Sustainable Gardening

[Mr_Yan]

To shift this dicussion slightly we can, and do, grow some plants for compost.

As I see it - could be wrong:

This is allowing us to use the micro-oganisims and fungi across the whole property to concentrate nutrients on garden areas. So what do we grow to compost and how do we compost it for use on the garden becomes a key factor to reduce the amount of inputs required.

I've long looked to my large deciduous trees and tall ornamental perennial grasses as the key "miners" on my property. My thinking is these have large root systems pulling all sorts of nutrients up.

In the last few years I've started playing with more deep rooted annuals also (diakon radish).

What other plants are a good idea for intended compost?

• Comfrey - I don't think I have comfrey but don't know how to ID it yet. Planning on getting some here.
• Wisteria? - Nitrogen fixing perennial vine dropping a bunch of smaller leafs.
• Black Locust? Nitrogen fixing perennial tree adapted to grow in poor soils.
• Clover
• Sunhemp - for those in the south (Meadowlark did a bunch of this last season)
• Deep rooted herbaceous "weeds" like dandelion, radish

Then how do you use it without making TOO much additional work:

• End of season / start of season bury it directly in beds like Heugalkulture beds / containers
• Compost bin systems
• Compost / worm teas
• "weed teas"

My goal is to do a large veg garden with minimal additional offsite inputs (fertilizers) but also have it be a managable workload - I also have a full time job, multiple kids, cycle (gravel bike) a few hours a week, and putting in hardscape in my yard and garden.

 

[headfullofbees]

I think that when people talk of sustainable growing, they are really talking about it in a wider sense.
For example, I harvest seaweed & comfrey from off my plot, but because the comfrey regrows, & there's more seaweed washed up on the beach, it is sustainable on a planetary basis.

 

[Susan BBPM]

This is all awesome info. Thanks all.
Mr Yan - we're attempting to do exactly the same. We have 3 big compost bins, worm farms and a station with big water butts that we fill with weeds, comfrey, nettles to make various 'teas'. We have comfrey everywhere and ever spot of garden is filled with peas, beans, nasturtiums - anything that'll produce material to compost. As of yet I can't comment on the impact on the garden, but our set up is looking good! LOL

I'm not opposed to bringing things in. I guess the best way to explain it is that I like things to be coherent. I like to know what the ivory tower solution would be, and be aware of where I'm deviating and why. As I've set myself the long term goal of making my little plot as sustainable as possible - a wildlife haven - I want to do my very best to avoid 'asset stripping' from elsewhere to make my bit of the world better. I want to be able to say that I made my little world without spoiling any other part of the world.

Currently, the council bulldoze the beach each evening and take away all the rubbish and washed up seaweed to landfill. So I'm HELPING the environment by picking out the seaweed before they get to it.

If the farmer can't get rid of his manure fast enough he dumps it on his fields (although this is work he'd rather not do). You could argue that if I didn't take it he'd have to put it back into his fields. However, upon learning that my sewage is being turned into fertilizer for farms it seems to me to be a fair trade for me to take the horse/cow manure, use it to grow veg, eat veg, 'process' veg and dump it down the toilet to be processed into fertilizer and sent back to the farm!!

 

[Susan BBPM]

Susan, about fertilization, it is a great cause and the event to hold the animals, but most of gardeners don't use the fertilization, because of don't have farming and flat-planting, it is also expensive. That's why we use unorganic ME-Bases, other not dirty products for prepare the ground. Ground prepared by the proffesional providers with tuff, including the organics. So, mostly it is the natural ground, purified by damping processes of microbiota feed. What ab. fertile it must be more than year preparation for the including into the grow process.

Thanks for this. What is 'ME-Bases'? Google isn't giving me any clues!

 

[Ruderunner]

Mr Yan and I are on a similar track with composting other items.

I've decided not to try to eliminate most of the weeds in my garden but to let them grow then harvest. Crabgrass and Bermuda grass have such a deep root system that getting rid of it is difficult. But, as stated they're pulling nutrients from far deeper than one could possibly dig up to use.

Let the weeds grow and bring the nutrients up, then take those nutrients and spread them around the garden.

I've had a shortage of high carbon materials like sticks and leaves but I've recently solved that problem.

 

[big rockpile]

To be Self Substaining you need some land and we have couple Canners.

We have some animals for meat but look at your plate when you eat most is Vegetables.

