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Is there any benefit to mix the compost with the soil for the first time so that a mixed bed is ready (soil/compost) and thereafter only sit the compost on top as no dig?
Where I am doing the garden, there was never a garden, it is all hard compacted ground. A container used to sit there (5-8 meters long), on an acreage where wild grass used to be but now dead due to the container being on it. Wondered if breaking all that hard dirt up and mixing the compost in with it would be more beneficial than just dropping it on top and leaving the underneath hard as is.
Thanks for that earthnut.
So though compost may not have high nutrients they are more bioavailable so in a way may provide more nutrients to the plants with less than more that is not usable… if I understood that correctly.
Ok so compost provides soil structure and makes nutrients available.
Since the compost is sitting on top of the soil… the soil underneath the compost is the stuff that does not have structure, is not bio-available etc (just like it is if you take the top layer of compost off your just left with bad soil you had to start with)…
roots go down 3-4 feet as you suggested… they are now in the soil part… how is the minerals in the soil going to be bio available when it wasnt before? The compost is not in the soil its just on top… so isnt that part of the soil still the same then as it was before you even added compost?
I understand the compost adds structure etc… does the soil the compost is sitting on top of somehow change so that if you removed the compost the soil underneath would be different to how it was before?
The way im understanding it is…
Planting directly in the soil is not good because the structure is not the best and the minerals are not in an available form to the plant.
So now we add compost on top, not mixed in.
Now we plant vegetable, it starts growing in good structure where evetything is bio available… then roots go down into the bad soil under the compost layer and the roots are now back in the same stuff it wasnt good to plant in before… again cant get minerals from the soil and again roots are in the poor structure thing.
So essentially top half of plant is in the good stuff the bottom half is back in the stuff it cant do anything with.
Hows that work?
If it was mixed in i would understand you have the soil touching the compost everywhere ( as you mixed it in together) so the mineral in the soil the compost is making available as they are all touching eachother. But as a layer… top half good bottom half same stuff that was no good before…
How does the compost make the rubbish underneath bioavailable when its not actually mixed? that i dont understand.
My last questions…
I spoke to these places that make compost.
I found what they claim is the best in Australia with high quality rich humus with all the elements that Elaine Ingham is talking about (food web).
They are specifically made to put back into earth what is missing.
I asked a cheap company how much i need and at 100mm thick and 4m x 1.6m it works out to roughly needing 1 cubic meter (order 1000kg).
When I asked this place that produces this rich humus they said For that size i need 25kg only and then mix it into the soil as this will improve its structure greatly.
Is there a problem in planting directly in this rich matured compost that is turned into humus in which I would need 1000kg of this stuff too…?
Final question – I spoke to someone from the soil living food web and they told me usually what is missing in soil that people are trying to add which is not really found in high amounts in kelp extracts etc is Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Calcium and Magnesium.
These elements are usually what needs to be supplemented in soil.
With our rich humus/compost no dig method… how will I know whether its lacking those 4 and how do you get those 4?
I listened to that webinar.
Quite informative.
If i understood right, shes basically saying forget using rock dust, all the minerals are already there. It is all the microbial/fungi/bacteria etc that is needed to make the inorganic minerals available to the plants not more rock dust.
Now heres the question then…
She mentions anywhere where you got clay, rocks, sand etc is going to have all the minerals plants need (iron, magnesium etc)…
That is soil.
Ok…
No dig garden is planting directly into the compost…
Where do the minerals come from then?
Compost isnt sand, rocks, etc that soil is which contains all those minerals.
Needless to say she does say to work the compost into thr soil so that it is mixed with it. No dig garden however is to put the compost straight on top and to plant into the compost… so where do the minerals come from?
Nope everything they grow is dead and weeds haha.
I mean in general, if some things will grow for 3 months (whatever it is cabbage carrot tomato doesn’t matter) then those things is what I would plant maybe 3-4 weeks apart so it goes through the whole 3 months rather than coming all up at once?
I know tomato works different it keeps growing fruit over the season as do cucumbers and chilies etc.
Spinach etc I assume you just pick outer leaves and let centers keep going until it’s finished. So that as well you would just plant all at once….
