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Starting a compost pile, planning on meeting as many of my vegetable needs as possible.
Anyone gardening this year?
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Garlic was planted last fall, made black garlic with the last of 2020 batch before it gets too soft and sprouts.
Tried my hand at container gardening last year with less than good results and then the deer wiped out what I had transplanted to the garden.
The cabbage did well and I made sauerkraut with most of it. Had a few peppers also.
My neighbor who went big time into raised beds with high amounts of fish emulsion fertilizer did fantastic. They always give me a bunch of their extras for which I am grateful.
Tried my hand at container gardening last year with less than good results and then the deer wiped out what I had transplanted to the garden.
The cabbage did well and I made sauerkraut with most of it. Had a few peppers also.
My neighbor who went big time into raised beds with high amounts of fish emulsion fertilizer did fantastic. They always give me a bunch of their extras for which I am grateful.
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727 Posts
i was thinking about box gardens too , might build a couple this year and see how they do
I put out a decent size garden. Maybe too big for me as I always struggle with keeping the weeds at bay. Seems every year they take over. That's not to say it's unsuccessful, just doesn't do as well as if I could keep the weeds at out. I usually have a good month run of more squash than we can eat so I give some away. Usually plant about 8 to 10 tomatoes of varying variety but mostly Cherokee Purple. Some okra and some corn, cucumbers and small watermelons. The main thing though and the whole reason I started was to keep the green beans my late grandfather used to plant going. He got the original seed in the 60's and just saved seed and replanted every year. I focus my efforts on the beans and if anything else produces it's just a bonus. We probably average canning 24 jars or so though we've had some bad years where we didn't even get 20 and good years we probably got 30+. This year I'm trying to separate a different strain that has shown up with purple blooms and speckled beans into it's own variety. I've been trying to grow pumpkins for 8 years and something always kills them. I tried to grow habanero's last year but they kept dropping fruit before they got ripe. I think I got 4 peppers from 4 plants. Maybe better luck this year.
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I needed good soil so I decided to compost. I got started on a bin made of pallets early fall, I piddled away at it adding vegetable matter from cooking, weeds etc. I mostly left it alone for a month and a half and was surprised at my good results.
Now I'm using that batch like you would use a "Sour Dough" start for baking, now I have the dang thing going after five yards of oak leaves.
I hope to get the rest of everything going after Valentines day.
Now I'm using that batch like you would use a "Sour Dough" start for baking, now I have the dang thing going after five yards of oak leaves.
I hope to get the rest of everything going after Valentines day.
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77 Posts
I have been growing hot peppers for about 8 years.
The local grocery stores stopped selling a good selection of hot sauces, and I decided to learn how to make it myself. Then, I immediately found that none of the local grocery stores sold much more than Jalapeno peppers and the standard transparent skin, freezer burnt Habaneros.
I switched from the planting bed to bucket farming after the first couple years. Mostly Black Kow compost, some Miracle Grow garden soil, a lot of pelleted gypsum, a cup of mixed granular fertilizers, and a lot of water soluble fertilizer.
I bought plants at the local nurseries and saved seeds from anything that turned out good. I have a really good, large, red, thick skinned Habanero. The Anchos, Jalapenos, and Cayennes keep cross pollinating and I have to buy new seeds every couple years. Every time I grow Ghost peppers, they cross pollinate the hotter Habanero species.
The last couple years, the Carolina Reapers and Trinidad Scorpions have not produced enough to do anything with.
I had my arm twisted into growing tomatoes for the family. They're easier than peppers. Usually get enough tomatoes that the neighbors are run away to avoid being forced to take more. Doing well with the Goliath Cluster and Goliath Hybrid.
Last year was pretty bad overall. A late frost. A baby rabbit mowed the seedlings. Tomato plants got a fungus or mildew and lost all their leaves. A freeze in the first week of November. 40 pounds of unripened peppers that mostly turned to much before they turned red.
Planning on doing only Reapers, Scorpions, and Ecuadorian Devil's Breath peppers this year. I need to order seeds for those. I am wondering if that might help.
Another arm twist project involved relevelling the front yard some years ago. Scrape off 3+ inches of clay, chop out tree roots, and resod the lawn. The clay ended up in a big pile in the backyard. And all the extra dirt from digging drainage ditches and replanting bushes and hedge plants end up in the pile. I decided to compost to turn it into something less brick like. Adding grass clippings, ground up leaves, spoiled vegetables... Best I can tell, it takes about a cubic yard of raw vegetable matter to make a cubic inch of humus. I should have dark brown dirt in another 40 or 50 years.
The local grocery stores stopped selling a good selection of hot sauces, and I decided to learn how to make it myself. Then, I immediately found that none of the local grocery stores sold much more than Jalapeno peppers and the standard transparent skin, freezer burnt Habaneros.
I switched from the planting bed to bucket farming after the first couple years. Mostly Black Kow compost, some Miracle Grow garden soil, a lot of pelleted gypsum, a cup of mixed granular fertilizers, and a lot of water soluble fertilizer.
I bought plants at the local nurseries and saved seeds from anything that turned out good. I have a really good, large, red, thick skinned Habanero. The Anchos, Jalapenos, and Cayennes keep cross pollinating and I have to buy new seeds every couple years. Every time I grow Ghost peppers, they cross pollinate the hotter Habanero species.
The last couple years, the Carolina Reapers and Trinidad Scorpions have not produced enough to do anything with.
I had my arm twisted into growing tomatoes for the family. They're easier than peppers. Usually get enough tomatoes that the neighbors are run away to avoid being forced to take more. Doing well with the Goliath Cluster and Goliath Hybrid.
