This may be "more than you really wanted to know about penguins," but here is a thread on the other garden site that discusses the differences between different leaves in making compost/mulch. What made sense to me was one respondent's statement that oak leaves have a waxy coating that makes them break down more slowly. They do seem more "leathery" than other leaves.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg1006411014991.html?13
Composter
As always, a very informative read. Thanks to all who post.
Ruby
That's why I always check with my new friends at DG ... can't always believe what you find on the internet. Thanks clarifying claypa.
just increases my pathological dislike of the Dreaded Norway Maple.
LOL, wrightie, no action on your equine thread yet!
xx, Carrie
I can't stand it either. I call it "No way" maple. One down, one to go...
Was it you who said that to me before, "No-Way Maple"?
I'm gonna need to bust out some of my Whips for ya, Carrie! No worries, someone will poke their head out eventually.
Carrie, yes, probably me. I see it's "prohibited" in Massachusetts now, whatever that means. Probably just not allowed to sell them.
Back to compost - I posted here a year ago asking about different tree's leaves in compost. The bottom line, as far as I've been able to find out is, if it was alive, or came out of something alive (ew, sorry) you can compost it. Everyone decides for themselves where to draw the lines
Some leaves work better than others. There are studies that show that the allelopaths (poisons that prevent germination, etc.) in walnut trees can be eliminated by composting. Pine needles and other conifers can take a really long time to break down - to heck with it, I put anything I can in there and it's ok by me. The only variable for me is how long it takes. Mine takes longer than most because the vast quantities of arborvitae trimmings and pine needles I happen to have available. I run everything over with a beat up mower a few times. I throw milorganite or urea in there if I don't have enough greens, it's cheap stuff. Today's the day I raided the pile - bulb planting time! There's more than I thought.
(Not about compost, but remember the phrase "Banned in Boston"? There are a lot of things prohibited here - they should tell the stupid trees!)
Good work, clay - it looks like whatever you're doing is the right thing. (You should write an article.)
I can only hope and dream that my pile will someday look so nice!
I never see what's in the compostumbler - it's too high for me to see in! But I hope it will look as nice when/if I ever harvest from it.
x, C
claypa, that's fine looking compost. Your plants are gonna love it. I want to save some of the bagged oak leaves for my taters I want to plant. We discovered the oak leaves are a great insect repellant. Tater beetles do not like oak leaves. Besides planting the taters on top of the ground is so much easier on my back and so much easier to harvest. Cleaner too.
How cool, doc! Like the fish planted with the corn and the corn being a trellis for the squash or maybe it's the beans, which fix the nitrogen for the squash - oh, you know what I mean!
x, C
Absolutely carrielamont. That's the interplanting the Indian's used and it still works great! The beans are great nitrogen fixers and make a wonderful cover crop in problem areas. It helps the soil and you can eat the results! What more could a gardener want? LOL
LOL my family would only eat the corn, let the rest mold. (Or compost.) DH doesn't even like pumpkin pie! Isn't that un-American? Of course, it's more for the rest of us. (Me.)
I understand, but my bunch will eat almost anything. My son's were teenagers before they discovered they weren't suppose to like veggies. LOL They always "helped" with the gardening. They were both lil guys, but they loved to help pick and eat the fresh veggies. Since we garden organically, they could pick it right off the vine and start eating. My oldest son just loved kohlrabi. So this year he planted it at his place. He and his wife made a small garden, she's not much of a veggie eater, but she's learnin', LOL He only gardens organically too, so he was blown the neighbor's minds. My DH went down and roto tilled the area and we helped him set up the beds. He had made himself a compost bin out of chicken wire and already had that workin. I was so proud of him. He had a great harvest as they actually got some rain. But 2 raised beds about 6ft long and 3ft wide produced plenty for them and he shared with the neighbors. Most of them are older folks and still do single row gardening, something he had never seen and couldn't understand. LOL He had also interplanted some flowers in the beds and cause quite a stir. So I have a feeling DH will have some side jobs for roto tilling come spring. I was amazed at how much he had remembered, of course I got plenty of phone calls on some of the things, but all and all, he just remembered working with me in the garden here and duplicated what he's seen.
Great thread! You sure sound like my kinda people. I hope you don't
mind me joining in the fun?
I have a bag of cattle feed Agway gave us instead of the chicken food
we'd asked for... do you suppose I could use it instead of alphalfa pellets?
(And Carrie- how about chicken farms? Chicken poop is one of the
hottest you can find).
And how do you guys feel about corn cobs? I stopped composting them
'cause they didn't seem to break down, even after several years?
Wanna know one of the best birthday presents I ever got? About 15yrs
ago my mother fulled up a couple of big plastic bags with her horse's
poop and drove it 180 miles to my new house. How wonderful was that!
LOLOL! I love your mom, Tammy!
Now that is truly a Mothers love!
yeah - she's great! I remember when I was a teenager, my mom would say
things like "I want to be that weird old lady that lives up the hill" She just never
cared about what people thought of her and reveled in her eccentricities. As
a teenager I was just mortified. Now I really appreciate her attitude. (I've been
known to shop at the nurseries covered in dirt 'cause I just HAD to get a few
more plants for the new bed I was planting. Didn't want to waste time to shower
first)
And what do you guys think about cattle feed? I'm gonna google it to see what's
in it.