Maybe it’s just root vegetables then… But onions keep for ages so you could just do them in chunks…
Maybe it is just carrots… *scratches head*
carrots weeks 6-10-18 etc…
So roughly every 4-8 weeks you plant another carrot type rather than planting a whole bunch in 1 go.
Is this what is done with pretty much everything else too? Cabbage, beetroot, onion, broccoli, potato, garlic, celery, tomato, capsicum, eggplant, green beans?
Thanks for the feedback. That helps.
I have ordered some seeds just to give this a try for myself and see what I end up with (if anything). It is also to test the compost I am ordering whether it is good or not. So I will do a small patch and see what happens.
Real compost here (Humus compost – ready to use) is $400 per ton. Thats what 1-1.5 cubic meters worth only. All the cheaper places I found have questionable products where the people disagree with eachother as to what they are selling. The first link I posted which looked good for $54 per cubic meter (rather than this 400 per 1-1.5) one person told me it is sitting in their bins and it is hot (thus not composted fully) and another telling me they couldn’t sell it if it wasn’t fully decomposed. Problem I have is it is screened to 15mm so has a lot of wood chip in it….
May go with the more expensive stuff as it is screened down to 5mm and is humus rich.
Anyway thats why im testing a small 4m long x 1.2m wide (4 foot) patch just to test the material and seeds i got. If i get good results through winter then i can order more and expand through spring. if it all works out dead and waste of time and money, well was an experiment to begin with and good I didn’t get a truck load.
Just like to ask one more thing.
Just looking at gardening as a way to sustain self without having to go shop and buy stuff all the time…
I can get carrots here that grow all year (so no need to buy these anymore in shop) ok… I plant 200 carrots. They grow and are ready to pick… heres my dillema.
Thats 200 carrots ready in one go. After 2-3 weeks storring them they will start going black and old.
So 200 carrots which should last 2-3months eating a few here and there ends up not working like that because there all ready at the same time so i end up with 200 carrots not knowing what to do with rather than 10 this week 10 next week 10 the week after etc to be sustainable over the year.
So what do you do? Plant a few pull them out and plant more carrot seed in their place (but then you are not rotating) or should i plant 20-30 now, 20-30 in a week or 2 and keep planting new seeds every few weeks so that one crop comes up ready to eat and few weeks later next crop etc… and do you do that with everything (beetroot cabbage spinach potato onion so on) or what?
When you go shop you don’t buy 50kg of carrots cabbage tomato etc in one go to last you 6 months. You buy a kg or 2 each week as you need so it is fresh. How do we replicate that in a garden where its ready on a weekly basis rather than all or nothing in 1 go?
Hope that makes sense
Thanks for the detailed reply.
Any particular book of the ones available you think would be the best place to start judging by my questions?
Re: 100mm thick compost, plant carrots into that… and its ok if carrots go through the compost and try to grow into the hard clay rubbish underneath?
Cardboard should exceed the size of the plot? Does that mean the external bits will be naked cardboard or would you put the would chips over the edges like a boarder/path to walk around so noncardboard left visible?
Pathway you suggest I make the 2 beds with compost and instead of wasting compost inbetween the beds, to put wood chips which are cheaper instead to walk on? So it will look like rows black (compost) brown (wood chips) black brown etc.?
I wondered about that because charles garden from the videos is all black 🙂
And with the carrots you mentioned, 50mm appart double rows… So you would habe the outer row and one row behind it 50mm appart and you would make a hole every 50mm in the row and plant 3-4 seeds in each hole and i guess if 2 or 3 germinate the carrots will push themselves appart initially (thats why 50mm of space between each hole) so that i wont have to touch them?
If i got cardboard on the ground and the carrot gets to the carboard as the compost is only 100mm thick… is the carrot going to break through the
cardboard to get to the rubbish clay underneath? I guess that cardboard will eventually disintegrate…Would it be ok just to stick the compost on that existing straw like grass… when the grass grows up above the compost dig the grass out and just keep doing that until it eventually stops growing (thus no cardboard needed)?