Was raised living off the land if we bought anything it was a treat. Mostly buy Dried Beans and Rice to go with.

Remember it is much easier to take care of this by all receiving work producing.

big rockpile

 

[Susan BBPM]

To be Self Substaining you need some land and we have couple Canners.

We have some animals for meat but look at your plate when you eat most is Vegetables.

Was raised living off the land if we bought anything it was a treat. Mostly buy Dried Beans and Rice to go with.

Remember it is much easier to take care of this by all receiving work producing.

big rockpile

Few people live that way in the UK nowadays. We (if we're lucky) have tiny gardens. By UK standards my garden is huge - about 1/4 acre including house and front garden. But there's a lot you can do.

Beans grow very well here so I'm growing a few varieties this year for drying. Also mushrooms do well here. So that at least gives us some protein. We're thinking of getting ducks for eggs.

 

[big rockpile]

Few people live that way in the UK nowadays. We (if we're lucky) have tiny gardens. By UK standards my garden is huge - about 1/4 acre including house and front garden. But there's a lot you can do.

Beans grow very well here so I'm growing a few varieties this year for drying. Also mushrooms do well here. So that at least gives us some protein. We're thinking of getting ducks for eggs.

You go with what you are offered. Most my time living in West U.S. water was an issue in both California and Colorado. Colorado gardens were really out of the question in the mountains but it can work.

Just North of here is very good soil here is good but rocky.

My Dad had what we call small but he had a Milk Cow and Hogs on two acres.

When I was first married we rented a small place that we could have a garden and chickens.

I could get Firewood cheap and was able to trap thousands of acres Furs were very high at the time.

Plus we was working very good Jobs.

big rockpile

 

[Susan BBPM]

My grandparents lived on Dartmoor (Devon, England). They only had a little thatched cottage with a tiny garden. But they kept a cow and a pig. They used to graze them on Dartmore. They also had an alotment where they grew all their veg. Census says grandad was a dairy farmer - but really he just kept a cow and did odd jobs.

The were REALLY poor. Furniture held together with string. But holidays with them were the happiest of my life!!

 

[big rockpile]

I've been watching Monty Don in England and it seemed strange a couple buying a huge 15 acre Farm.

My Father in Law one time told me I couldn't make a living off a hundred acres.

I showed him how. Well that don't count. Why not it has to come from somewhere?

big rockpile

 

[Mr_Yan]

This has me thinking of compost now. It sounds like many of us were wanting the same thing but using different words.

I need to improve my soils and get more organic matter in there. If I dig through the first 6" or so of black loamy stuff I start to hit sand, if I continue past 12" deep I am in something that looks like pure Lake Michigan beach sand for as deep as I can dig. I may have been setting fence posts 4' deep this weekend. I could make some amazing sand castles with what I dug up.

I have weeds and trimmings now plus kitchen scraps.

How do we turbo charge a compost bin and get something ready "fast"?

I know chopping up the mix makes things go fast but I only have pruning sheers and don't think I can justify the cost of a small wood chipper.

I have worm bins for composting kitchen scraps. That is a laborious job sifting finished compost out. And, frankly, the end result is more like a fertilizer than a soil amendment.

I have heard of others putting a perforated pipe at the bottom of a compost bin to inject air into the pile. Is this worth the experiment? I have some PVC and an air compressor.

I'm seeing the Johnson-Su Bioreactor modified for home composters in several places lately.

I am also starting to plan my landscaping so I can design in plants to collect nutrients and be compost fodder as well as be ornamental. @Ruderunner and @Susan BBPM you're both in similar growing conditions. What are some of your favorite "miner" plants I can put in. I am thinking some wisteria trained on my fence and gate arbor. Forsythia for early color and simple to grow. Some more tall ornamental native grasses.

 

[Susan BBPM]

This has me thinking of compost now. It sounds like many of us were wanting the same thing but using different words.

I need to improve my soils and get more organic matter in there. If I dig through the first 6" or so of black loamy stuff I start to hit sand, if I continue past 12" deep I am in something that looks like pure Lake Michigan beach sand for as deep as I can dig. I may have been setting fence posts 4' deep this weekend. I could make some amazing sand castles with what I dug up.

I have weeds and trimmings now plus kitchen scraps.

How do we turbo charge a compost bin and get something ready "fast"?

I know chopping up the mix makes things go fast but I only have pruning sheers and don't think I can justify the cost of a small wood chipper.