Last year was pretty bad overall. A late frost. A baby rabbit mowed the seedlings. Tomato plants got a fungus or mildew and lost all their leaves. A freeze in the first week of November. 40 pounds of unripened peppers that mostly turned to much before they turned red.
Planning on doing only Reapers, Scorpions, and Ecuadorian Devil's Breath peppers this year. I need to order seeds for those. I am wondering if that might help.
Another arm twist project involved relevelling the front yard some years ago. Scrape off 3+ inches of clay, chop out tree roots, and resod the lawn. The clay ended up in a big pile in the backyard. And all the extra dirt from digging drainage ditches and replanting bushes and hedge plants end up in the pile. I decided to compost to turn it into something less brick like. Adding grass clippings, ground up leaves, spoiled vegetables... Best I can tell, it takes about a cubic yard of raw vegetable matter to make a cubic inch of humus. I should have dark brown dirt in another 40 or 50 years.
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I understand the carbon, nitrogen requirements, because I wouldn't make a cubic yard of vegetable scraps in a decade I had to come up with something green, high and nitrogen and cheap.
I bought a fifty pound sack of Rabbit food for eleven bucks. now when I water the pile I prep a bucket 1/3 full with rabbit food and then top it off with vegetables scraps and coffee grounds and whatever else like egg shells that might be handy.
I will let you know about my results.
I bought a fifty pound sack of Rabbit food for eleven bucks. now when I water the pile I prep a bucket 1/3 full with rabbit food and then top it off with vegetables scraps and coffee grounds and whatever else like egg shells that might be handy.
I will let you know about my results.
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77 Posts
I went into the effort to turn the pile of clay into soil with the attitude that it could not be nearly as hard as the tree huggers make it. Stuff rots and it turns into dark soil. Been doing that for millions of years.
Bad news. It is that hard.
You are supposed to use green vegetable matter. Brown won't work.
It has to be mixed, and not just layers, because the green stuff will just pack into big sheets of itself that will not rot.
That green stuff is the nitrogen. The pile needs the nitrogen to react and that is what gets hot. It consumes nitrogen, all of it. The goal is fertile soil that would be rich in nitrogen in order to grow plants. But the pile is going to burn through all of it and go cold. Then it stops rotting. So now you are buying bags of fertilizer to mix into the pile of compost. (And the government won't let you buy anything that is straight nitrogen.) That free soil gets expensive quick.
The thing with vegetable matter is that it seems to be mostly water and air. You drag a truckload of grass clippings over to the pile, mix it in, and it's taller than you. Six months later, that pile is the same size it was before you started, and there is barely a stain of dark brown mixed in with the clay you started out with.
I'd have to say that a much better alternative to composting seems to be filling the pile with earth worms.
Bad news. It is that hard.
You are supposed to use green vegetable matter. Brown won't work.
It has to be mixed, and not just layers, because the green stuff will just pack into big sheets of itself that will not rot.
That green stuff is the nitrogen. The pile needs the nitrogen to react and that is what gets hot. It consumes nitrogen, all of it. The goal is fertile soil that would be rich in nitrogen in order to grow plants. But the pile is going to burn through all of it and go cold. Then it stops rotting. So now you are buying bags of fertilizer to mix into the pile of compost. (And the government won't let you buy anything that is straight nitrogen.) That free soil gets expensive quick.
The thing with vegetable matter is that it seems to be mostly water and air. You drag a truckload of grass clippings over to the pile, mix it in, and it's taller than you. Six months later, that pile is the same size it was before you started, and there is barely a stain of dark brown mixed in with the clay you started out with.
I'd have to say that a much better alternative to composting seems to be filling the pile with earth worms.
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4,001 Posts
Everything is working fine.
Its below zero her and I went out to check the system and the composter had eaten about 75% of the leaves I put in it a couple of days ago.
I added another three lawn bags of leaves a bag of compost and a five gallon bucket of kitchen greens, coffee grounds, rabbit pellets and warm water.
I think I'm a little Nitrogen high at this point, so I mixed and covered and I will keep an eye on it.
Its below zero her and I went out to check the system and the composter had eaten about 75% of the leaves I put in it a couple of days ago.
I added another three lawn bags of leaves a bag of compost and a five gallon bucket of kitchen greens, coffee grounds, rabbit pellets and warm water.
I think I'm a little Nitrogen high at this point, so I mixed and covered and I will keep an eye on it.
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1,449 Posts
Last year I used 2-3inches of straw to keep the weeds down in a raised bed. Worked well plus it is supposed to be good for the soil. This year I will need to add fencing to keep critters out of the garden. I am guessing I am dealing with squirrels, raccoons and or possums. I know, sides and a top but I have a small raised bed. It will give me something to do when the weather warms.
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4,001 Posts
Potatoes are crazy easy to grow, go to YouTube and check container gardening in five gallon buckets, hay or straw pile there are a million ways.
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4,001 Posts
I'm sprouting some sweet potatoes and will use the bucket system this year.
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22,270 Posts
I'm sure you already have, but just in case.. might want to start socking away heirloom seeds or at the very least non GMO ones just so that you're not stuck with 'one and done' plants.
Rabbit shit is good for fertilizer so if you can swing it, New Zealand rabbits are good for both pelts and meat. Chickens are more economical for food though. Grow faster and have better yield.
Rabbit shit is good for fertilizer so if you can swing it, New Zealand rabbits are good for both pelts and meat. Chickens are more economical for food though. Grow faster and have better yield.
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4,001 Posts
My plans are to have four laying hens and a small movable coop.
Compost the litter and add some more hens as I go.
Compost the litter and add some more hens as I go.
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