Does anyone trench compost?

[Anniekay]

If you're not aware of the term it is digging trenches in your garden and adding chopped up composted kitchen and other garden waste into the trench, approximately 10-12" deep, then covering it over. This is one of the methods I got from Ruth Stout's gardening book.

I love this method because when I dig down into it the next season, or pull up spent plants in fall, that that I added into the trench has decomposed into a black, rich soil. I got the most healthy tomato plants this year from growing them over my trenches. All the nutrition stays in your garden, there's no loss of nutrients from run off from rain and loss into the soil beneath the compost heap. That's what sold me on the method.

Anyone using this method and, if so, how do you like it? Or would anyone like to try it and see how it goes?

 

[Mystic Moon Tree]

I have tried it & also tried composting directly into planting pots as they are recommended as low effort methods. I just didn't like them because the compost goes through a wet swampy anaerobic rot down phase which can spread pathogens from like store bought food or maneurs into the soil bed permanently. The alcohols & fermentation gets high, it gets HOT & if you plant into it too soon (an experiment I purposely did) the plants suffer. So I preffer to place a compost pile above ground on a tarp or cement so the neutrients don't leak away, or in specific tubs or buckets for composting. They gather for about 3 months in the buckets with loose lids or a trough cover or a tarp over them when I water them a bit to get the process started & I wait for flying insects to disipate. Then the buckets get fed to the worm farms & leaf scraps and clippings go to the compost pile. The aged pile gets added to the older pile after the wetter fermentation phase is done. We rest for a winter without disturbing the crust. Then the next spring we start turning out into 3 successive piles. We end up with rich soil, which is also safe from pathogens. We add amendments & aged chicken or pig maneur in as well as the worm castings & other things. Trenching can work, if you know the stuff you're putting in is free of pathogens and parasites. I personally would rest it to decompose for a couple years before planting into it.

 

[Anniekay]

I have tried it & also tried composting directly into planting pots as they are recommended as low effort methods. I just didn't like them because the compost goes through a wet swampy anaerobic rot down phase which can spread pathogens from like store bought food or maneurs into the soil bed permanently. The alcohols & fermentation gets high, it gets HOT & if you plant into it too soon (an experiment I purposely did) the plants suffer. So I preffer to place a compost pile above ground on a tarp or cement so the neutrients don't leak away, or in specific tubs or buckets for composting. They gather for about 3 months in the buckets with loose lids or a trough cover or a tarp over them when I water them a bit to get the process started & I wait for flying insects to disipate. Then the buckets get fed to the worm farms & leaf scraps and clippings go to the compost pile. The aged pile gets added to the older pile after the wetter fermentation phase is done. We rest for a winter without disturbing the crust. Then the next spring we start turning out into 3 successive piles. We end up with rich soil, which is also safe from pathogens. We add amendments & aged chicken or pig maneur in as well as the worm castings & other things. Trenching can work, if you know the stuff you're putting in is free of pathogens and parasites. I personally would rest it to decompose for a couple years before planting into it.

I do the trench composting in a bed or two that I'm letting go fallow for the season and plant snap peas on it during winter, and blackeyed peas in summer. Then I turn those in and plant it for the next rotation.

So far I haven't had any issues and my sandy soil is getting better because of it

I have heard that folks with clay soil have issues because of lack of drainage and air in their soil.

 

[Mystic Moon Tree]

That makes sense. Legumes have shallow root systems and like the richness.

 

[okiedokie59]

We practice Ruth, we trench and deep mulch/compost our potatoes. Absolutely love it. Easy harvesting and the taters seem to find it hospitable.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

loss into the soil beneath the compost heap.

I put compost heaps where I want to expand my growing area, The soil below is lovely when I move the heap. The main problem is finding places far enough away from my growing beds so things don't get 'slugged'

I have heavy clay. I am gradually digging out trenches which go down into the subsoil clay then filling with a layer of wood, then compost on top of that, then put the earth back on top. The water level is high here, if I dig a hole it will often fill with water, so I think the wood gets well sodden. There are two beds next to each other one of which I had done this to and the other not and I planted onions in them earlier in the year. We had a very dry spell and the onions in the untreated bed mostly died, those next door with the wood and compost layer look great. It is not so much Hügelkultur as making a wood filled reservoir under the bed, I don't raise it very high, but take out a layer of clay that I use around the edge to make a containing wall that will hold in moisture and keep a constant temp.

 

[roadrunner]

I use to, but I got sick of digging holes, so now I just put it under the mulch and let the soil organisms move the nutrients underground.

