Organic matter in soil?

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zhinu (Laura) Olympia, WA(Zone 8a) Jul 15, 2008

I got the impression from some posts that you could compost in the ground; mix compost materials directly into the soil. I don't have enough room to compost, and I have bad soil. I'm going to be turning it in the next couple days and I have quite a bit of non-weed organic matter, so it would be great if I could put it directly into the soil.

So, is this true and if so is there any special ways to do it or anything I should know before I start?

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NatureLover1950 Vicksburg, MS(Zone 8a) Jul 15, 2008

I always compost directly into the ground during the winter when I don't have a garden in. In fact, I have very bad clay soil so I plant a cover crop of clover in my garden every winter and then hubby disks it in during late winter. That really helps the soil a lot . Think about how Mother Nature does it--just piles up leaves, dead trees, etc., and they break down and enrich the soil very nicely.

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Jul 15, 2008

You can definitely do that. I compost leaves on top of the garden every year (don't even dig them in usually). Things might not decompose as fast and won't get as hot as if you did a regular compost pile so I would definitely avoid throwing weeds in, but for anything else it should be fine. The one thing I would suggest is to try and chop things into smaller pieces if you can to help them decompose a little faster (I have a leaf blower that reverses to a vac and has a chopping blade, if you don't have something like that, tossing everything in a trash can and hitting it with the weed whacker will work too!)

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ciera Pittsburgh, PA(Zone 6a) Jul 15, 2008

This blog post talks about how to do it. I haven't tried myself, but it seems like it would work fine.

http://www.enviromom.com/2007/03/i_did_it_my_way.html

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zhinu (Laura) Olympia, WA(Zone 8a) Jul 15, 2008

Thanks, that should work for me. I've been thinking about worm composting, and that's where I'd get the worms. I'll turn the soil and leave it till we get cooler weather for a couple days, or better yet rain, before I plant anything. So if I cut the stuff up and mix it in it should have time to get started composing at least.

I know not to put weeds where I don't want them to sprout, or where they will sterilize. Right now I just throw my weeds on the grass and mow them. I really don't care about my lawn. If the landlords want to get rid of the weeds they can do it and I figure the weeds actually help the soil, super hard under the grass. We actually had a mole come out of the bed and it was hiding under grass, I think it couldn't dig in the soil. If it was my house I'd rip the grass out and plant something else.

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