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Gary350
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This is how I do my compost.

I sprinkle kitchen scraps between the rows and till them in. Tomorrow butterflies will be all over these, water melon scraps, pineapple scraps, cantaloupe scraps. Bean pots, tomatoes scraps, squash scraps, coffee grounds, onion scraps, potato peals, dead plants, corn cobs, egg shells, were in a different row last week. I do this in each row all summer my whole garden gets a little compose. This is a lot less work than a compose pile. I did compose piles years ago they are too much.

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Animal_lover
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Wow, interesting idea... do you see any improvement in soil fertility?

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rainbowgardener
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Sorry, but having nasty rotting food in your garden seems so gross to me. Where I lived before, I never could have done it, because the raccoons and everyone, would have just dug it all up again, unless it were tilled into very fine bits. And of course, I do no till gardening. Here I don't have so many critters and maybe could get away with it, but I know we do have mice around.

And my compost piles are hardly any work. Throw stuff on the piles, being sure to layer greens and browns. Water the compost piles if I am watering the garden. Turn it over top to bottom every two-three months (less in winter).

Also if you are doing just kitchen scraps and some plants, it is all "greens," no "browns." So it's not even really compost. The magic of compost is the mixture of greens and browns and a big diversity of sources, which makes the finished compost a complete food, with all the nutrients--major, minor, and trace-- that plants need and both bacterial and fungal elements at the micro-organism level.

thanrose
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I kinda like Gary's approach. It would be problematic where I am now, and I am less likely to do this on smaller pieces of property, but I will toss things for the wild critters, and I used to do that for the chooks and ducks on my old property. I guess I'm more of a chop and drop sort. My last true compost bin/pile/mound was dismantled in early spring preparatory to selling this house. I still have a quasi hugelkultur bed along a blind fence line where there are a lot of trees and wildlife. As I pointed out to my sister, what she saw a month ago at 3 feet high is now two feet high and still condensing. I have small deadfall type litter under a few deep back yard shrubs out of the treeline. That's where I'm likely to cast off melon rinds, peanut shells, peelings and coffee grounds. We have raccoons, opossum, rabbits, rats, and squirrels out there, but if they drag some of it off, it's usually to a more secluded area.

Right now we did some exterior repair work that entailed a lot of young guys tromping over everything so I had a lot of leaves and branches and shrubby bits to shape up and rake off. That's all been distributed. I had to replant a few things, but I anticipated and even welcomed the damage to the heavy growth around the house's foundation.

I know people all have different ideas for what works best for them. And housing associations or local ordinances may have advisories. I feel if it grew here, it should return to the earth here, within reason.

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Gary350
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rainbowgardener wrote:Sorry, but having nasty rotting food in your garden seems so gross to me. Where I lived before, I never could have done it, because the raccoons and everyone, would have just dug it all up again, unless it were tilled into very fine bits. And of course, I do no till gardening. Here I don't have so many critters and maybe could get away with it, but I know we do have mice around.

And my compost piles are hardly any work. Throw stuff on the piles, being sure to layer greens and browns. Water the compost piles if I am watering the garden. Turn it over top to bottom every two-three months (less in winter).

Also if you are doing just kitchen scraps and some plants, it is all "greens," no "browns." So it's not even really compost. The magic of compost is the mixture of greens and browns and a big diversity of sources, which makes the finished compost a complete food, with all the nutrients--major, minor, and trace-- that plants need and both bacterial and fungal elements at the micro-organism level.
I have never tilled organic material into the soil and find it is still there a year later it always decomposes. I don't till it in right away butterflies love the melons and fruit even the tomato scrap. I like watching the butterflies. Animals come and eat what they want I like watching animals too. In a few days things like, corn cobs, bean pods, corn husks, melon rinds, are all that is left. Nothing wrong with feeding the animals. There are other things like, bean plants, tomato plants, squash plants, melon vines, corn stalks, other plants, tree leaves, coffee grounds, egg shells, they all decompose in the soil too. Organic material can not vaporize and become nothing it decomposes and becomes compose in the soil just like it does in a compose pile with 95% less work. My whole 35'x60' garden is my compose pile.

