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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2020 8:28:09 GMT -5
Neighbor lady brought me one of Ruth Stout's books last week, and since I was tied up by the weather I read the whole thing. Ruth used to write an occasional article in the old ORGANIC GARDENING magazine, and advocated a no-till, perpetual mulch system.
Her co-author for this book was apparently an economist, and he wrote that her method was not more productive but a whole lot less work than conventional gardening. Productivity depending somewhat on the gardener's skill and inputs, weather and just plain old luck.
Reading posts in this forum and others I surmise that a few mulch heavily. I have used such good mulch and compost as I can obtain, but I have not gathered the leaves that fall in my back lot, nor have I bought and used hay as did Stout. I certainly use machinery wherever possible.
What is your opinion and practice?
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Post by Hensaplenty on Jan 25, 2020 9:47:06 GMT -5
I do no till, and use free wood chips (from a local tree company that grinds the leaves, needles, & branches) as a cover. I have acidic soil, so I occasionally sprinkle wood ash and rock dust. Plan to add some alfalfa pellets to the top soon, also. It's a lot of work up front getting the covering in place, but yes, way less weeds. In the past, I have tilled, and used containers, and still have a couple raised beds, but my preference is the no till, wood chip cover.
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Post by paulf on Jan 25, 2020 11:27:23 GMT -5
My garden gets a mulch layer every spring of paper covered by a healthy layer of weedless(hopefully) straw. This serves the mulching purpose very well. After the growing season is over, this mulch gets tilled under to lay fallow and to break down into organic material usable for the next growing season.
I used to till spring and fall but decided that practice was detrimental to my soil health, but the organics (the mulch) needs more soil contact than just laying on top. Fifteen years ago the virgin prairie that was my garden space had very little in the way of healthy, organic infused soil. After all the years of adding material it is now much healthier and more productive. Weeds and brush has given way to food production.
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Post by ahntjudy on Jan 25, 2020 12:12:59 GMT -5
Decades ago, eliminated lawn, and replaced with wood chips all over...I keep an eye out for the tree trimmers and have gotten pretty lucky with procuring free truckloads of chips... I have a huge load of chips now in the driveway, curing for use in the Spring...
Way, way back, used to turn over the fenced in veggie garden with the big fork...no more... Now just mulch that deeply with ground up leaves, all I can get...and hay/straw from bales that people no longer want from Fall displays...
I keep a waterproof tarp in the car at all times just for those bales...
The only digging I do any more is for the individual planting holes for the veggie starts...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2020 20:07:38 GMT -5
All a bit different but all headed in the same direction.
The city here grinds yard waste and provides mulch free for the taking, even loading it on your truck. This year they have improved the process and now can furnish compost that is about 90% finished, very fine stuff.
I am going to try to haul enough of that to cover at least a part of my garden, but the garden is pretty large, so not all will get covered this year.
If Ruth Stout is to be believed, the soil under the mulch will improve each year and plants can be planted closer together than before. I certainly will welcome the "less work" part of the equation.
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dirtguy50
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Post by dirtguy50 on Jan 25, 2020 20:44:00 GMT -5
We do about the same as Hensapleny and use ramial wood chips in the fall. It takes about 3-4 hours for all ten raised beds and we are done for the whole year. I do pay about $15.00 a pickup load for the ramial wood chips, three to four inches on top, that have aged and composted for at least a year. We try to put a thin layer of whatever is around on top like, Starbucks coffee grounds, our own compost, shedded leaves, and composted manure, if we have it. Just a light layer is all that is needed. Works wonders and never till anything.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2020 21:23:46 GMT -5
Where on earth do you get ramial wood chips? Around here the chippers eat anything they cut down. I've seen them feed six inch limbs. The stuff from the city is ground finer.
Previous owner had the linemen dump a load of chips here; I was here two years before I thought it was worth using, and even then only the middle had begun to break down. I tilled it in and by next season it was gone. Except for a chunk here and there.
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dirtguy50
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Post by dirtguy50 on Jan 25, 2020 22:00:40 GMT -5
oxenkle2, I have a local tree trimmer that mulches branches with needles and leaves and piles the up. It is not branches, it is the ends of the trees that are 80% needles and leaves. When we pick them up they have been composted for at least a year and are wonderful black wood chips. At the end of the growing season, the larder chips are still be setting on the top layer, which is just fine. and thee rest has composted into rich soil. Only the top inch or so is exposed of the larger chips which is okay. If you are fortunate to get fresh chipping, make sure it is the end if the branches that is mostly green needles and leaves so it will compost.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 25, 2020 22:47:16 GMT -5
The Stout method is only as good as what's under it. Here system was originally over an established garden. Soon people were thinking that it could be done over concrete. Make your bed and then put the sheets and quilt on. Then everything will always be comfortable.
