acids from it's microroots and starts things off. Then moss, then weeds, then grassland (almost where we want it), THEN a balanced F:B our sweet spot for veggies, then shrubs, then trees, then evergreens, where we finally get back to the sweet spot for Nature, 100% fungal. This is always where Nature is headed; sometimes she interrupts herself (flood, fire, drought, landslide), and sometimes we do it (bulldozer, chemical fertilizers, pollution, etc.), but we bump back a level every time we do damage. With fertilizers we can fool ourselves into thinking the soil is just fine, because the plant continues to grow, but we are knocking the soil fertility backwards so that weeds and mosses are happy and grass is not, or maybe grass is happy, but if you are growing veggies that is not where you want to be...

Hugelkultur is carbon sequestration when done organically; we are turning the carbonous tree into carbonous soil, LOTS of carbonous creatures, and carbonous plants thet we will eat or recompost. This works/has always worked/will always work. The chemical thing doesn't...

HG

[rot]

 
My point in the question of digesting versus producing compost was to address the issue of how do you want to compost. Yes digesting organic material and making compost are one in the same but digesting is just that while compost is an end product. While I still want lots of compost, my expectation, my goal is to digest as much as I can. I'll take that beer thank you.

Means versus ends is what I had hoped to be considered. If the end is to divert organic material from the trash stream and you're not interested in making mountains of compost as fast as you can then consider some method where it's easy to empty your waste, cover and water. Let the worms and the bacteria and the fungi do the work and leave the turning and monitoring to those who are seeking mounds of compost for their gardens.

At first I wanted as much compost as fast as I could make it so I worked it by turning every fourth day or so and watching the temperature and checking the moisture content. Nowadays with so much going on elsewhere I find I don't have the time or inclination to work it so much but I really take some pride in remediating some organic material otherwise destined for curbside pick up. I can do that at a rate that meets what we produce without knocking myself out. Well, except for newspaper. If anyone can recommend good ways to shred newspaper, I'm listening.

After a couple of years of trying this and that I've settled onto a method that works for us and our lifestyle. In the end, the best method for composting is the method that works for you without making you so much changing your life around and returns what you want.

I don't want to steer anyone into any one method for making compost. Worms, bins, piles, sheet, mushrooms all work. You can be as lazy or as elaborate as you like.

Interesting discussion on hegulkulture. I'm just wary of lots of wood in the ground out here in termite country especially just after tenting the house - an ordeal with our menagerie. Another reason for me to be wary - termites produce methane.
 

[The Helpful Gardener]

And they are terrors down south; glad they are less prevalent and virulent up here...

Point taken Rot. Your examples of "less is more" handling and procedure are centered on Nature doing the work and I have found that while our timelines are often divergent, there is hardly a job in the garden that Nature cannot do , and better than us and compost certainly fits that bill...

For me, with an AR spouse, all waste must be addressed, handled and contianed in the shortest amount of time; home pride allows a few dandelions, but not multiple piles. So fast turns on hot compost is my best tool to keep peace in the valley...

HG

[rot]

 
Yes the AR spouse. I currently have three hot, more reasonably warm, bins and three cold bins. There is no room to say that way is better than this. What works works and there is no doing anything about it.

I feed as I choose. Sometimes I'm more concerned about keeping hot bins going and feed the new one and sometimes I'm concerned with just covering something up like a hummingbird or butterfly or squirrel that will only upset the wife who insists our yard is a sanctuary for all three.

I made it work for me. I made it work for us. A pretty jar in the kitchen collects the weeks compostables and my job is to make sure that once a week it is emptied and rinsed. Order has been imposed upon the universe and there we stand.

It is not the most efficient operation. I doubt we produce anything near the best compost out there but, it's alright.

So the 50 gallon curbside green waste barrel never goes out to be picked up for the municipal pick up that supplies the local compost supplier but that means more room for others. The dark green trash barrel is usually less than half full. The gift of the dogs neither makes the local surfers down stream sick nor does it go into a landfill. We've started. We've made some small progress.

It works for us and if we can make it work it's not a great stretch that others, who at least appear less dysfunctional, can make a dent, scratch the surface, too.

Some time ago on another board there was a discussion on how to convince more people to compost and I basically shut down the discussion by pointing out that composting would have to be easier and cheaper than just emptying trash into a barrel. I'm a lazy slob with an AR wife and I can say: it can be done. No BFD. Don't stress it. Just start. Let it work out and it will. You'd be amazed.

One day we'll learn, and remember, that peace in the valley is worth the work.
 

[cynthia_h]

Gentlemen, I've been on the web a while, but I don't understand the reference to the "AR spouse." Is this a medical condition? What does it stand for?

that I don't already know...maybe it's a "guy" thing?

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9