Brainstorm? Organic Material Sources

You may remember that we got a 10x20 community garden plot for this year. Yeah!

Well, it is on a strip between a frontage road and railroad, and has never been worked. It will need some serious sheet mulching. I'd like to put 8-12" on the whole plot, and that's a lot of organic material.

We have leaves available at the community garden from a leaf drop they organized last fall, and can get coffee grounds from coffee shops. I'm not super keen on putting kitchen scraps in it because it won't be breaking down very quickly.

On top of the sheet mulch we'll put a layer of compost from the county so that we have *something* to plant into. Won't be ideal, but will get the job done. I want to start sheet mulching as soon as the snow is gone. It'll have 4-8 weeks to settle before planting in it. Too bad we didn't have our plot last fall!

Hmmm, that makes me think, I should probably research which plants to even put in there. Maybe if we grow the right things that will help put nutrients in as well. Maybe a cover crop this spring? But we're not going to till, so then what to do with it when we're done?

What other ideas do people have for where to get enough organic material? I would prefer not to pay for it, knowing that a lot already goes into the waste stream, but we will if we have to. Thank you friends!!!

Ooh, I could get some more from my dad's horses, but it needs to be aged first.

The best sheet mulch is cardboard, in my experience.

I agree with cardboard, wetted, would be the most available. We put our goat, rabbit, chicken and cow manure on our garden. We've also given it away, a good way to get the goat pen and chicken house cleaned by others. Horse manure is used majorly among the Amish in the area and they have great gardens but as you said, it needs to be 'fermented' not 'fresh'. Annual rye is a common cover crop planted in the fall and worked up in the spring. Have fun.

Shredded newspapers break down pretty fast, but I can't see that they would add nutrients. That great that you've got horse manure available, it will cool down fast.

I'm not sure what you mean by "no till." Whatever you plant there, you'll have to turn over the soil next year (assuming annuals are planted) breaking up clods and getting it ready to plant but I don't know if you consider that "tilling." It seems to me that you would, if planting a nitrogen rich cover crop, turn it over.

I am spoiled by my city's free compost and free wood mulch program. So, the Twin Cities don't have anything similar? Even several of our suburbs have these programs.

If you get the timing right you should be able to get all the compost you need free from the county. That's what I used when starting my garden, which consists of 8, 8x4 raised beds - similar in square footage to your community plot. You can subscribe to email updates so you know when the compost is available. At the site nearest our house, it vanishes very quickly, even if the weather is rainy. We don't have access to a pickup, but I have numerous 5-gallon buckets (mainly from cat litter) and I put a tarp in the back of our minivan, loading all the buckets into it. I empty them and go back to get more. You could locate all the compost sites that are convenient to the garden location so that as soon as one of those gets compost, you can begin.

My version of 'no till' is to put black poly on a small garden spot (10x20) in the early spring and let the sun kill the grass, etc.. Remove the black poly, rake up the dead debris, plant and mulch with grass clipping or shredded leaves from last years compost. My larger garden is worked up with a tractor and tiller, add manures and till again. The no till method is a lot easier and produces just as well.

Another vote for cardboard and newspaper as the base layer.

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Originally Posted by Rosemary

If you get the timing right you should be able to get all the compost you need free from the county.

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Usually that's the issue - the timing. My dad has a trailer we can use and we can borrow my FiL's truck, so that is good. But we've missed the chance on most years. I will subscribe for updates.

I think the members last year started to prep plots with cardboard, so hoping the grass is already toast. This would be to build up the soil. We might have to do more cardboard anyway if last year's is broken down. At our beds at my parents' we've done cardboard twice - once at the beginning of a season and then at the end of the next season.

We usually don't do too much "cleanup" of the gardens. Maybe that's wrong. I figure it's all organic material and if we cut anything down so it looks better, we just dump it right there on the same spot. This has always been fine for perennials, but actually now that I think of it, with our tomatoes and squash we have always cleaned it out for pest and disease reasons.

To clarify, this is more what I have in mind with sheet mulching: Killing off the grass AND building the soil.

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