Wood chips will contain few nutrients unless loaded with green stuff. It will only last a season or so and then convert to carbon humus. At that point it is worthless for supply anything the plants need as However, it will serve as a storage for nutrients from other sources. Those sources must be such that nutrients will be readily released to soak down into the soil since the roots won't come up to get it. Solve that and you have a true no-till, permanent-mulch garden.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by coppice on Jan 26, 2020 4:19:07 GMT -5
Ohio is perched on top of clay. For the first few years I will mulch and lay on uncomposted litter and till it in. There after I don't till any more as there is little additional benefit. I do try to keep a layer of mulch on beds.
Somewhere I have a couple of Ruth's books and loved them.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 5:05:51 GMT -5
I used wood chips when I can talk the alley way trimmers into giving them to me, but they get layered up with compost and composted cow manure and coffee grounds (& filters) and paper as well. Or what ever stands still too long, it could turn into compost here. Food scraps go into an area when I let them rot away to nice dirt again. I just hate to waste anything I can re-use or re-purpose into something better than landfill stuff when possible.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 10:55:02 GMT -5
Martin: My opinion too. However, the city compost includes everything the city picks up as yard waste; leaves, huge amounts of them in the Fall, green clippings and grass in the growing season, wood chips from the city chipper---all thrown into the city's big compost pile and turned now and then. Come Spring it is hauled into a central location here in town to be picked up by gardeners.
I can stand to add fertilizer--I cannot often get manure, but chem fertilizer applied correctly works just fine.
I've picked up loads as often as possible in the past, but I will try harder this Spring as the "improved" process makes it look really good. Problem is the hard work of UNLOADING.
PS Stout wrote that she added, as I recall, soybean meal to her garden. I have no such prejudices; I use Miracle Grow and whatever granulated fertilizer I think needed but I like to till in the granulated fertilizers. In a no-till system one would have to pull back the mulch and lay the fertilizer on the soil. Even pulling back a bit and running a Mantis down the row would till in the fertilizer.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 26, 2020 13:00:30 GMT -5
Any municipal compost is great as long as it includes the normal leaves and other yard or garden wastes. If manure included, big bonus. But just as with any other organic fertilizer, it's only great for one season. That's how Nature works by allowing the releasing of the nutrients as soon as possible. If there were no carbon in the remains, there are no remains. Remember that I plant carrots in pots with pure old horse manure;. From a 7-gallon pot of manure, I harvest 3½ gallons of carrots and end up with 3½ gallons of used manure. The carrots will have eaten the missing 3½ gallons. Same thing happens in conventional gardening. No matter how rich an organic layer is established, it has a definite life span. Eventually the fuel runs out and the train stops. That's a nature law.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by paulf on Jan 26, 2020 13:11:26 GMT -5
Like Martin says! That is why I do a professional soil test every two or three years to see how much fuel the train has left in the tank and what sort of and how much fuel needs to be added to make the train run efficiently. No matter how much of whatever you pile on the garden, unless it is the right stuff and in the right amount the train slows down and may not make it to the top of the hill.
If municipal compost has weed killer mixed in it may do more harm than good. That is the main reason I make my own compost.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 16:27:37 GMT -5
Paul: I would be almost certain that there is at least some objectionable material in the city compost; everything from pet manure to weed killers. However, a year in the compost pile at the city yard will inactivate most of that. I have used their "mulch" and in a year you cannot find more than an occasional four-inch stick of it in the garden. This improved stuff has a much finer texture and has been processed longer.
I object more to the occasional piece of plastic junk that gets in the mix.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 26, 2020 16:37:55 GMT -5
There was a time when some of the herbicides could have been a problem. Now most of them have a much shorter half-life or neutralized by composting. Now and then one hears of an isolated case and the other .9999999% becomes suspect.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2020 20:26:39 GMT -5
I picked up a load of the city's "mulch" today. In contrast to the composted material I'd gotten earlier, at least hslf of this material was recognizable sticks, pieces of boards, a bit of charcoal and wood chips. The leaves and green material had broken down,but the woody parts were still there. The pile I got it from was steaming. Bobcat loader gave me three big buckets, all I could haul.
I have used this before---in a year one would have to look hard in the garden to find a stick.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 27, 2020 20:50:54 GMT -5
Don;t knock the woody bit. Even pieces of boards are a normal part of compost. Friend at local operations told me that I get the pennies and dimes while gets the nickles and quarters. That was in reference to the size of the screen in the machine. With lots of tree companies contributing at the time, lots of chips got through. No problem.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2020 8:19:49 GMT -5
Looks as if we are all om the same page. All that holds me back is te labor of unloading and moving a truck load of mulch at a time. Lol: I need to be twenty five again
I will confess to putting a handful of nitrogen fertilizer over the top of the pile each two or three buckets of mulch. (I don't have any deer heads or road kill so I have to make-do ) I do use a lot of egg shells. The ground here is on the acid side.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 29, 2020 11:28:43 GMT -5
Nothing wrong with adding nitrogen to something that is high-carbon. There have been some years when my garden gets covered with several inches of shredded leaves and that's tilled in with the Mantis. A liberal application of Milorganite also goes in with it. If not, a chance that the soil bacteria will be too busy breaking down the carbon while plants are shorted. It's organic so keeps with my garden methods.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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