Emilie McVey wrote:Don't know if this question is in the correct thread, but...
I have a compost pile, of sorts, in the back of my yard. Originally I dumped all my veggie scraps on it, for about four years, as well as dead/dying plants and twigs I picked up. It never really looked like the rich, developed compost I've seen pictures of, and I can't say it really helped my garden beds.
Now, during the warm months, I toss my food scraps into covered five gallon buckets, and after it's full and has marinated a few weeks, I get DH to dig a hole and pour it in. Lots of stinky liquid, chunks of carrots, orange peels, apple cores, etc. (I used to run the marinated scraps thru an old food processor so it would break down faster, but it was a time-consuming and very smelly process, so I gave it up.) Do you all think burying that gross stuff, as my family calls it, is actually doing my gardens good, or are the big pieces of peppers, potatoes, lettuce, apple cores, etc. taking so long to break down that it's not enriching the beds all that much?
Clay needs to be under the composting materials so leachate can percolate through and change the structure (by fungal clumping) of the superfine particles (clay). Burying fermenting veg. Is along the thinking of the Korean method, which works well. It also is similar to first people's corn planting method. Kudos to you.
Redhawk
Part Nakota, part Irish. The Nakota took over long ago but still lives in two worlds, the European world and the first people's world. He lives on a small (15 + acres) piece of mother earth deep in the woods. Was trained in the cooper's arts as a child, since the family owned a cooperage. He has been a carpenter, and timber wright but love all aspects of farming.He holds a BS in Chemistry and Biology and a MS in Horticulture. Worked for the USDA for 16 years. Then PHD in Microbiology defended. Redhawk and his wife Wolf are setting up to be fully self sustaining, growing all their own foods and collecting rain water. "Soon we will be self sustaining and closer to being off the grid" he said when asked about future plans. They continue their own research both in Agriculture and soils with the hope to make the world more like it used to be, before mankind began screwing up the Earth Mother. This is the only way humankind will survive, we must fix what we have broken.
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