And last thing I thought of back to the carrot if i got cardboard on grass and 100mm thick, how will the carrot grow down through the grass?
Wouldn’t I be better off using a spade or hoe just to dig out the lawn where i plan the garden to be to avoid all of the above and then place the compost on top of dirt with no concern about grass or cardboard etc being there?
And heres an off topic question:
Seeds – I will get a batch of organic heirloom seeds and other seeds are only available as un-treated.
Untreated is not certified organic but the seed itself has not been chemically treated. Having said that though the vegetables/plants those seeds came out from would of been done under regular farming practices, fertilisers of all kinds sprays etc etc but ofcoirse the actual seed has not been chemically treated.
Organic seeds on other hand come out of vegetables/plants that have certified organic practices.
Is there actually a difference?
Vegetables like onions etc (pretty much all vegetables – not capsicums tomato etc) grow seed on the outside of the plant. If the seeds are untreated but the farming method is not organic… are not the seeds by default then “sprayed” and therefor do have chemicals on them even though they say untreated? If the seeds are untreated in the fullest sense of word wouldn’t that make them organic then? Curious.
Hey sorry I dont see an edit button…
how thick should the compost above ground be? Considering carrots etc can grow quite long… That will help me calculate how much material I need to trial this.
Thanks for the feedback.
So just to recap,
1: Planting directly in the compost I linked should be fine.
2: The humus rich product they got (recarb essence) may have more nutrition than the mulch compost. I could plant in either or mix the 2… maybe get a few bags of each and test through winter just to see the difference before buying the bulk amount.
3: No fertiliser needed as such, but I could use seaweed extract just for the initial growth help etc if I wanted to (wouldn’t hurt If i did use it)
4: Plant everything in trays first and let them establish and then once they are established (5-10cm tall plants) transfer from tray to the compost truck dumped out on ground.
5: Plant seeds about 2 per 50mm tray cup. I guess that is just incase 1 seed doesn’t germinate? Could even end up with both failing lol.
Regarding carrots… I read they should be planted directly in the ground because if you transplant them they will fork due to the roots.
Now if I stick 1 seed per where I intend the carrot to grow… I could/will end up with many blank spots where the seed did not germinate. So if I just sprinkle the carrot seeds in a trench (the way you would parsley) – i could end up eith 3-5 or more seeds in one spot. If many of them do germinate… I read I need to thin them out… what does that mean? Do you just grab the carrot in the soil and push them appart (through the soil without pulling them out) or?
What would be the list of vegetables that should be planted directly where you want it to grow to avoid transplanting besides carrots?
Last: Cardboard or newspaper… should I put this on the ground where i got grass and then stick compost on that or will 10-15cm thick compost be enough to kill it off anyway? Its not short grass, its some wild garbage that grows in sharp long stick like grass straw that clumps up in spots, so you go no grass then a clump of this straw like stuff which has a very hard root/ball, when you try to run mower over it you have to push real hard to get it to climb over. Im not sure if that would die off or just grow straight through the compost….
regarding the newspaper/cardboard should it be the entire size of where I plan the compost to go… including pathway to walk on? ( so compost should cover the whole area including pathway not just the beds on their own)? And should it be just as thick on pathway (eg: for a test run i am planning to do 2 beds 1.2m wide by 2m long with a 60cm pathway inbetween… should i then cover the entire area 2m long and the whole width including the pathway 1.2m+60cm+1.2m same thickness all the way and then just walk on the pathway bit which will make that drop down a bit more than the bed itself or should i cover the entire area but put less compost over the pathway maybe 5cm instead of the 10-15? Or is this all irrelevant and just fill the whole area and walk where the pathway is intended to be?
Hello and thank you…
When you say pre-grown plants from modules… are you simply saying small plants that have sprouted and grown a little (seedlings) rather than seed itself?
So rotation is good where needed. Some plants grow all year, so I guess you can just leave them there forever (like rosemary and other herbs)?
By planting out time, much will have been incorporated into the topsoil by earthworms. – Sorry I did not understand what you are saying here… is that a “Yes you can just dump the compost and plant straight into it” which to me sounded too simple… or were you saying something else?
Thanks
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