 

[Anniekay]

I put compost heaps where I want to expand my growing area, The soil below is lovely when I move the heap. The main problem is finding places far enough away from my growing beds so things don't get 'slugged'

I have heavy clay. I am gradually digging out trenches which go down into the subsoil clay then filling with a layer of wood, then compost on top of that, then put the earth back on top. The water level is high here, if I dig a hole it will often fill with water, so I think the wood gets well sodden. There are two beds next to each other one of which I had done this to and the other not and I planted onions in them earlier in the year. We had a very dry spell and the onions in the untreated bed mostly died, those next door with the wood and compost layer look great. It is not so much Hügelkultur as making a wood filled reservoir under the bed, I don't raise it very high, but take out a layer of clay that I use around the edge to make a containing wall that will hold in moisture and keep a constant temp.

I have, when I got my raised beds, put downfall from my oaks in the bottom, ( my red oak constantly drops twigs and branches) then whatever needed cutting back or had given up in fall on top of that. It saved me buying bags and bags of soil and compost as my raised beds are 17" above ground.

I have sandy soil with clay approximately 16" beneath, but even the clay is mixed with sand so drainage here is the least of my problems.

This makes me think I could add more mulch in the bottom of my planting holes, and to my soil amendments to hold water better since it wouldn't rot quickly here but help hold water instead.
Thank you for your post !!

 

[Anniekay]

I use to, but I got sick of digging holes, so now I just put it under the mulch and let the soil organisms move the nutrients underground.

I do this too to help keep weeds down and the sun from baking my soil and having to water more frequently. It's free and cuts down on the amount of bagged mulch I need to buy. I supposed it could just be layered on top but would look untidy.

 

[blenor]

I do this too to help keep weeds down and the sun from baking my soil and having to water more frequently. It's free and cuts down on the amount of bagged mulch I need to buy. I supposed it could just be layered on top but would look untidy.

It seems like this is a very traditional way of making a trench of scraps and semi-composted material before planting runner or string beans on top. It enriches the soil and helps to retain moisture. The only down side is that foxes love to dig it up again. I have tried to get over this by using a horticultural ground cover weighted down with bricks.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

It enriches the soil and helps to retain moisture.

I am sure it is true, but I reckon the moisture is the main factor for runners, I find a few bags of grass cuttings works well, and even the moss I rake out of the lawn, Dad used to line the trench with newspaper, not a lot of food there.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Looking back at the post above I thought it worth saying , when Dad lined a trench with newspaper they were made form new stuff and were just macerated wood, I wouldn't do it now, they incorporate a lot of recycled paper with plastic to hold it together, it's no longer absorbent, and it will be putting microparticles of plastic into the soil, same goes for most cardboard.

 

[Microbe]

I trench composted food scraps for my tomatoes this year. I dug a trench 12-16 inches deep and approximately 40 feet long by 8 inches wide. I save food scraps from the kitchen and placed them in the bottom of the trench and filled it back up with the soil I removed. I’d never done it before but I wanted to give it a shot.

It sat from November of last year until this spring. I noticed when I transplanted my tomatoes, I had a very good worm population that I hadn’t had before so I felt pretty good about that. Scraps were mostly vegetable scraps, eggshells, coffee filters & used coffee grounds, etc. No bones or meats. & fats of any kind.

The results weren’t as good as I was expecting but the wife got sick early summer and the garden just didn’t get the attention I would’ve normally given it. So my lack of attention is what I attribute to the lackluster harvest. The tomatoes were planted directly atop of where I had buried the food scraps In the fall. Whether this was right or wrong, I have no idea but I did give it a shot.

Weeds ended up becoming an issue but again, I attribute that to my lack of knowledge and attention to detail and time.


I‘ll plant this section again in the spring and see how it all ends up doing. That’s what’s fun about gardening, seeing results of our efforts and learning from those results.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Weeds ended up becoming an issue but again, I attribute that to my lack of knowledge and attention to detail and time.

If you hoe regularly you create a tilth, a layer of loose soil which allows the passage of water and slows evaporation. It also acts as a blanket, so the soil temperature and humidity are more constant. Plants like that. If you are regular you can move that tilth easily and get across a surprisingly large area in a very short time. You take out weeds at the stage where they are two leaf infants. Anything which evades you long enough to get any bigger you chop up with the hoe thinking 'Green manure', and you can add other stuff to the tilth as a mulch.
Hoeing is quick and easy, you just have to learn not to hit the plants you want, and do it weekly, fortnightly at the most. Leave it a month and you are back to weeding it all out, and it will always stay ahead of you.

 

[redback]

I'm restarting this topic from last year because trenching tomatoes is my regular method.
Tomatoes grow to 2.5m or 8'0" high here so you need both a high trellis and a means of boosting them when they are half grown and starting to fruit profusely. I dig a trench about 300mm or 1'0" deep and wide down the center of my trellis and fill it with compost, organic fertilizer pellets, manure and all the liquid fertilizer available at the time. I don't use un-composted material, but I have been known to use the sweepings from the henhouse floor or yard. I then place the micro-spray irrigation on top of the trench. Because the roots of the tomatoes will go where the water is, they find the trench just when they are in need of extra nutrition and old enough to handle it.
Just about all irrigated crops can use this method but if there is no trellis you can just top dress halfway through the season.