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.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Osx2ib4blH...heet-mulch.gif

Kelli, my next-door neighbor is the gardener around here and he has forsworn Ramsey County compost as being too weedy. Granted, sample size = 1, but he's dealt with it for a few years. We've let him use our compost for a few years, but I think we're going to be using it this year as a soil builder.

Yep, Ramsey County compost does have weed seeds in it. But if you can let the weeds germinate before you seed the garden - cover it with some clear plastic to warm it and encourage the germination in early spring - then you can wipe out those weeds and it will be good to go.

I suggest avoiding straw. I bought straw for the first time last year for my potato experiment and it definitely had a lot of mold spores in it. Won't do that again.

Thanks for the tips, Rosemary!

Kelli, do you have a Freecycle chapter where you are? I put out a call for old manure, aged manure, etc. one year and had multiple responses. I made a pile in March, let it cook until late April, then mixed in a little chopped straw to get the right texture. So it might not be too late if you can find a farm or stable that has some OLD manure somewhere. Strawbales can often be found at construction sites or pounded into the ground where they once needed to control runoff. If you have a microbrewery nearby, brewery waste is terrific stuff when mixed in with browns like leaves.

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Originally Posted by puglogic

Kelli, do you have a Freecycle chapter where you are? I put out a call for old manure, aged manure, etc. one year and had multiple responses. I made a pile in March, let it cook until late April, then mixed in a little chopped straw to get the right texture. So it might not be too late if you can find a farm or stable that has some OLD manure somewhere. Strawbales can often be found at construction sites or pounded into the ground where they once needed to control runoff. If you have a microbrewery nearby, brewery waste is terrific stuff when mixed in with browns like leaves.

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My dad usually has lots of aged stuff, but we used it all up on our bed last fall. I'll think about giving Freecycle a try, or CL free section.

Thanks for the reminders about the brewing material. Our community garden was picking up some waste from somewhere, but the woman doing it got overwhelmed with all the pickups and some dropped by the wayside. Maybe I should ask her if I could contribute by picking that up, too. I'll be picking up coffee grounds once a week from three coffee shops already, so should probably see how that goes first with my schedule and general feeling of overwhelmedness.

There is also a salsa cannery on the main drag very near to the garden. Do you suppose they would have waste that would be good? Or would it more likely be a huge mess?

The good thing about this effort is that we really can't have too much. If we end up with surplus, it can just go on the community pile, which the compost coordinator is managing as a hot pile. It's been composting all winter, unlike our backyard bin which is a frozen chunk o' stuff. Super interesting stuff.

I wouldn't use newspaper because of the ink factor, even though that layer is not close to the top....

The newspapers where I live use soy ink which is safe to use in a compost pile. Not the shiny ads in the paper, but the newsprint is safe.

What are you going to be planting?

Tomatoes, beans, zucchini, maybe herbs, perhaps some hardy greens, I'm sure there's more. . .

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Originally Posted by fidgiegirl

Tomatoes, beans, zucchini, maybe herbs, perhaps some hardy greens, I'm sure there's more. . .

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You know one thing I've done in a pinch, Kelli, when I had compost that needed more time to "cook" in my sheet mulch, was to create a little oasis of regular soil right around every plant I plant. By the time its roots extend out far enough to reach the hotter stuff, it has often cooled down just fine. If you can get away with that with some of your plants....

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Originally Posted by fidgiegirl

Tomatoes, beans, zucchini, maybe herbs, perhaps some hardy greens, I'm sure there's more. . .

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Peas! They like it cool where you are. If you don't want to shell them, plant snow peas.

Peas do fantastically well here. I usually seed them as soon as the ground begins to warm, and they last through about the end of July unless it's a scorching summer. I plant both sugar snaps and snow peas.

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Originally Posted by Rosemary

Peas do fantastically well here. I usually seed them as soon as the ground begins to warm, and they last through about the end of July unless it's a scorching summer. I plant both sugar snaps and snow peas.

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Here in the near-South DH plants snow peas and gets two handfuls of them each year and will barely share with me.

MMMM, yes, peas are on the list!

I was thinking you could plant stuff in different zones in your beds. Zucchini aren't as heavy feeders as tomatoes - you could do something with your tomatoes like recommended at this site: Planting tomatoes.

Is the county compost not very good?

I think it's fine, it's just if I'm lucky enough to have the stars align to get any or enough. It's pretty popular.

Will check out the tomatoes site!

I have the best deal: The city brings loads of wood chips and compost DIRECTLY TO MY GARDEN that I lease from the city. It's because I have a "community garden" (a community of two persons, me 'n DH, haha ) and so it qualifies for the freebies, delivered.

Yet another reason why St. Louis is the best place to live for cheapskates.

Nice, IL!!

Why the name change, BTW?

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Originally Posted by fidgiegirl

Nice, IL!!

Why the name change, BTW?

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I have 2 accounts, one to work behind the scenes to register incoming members, and one to post as regular me.

Well, the coffee grounds pickup is going to be very fruitful for our plot. I asked the compost coordinator to come over to the garden and show me which is our plot. We have to do some trading of containers for the coffee grounds pickup anyway so hopefully she will be willing to do that. The volume is amazing. I probably picked up 100 lbs of grounds (they are so wet and messy) from three shops. I am scheduled to do the pickups from those three shops once a week. That will help, and I am also going to see if I can find another source. There is a big heap of leaves there already so maybe all I need is the leaves and then coffee grounds to balance them out.

A few years ago when I sheet mulched an alley garden into existence we used a bunch of burlap coffee sacks cut open to keep the material (lots of leaves) from blowing away during what we didn't know would be a pretty snowless winter. Too bad we gave them all away - they worked really well. But I wasn't going to move them! I suppose I could collect them again.

Oh yeah, I forgot. So if we did cover crop the plot, I am still confused about what the "digging under" looks like when the crop has run its course and it's time to plant. Do I have to go in there with a tiller? Just mow it down? Use a spade? Will it turn into a weedy mess?

I don't know how nitrogen crops set seed, but with any plant you get rid of the seed before turning it over. So if it is a grassy thing I guess you would mow it, rake the stalks and remove them for mulch. Then use a shovel to turn over the soil. If there is root materials there, depending on how big it is, remove it or leave it to break down.

I've had good luck putting soil on top of a lasagna garden made in the spring and planting into the soil. As it composts down, it does generate some heat which helps the plants. You may need a bit of nitrogen to compensate for the composting process. One year I had tomatoes in a bed like that when an unpredicted frost hit. They were the only tomatoes in the whole garden to survive.

Well, good news! Just back from the garden where the compost coordinator showed me our plot. They already chucked a goodly amount of leaves on it, and I will continue to add coffee grounds. It is a muddy mess right now but as I bring more grounds over, I might try to add a layer of leaves from the community pile every time. Little by little we'll build it up.