Googling it is a great idea. That would tell you better if it is a green or brown. I threw some hen scratch in a cold pile once and come spring I had a whole crop of corn!
Yuck - it sounds like its got animal parts in it.
Chicken scratch is corn & oats mostly. Nice cash crops. :-)
Tammy, that's what I was afraid of ... I'm trying to not get angry, but feeding cow parts to cows is how MAD COW DISEASE happens, isn't it? Okay, maybe I've over-simplified it a bit, but last time I checked, cattle were vegetarians...
Whoops, sorry to take a negative turn. I just think that we can do better. *sigh*
Just checking in - hi, Tammy, welcome! x, Carrie
Well, as processed as that stuff is you could probably still use it if you layered it in under other browns and greens but I don't think I would want to be the first to try it!
Ohhhhhhhhhh ---- cattle feed. (took me a while)
/i am still lost carrie.
Tammy was given cattle feed in error and wanted to know if it would do the same thing as alfala in the compost. But after looking it up to see what it is made of she discovered it uses meat byproducts.
Alright, thanks zany. Somehow I missed her saying it had meat by products. Duh!!!
Does anyone know how long it should take for the alfalfa to begin heating things up or is it too cold wEATHER WISE to expect it to do much at this point.? oops. hit cap lock and am too lazy to go back and fix.
Ruby
The alfalfa should heat up in a day or two but if it is very cold outside all the heat will be deep inside the pile and not the outer layers.
I just did a little more research on cattle feed - organic beef (from the US) means
that the cow can not have been fed brain & spinal cord as well as blood that often
supplement regular cattle feed. I didn't see the full exclusion of all animal parts.
Interestingly, I saw that mad cow disease & the similar disease in deer & elk has
been shown to be spread by the saliva. So I guess I'm not sure that as disgusting
as it seems to feed herbavores animal parts, it may not be sure that that's what
spread's mad cow disease.
I think I'll just spread the cattle feed out in a field and let the critters have a nice
thanksgiving. :-)
I lived in the UK at the peak of the Mad Cow problem. A lot has been learned about the related diseases. Here is a quote from emedicinehealth.com,
"But the question remains: How do cattle develop BSE? Feed is the major route for transmission among cattle, according to veterinary medicine experts at Iowa State University. When ranchers and farmers feed cattle with products made from other cattle or sheep, such as ruminant feed, they are recycling diseased animal protein in feed containing meat and bone meal, thus causing the disease in cattle.
Prions may be transmitted among laboratory animals also through broken skin, suggesting the possibility of similar transmission to humans who contact infected tissue or products and who have broken skin."
I think that you're wise to keep the feed out of your compost, just to be safe.
Tammy, I forgot to ask, when you say "organic beef" do you mean "USDA certified Organic" or one of the other organic certification organizations? The USDA recently lowered their standards on organics, so if you prefer organics, it's important to pay attention to who certified the product.
Climbing down off of my soapbox now... :~)
Well - I'm on that same soapbox so thanks for making room for others. :-)
I googled "Organic Beef" and didn't note the details. It did say that the mother
of organic beef must be fed organic feed for at least the last 3 gestational months.
I buy my beef from a couple (who just retired - boo hoo) I know personally. They
are meticulous in how the raise and prepare their products. I felt very safe with
their beef but I now need to find a new source. Thank fully the local foods movement
and organic/grassfed/heritage breed farming movements are really taking hold
around here.
Now I'm off my soapbox making room for someone else!
There's lots and lots and lots of free space on that soapbox.
Lucky you that you even had such a great resource and wishing you more luck in finding a new one.
Okay, if I can unscrew the backpain that I'm experiencing today, I'm going to go out and rake some leaves for my compost bins, then dump a bunch of alfalfa pellets on the piles. You kidz have inspired me. In fact, I think I might even mow the lawn using the bag so that I can dump some more green on the piles.
Wrightie - I only use the bagger this time of year. I mow the grass & grind the
leaves so have both green & brown. I put this down every year on all my flower
and vegatable beds and only compost what's left over. Its amazing how this
has transformed some beds that were very heavy clay into nice friable soil.
we have snow here! Way too early.
Me, too, Tammy. I have also used a core aerator several times and the improvement to my hard-packed clay in just a few years as been astonishing.
My DH has found directions for making a compost bin with a large rubber trash can. It says you can secure the lid and roll the can to stir the compost. Have any of you tried this?
sjweld, I don't see why it wouldn't, as long as you have drain holes for excess molsture. The principle is the same as the tumbler composters.
Awesome! Yeah, he showed me the plans and it does have drainage holes. He doesn't like my pile heaped up behind the garage!! LOL I told him he could make me a couple of the garbage can composters for Christmas and I would be happy. Here is where the plans are at:
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/wm/recycle/Compost_bins/garbage_can_bin.htm