Composters and Non-Composters & Their Garden Square Foot

[DoubleDogFarm]

360 square feet at this time.

I compost but have a hard time coming up with materials to use.

I've been re-reading the John Jeavons book on growing bio intensive and it only calls for 1/2" of compost over the beds. Additional fertilizers like alfalfa meal can be used as soil tests call for it.

It's hard for people to understand how much I can grow in such a small space. I'm also working on adding beds as I go. I need to get something growing just to raise material for composting!

Biomass cover crops is a whole nother topic and I don't consider composting, but soil building.

Eric

[PunkRotten]

1. Yes I compost
2. I got 4 beds; they measure roughly 16x2, 4x2, 4x2, and 8x2.

[pickupguy07]

I started making compost last summer... this will be the first time I have compost in my garden.
My Garden is about 50' x 8'.... so about 400 sq ft.
My compost that was finished in 4 ' x 4' pallets, and was about 3 ft high. It was all moist, and looked wonderful.

SO I don't know if what I put on is enough, too much or what. I do know the garden looked good when I got dome tilling it about 8" deep.

[DoubleDogFarm]

I changed the topic title hoping the non-composters will post.

Keep it going folks.

Eric

[orgoveg]

Only 260 sq. feet and I compost, but I can never make enough to cover it all. I could probably make more if I wasn't so picky about what I want in the pile, but it still wouldn't be enough.

[!potatoes!]

we compost. we've probably got a little more than a quarter-acre we're growing on.

I never apply it to a large area and till it in - whole small beds or well-amended planting holes is the norm.

[btrowe1]

My garden is 25' x 45', I have a compost pile (grass and leave clippings )and a compost tumbler plus a precompost holding bin, I do not see myself using the compost on the garden. But I will be using the compost on the flowers and my growing pots. I have a source that has much aged horse manure that I will be using for the garden.

[hit or miss]

Sorry, I'm not talking cover crops. Growing plants specifically to cut and compost is what I was talking about. Right now I'm intentionally growing weeds to compost! I guess that makes them "not weeds"!

[DoubleDogFarm]

Sorry, I'm not talking cover crops. Growing plants specifically to cut and compost is what I was talking about. Right now I'm intentionally growing weeds to compost! I guess that makes them "not weeds"!

If you follow John Jeavons design, 60% of your garden would be [url=https://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&biw=1024&bih=571&tbm=isch&prmd=imvnsbo&tbnid=HiBB_8CN3j1AbM:&imgrefurl=https://www.growbiointensive.org/about_costarica_report.html&docid=OgYDn9s3ONPbfM&imgurl=https://www.growbiointensive.org/images/grow-bio.jpg&w=400&h=300&ei=nfh4T8vVNamhiQKwnMinDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=659&vpy=125&dur=3359&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=114&ty=128&sig=100245684111842089518&page=2&tbnh=123&tbnw=164&start=18&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:18]grains.[/url] Then you would have the stalks for composting.

[bcallaha]

I have a little less than 3000 sq ft of garden, and I don't compost, however, I buy compost at a local place and will be putting somewhere around 18 cubic yards of compost on my gardens this year.

Brad

[Allegre Nee]

I changed the topic title hoping the non-composters will post.

Keep it going folks.

Eric

I think only the composters would be interested in a composting poll, LOL. I'm the only person I know (in real life), other than my dad, who composts.

I have four 4x4 garden boxes and a fifth which is as yet unplanted, so a total of 64-80 square feet of garden bed area. I use the compost when I initially fill the garden boxes; I mix it with potting soil, peat moss, and vermiculite. I also apply it kind of randomly throughout the year as a fertilizer, like when I pull out an old plant and add a new one in one of my grid spaces I toss in a handful of compost.

My actual garden area is about 625 square feet. I use mulch and yard waste such as raked up leaves, etc to cover my "walking space". Once that kind of breaks down, I throw it into the compost bin.

[dustyrivergardens]

Yes I definitely compost. My gardens very's in size and right now it totals about a quarter of an acre and growing...lol every year I try to enlarge right now I am enlarging at my brothers house I am out of room.lol

[mattie g]

I just started composting this year (see my thread in the Composting Forum), and I have a pretty small area for vegetable gardening. I'll probably use my own compost primarily for tea, but might also put some in some of our flower beds that need improving.

- Three ~8'x1.5' beds
- One ~4'x6' bed
- Another 20' sq. or so of extra space around paths and the like
- Three 12-gallon pots, and various other sized and shaped pots - just really started them this year

That said, in my first year of real gardening (last year), I used about half mushroom compost and half native soil in the holes I transplanted my plants in. I had some absolutely monster tomato plants - a couple in excess of 11' - and some nice, big tomatoes that came from them, so I know what compost can do for a garden!

[barnhardt9999]

I have two 18' x 2.5' raised beds (plans to add two more this year), a winter squash/pumpkin patch in-ground (5 plants) and 5 fruit trees (2 fig, 2 plum, 1 mulberry). All said I've got a little over 200 sq. feet of garden space.

I compost my kitchen scraps, lawn clippings and oak leaves from 2 mature oak trees in my neighbors yard.

[rainbowgardener]

I will say the CSA farm I belong to is five acres, intensely farmed, totally organic, produces pretty much all the veggies for 100 families. They compost -- gigantic rows of compost pile, tractor turned.

[Brant]

I used only my own compost (except a couple bags of coffee grounds my roommate brought home) and it was enough for 75 sq feet - one of my two plots - after saving up a whole year (I don't really have grass so I don't even get grass clippings). That half of my garden looks spectacular this year, the best I have had any garden and much better than my other plot which I used composted manure on.