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applestar
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Oooh that does sound like fun to be able to watch wildlife like that. I kind of wish I could do that sort of thing with confidence.

I guess the process of tilling them into bits and into the soil makes a difference vs. not allowing ourselves that option. What I do is I trample a lot of stuff into the path - most of my paths are swamps after heavy rain or good watering and things just disappear into the mud.

But when I had pesky and impossible groundHOGs and these last couple of years with the chipmunks more than any others, I have had to be very careful about fruit and veg scraps in the open. My impression has been that if I "feed" them those things earlier in the season before my own crops are ripe and ready, they think my garden is open buffet. Older animals have learned from previous years, and this year's youngsters learn to eat them, too. AND they raid the garden and munch on them just before they are ripe/ready to be harvested. Ugh!

So I stopped tossing apple cores and melon rinds in the shrubbery by the back fence and bury all fruit and veg scraps deep in my enclosed bin compost piles or put in the vermicomposter. I put non-fruit/veg -- yard waste -- in the open piles.

I even stopped setting out butterfly feeding stations -- but I have lots of "natural" feeders in the form of insect and squirrel/chipmunk/bird damaged fruits throughout the season, as well as nectar-rich flowers that bloom seasonally, so I don't worry about that any more. I just have to look for them -- top of the plum and mulberry trees, elder and blackberries spoiling in the sun, etc. -- instead of having a station in the view of a specific window. My whole yard is a butterfly garden now.

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rainbowgardener
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I have never tilled organic material into the soil and find it is still there a year later it always decomposes. Yes of course it decomposes. But it is a gooey mess until then. I don't till it in right away butterflies love the melons and fruit even the tomato scrap. I like watching the butterflies. Animals come and eat what they want I like watching animals too. In a few days things like, corn cobs, bean pods, corn husks, melon rinds, are all that is left. Nothing wrong with feeding the animals. I have nothing against wildlife and am certainly not one of the people around here who advocates shooting things. But I'd rather not invite critters right into my garden beds. In my experience they would tear up the gardens and eat everything there. There are other things like, bean plants, tomato plants, squash plants, melon vines, corn stalks, other plants, tree leaves, coffee grounds, egg shells, they all decompose in the soil too. Sure, although that kind of thing would take a lot longer. If you just put it on the ground, it will be there being messy and icky in your garden for a long time. Organic material can not vaporize and become nothing it decomposes and becomes compose in the soil just like it does in a compose pile with 95% less work. I don't know what is 95% less than nearly zero. But while it does decompose and break down into nutrients in the soil, it really isn't compost. As noted compost is made from greens and browns and is a more complete feed for your soil than what you are doing. My whole 35'x60' garden is my compose pile. Sort of. I love composting and I love having home made compost, but I really don't want my compost pile spread out all over, rotting everywhere. Our chickens spread the compost pile out in their process of turning it and pecking through it and every day I rake it back up. There are composting benefits to having your pile piled (heats up better) and it looks a lot neater.

And incidentally compose is a verb meaning to write, create or meaning comprising, constituting. Compost is either a verb meaning to make organic materials into compost, to do the processes that make this happen or a noun meaning the product of a compost pile, decayed organic materials.

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Gary350
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Butterflies like wet sand. Put a pan full of sand outside make sure it stays wet. Butterflies will land on the sand they suck up the water. I use to have a butterfly garden it was amazing how many butterflies are attracted to certain plants. Butterflies like fruit, I'm not sure if they eat it or suck up the liquid. I put fruit pieces in the garden face up for the butterflies.

I do have a 30 gallons plastic trash can 1/2 full of real homemade compost. It is mixed with a small amount of garden soil about 20% for minerals and what ever NPK that might exist. I only use it to fill plant trays to grow my own plants from seeds. I spent about 20 minutes earlier today planting, chard, Blue kale, Pac Choy, Napa, Russian Red Kale.

I can not go to my garden and point to any compost and say, there it is. Compost is mixed evenly in the whole garden. I almost can say that bell peppers grow like weeds 7 ft tall with about 50% compost mixed into the soil, sand does the same thing it allows roots to grow better. Fall plants often have 45 to 50 bell peppers each plant.



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