I have worm bins for composting kitchen scraps. That is a laborious job sifting finished compost out. And, frankly, the end result is more like a fertilizer than a soil amendment.

I have heard of others putting a perforated pipe at the bottom of a compost bin to inject air into the pile. Is this worth the experiment? I have some PVC and an air compressor.

I'm seeing the Johnson-Su Bioreactor modified for home composters in several places lately.

I am also starting to plan my landscaping so I can design in plants to collect nutrients and be compost fodder as well as be ornamental. @Ruderunner and @Susan BBPM you're both in similar growing conditions. What are some of your favorite "miner" plants I can put in. I am thinking some wisteria trained on my fence and gate arbor. Forsythia for early color and simple to grow. Some more tall ornamental native grasses.

Comfrey, red clover, nettles and dandilions are the main ones I use for fertilizer. I also grow Borage everywhere which I THINK works the same way. Although we have clay soil - not sand.

When it comes to composting have you tried:

Composting in situ?
You could use a perferated pipe burried in the ground (a bit like a worm farm in your garden bed). Just pop a lid on and fill it with food scraps. The nutrients are immediately available to the soil. Another way is a mesh wire 'cage' that you can move around from season to season. This can be in addition to your main compost heap - we tend to have one at the bottom half of the garden to thow weeds and trimmings in when we can't be bothered climbing the hill to the compost heaps. As it breaks down, the nutrients seep into the soil underneath. When it's done, just move the cage elsewhere and spread the compost on the bed.

Hotbin?
We have a commercially available hotbin. It's essentially a box wrapped in polystyrene. You could easily make one yourself - a bigger one even. They keep cooking all through the winter if you feed them constantly. They get very hot and produce compost quickly. You can even put meat and bones into them.

We follow a 'no dig' approach. We don't much care what's happening to the soil deeper down (although I can tell you from experience that very good stuff IS happening. But for actual growing purposes we throw down cardboard and a few inches of compost on top and grow into that. It works brilliantly, producing great result in first season. you notice over time that the quality of the soil deep down improves every year.

But of course, you need lots of compost. We bought in loads for the first 3 years, but hope not to need to ever buy it again..

 

[Susan BBPM]

This is the hotbin we have (we didn't pay that much for it!!). But you could easily make one. It's just an insulated compost bin.

The commercial one has built in thermometer and a tap to syphon of compost tea. We put ours in the polytunnel in winter. This makes it easier to keep the bin hot, but also heats the polytunnel a little bit. We also move our worm farm into the polytunnel and sit it on one of the beds. The worm tea filters out into the bed all winter long. The only 'problem' we've noticed is that the worms from the beds move into the worm farm!! So we need to make sure we take some out of the bin and put them in the beds in spring.

HOTBIN 200 Litre Compost Bin

The HotBin Mark 2. 200 Litre Compost Bin works 32x quicker than cold composting to recycle your food and garden waste even quicker, making your EvenGreener lifestyle much easier.

evengreener.com

 

[big rockpile]

This is the hotbin we have (we didn't pay that much for it!!). But you could easily make one. It's just an insulated compost bin.

The commercial one has built in thermometer and a tap to syphon of compost tea. We put ours in the polytunnel in winter. This makes it easier to keep the bin hot, but also heats the polytunnel a little bit. We also move our worm farm into the polytunnel and sit it on one of the beds. The worm tea filters out into the bed all winter long. The only 'problem' we've noticed is that the worms from the beds move into the worm farm!! So we need to make sure we take some out of the bin and put them in the beds in spring.

HOTBIN 200 Litre Compost Bin

The HotBin Mark 2. 200 Litre Compost Bin works 32x quicker than cold composting to recycle your food and garden waste even quicker, making your EvenGreener lifestyle much easier.

evengreener.com

I'm putting up 3 much bigger Bins.

If I could wouldn't wrap them in Black Plastic wouldn't it work faster.

I read something the other day I hadn't seen.

This person had a half wooden barrel to plant. They used a hot soil and it caught fire.

big rockpile

 

[Ruderunner]

RP, I don't grow anything specifically for mining nutrients. I chop weeds and if I prune shrubs I mulch up the cuttings. I recently got permission to venture into neighboring woods for branches and dead leaves and who knows what else.

I have a DR brush mower that can make short work of a 3 inch round sapling, that mess then gets hit with a lawnmower and bagged.