Yes, it has been a while, sorry for that. But busy time of the year, as you mention, and I was also away from the gardens a couple of times, so felt I needed to lighten the workload for a while. Good to be back!
Being a scientist myself, I appreciate all the work going into this project. I am running little experiments in my garden every year, testing out different amendments, companion planting, spacing, etc. I keep pretty detailed journals as well documenting weather and other variables that I can't control as well as planting locations, amendments, yields. Can't always even out all of the variables, but I do get good insight every year to various aspects of my gardening that I can then use to boost fertility, growth, harvest and just plain enjoyment the next year. I have noticed that with the bigger demand, the bagged soil/compost is getting much less broken down and woody and needs to be amended until it has time to be absorbed into my tank beds or I add it to my regular compost piles as they are being constructed.
My experience with Municipal compost is that because its produced by high temperature composting processes, the level of soil biology is really very small. I usually buy mine in around september, innoculate the pile with my own cold processed compost and worm eggs, i normally put blood fish and bone into the pile, as otherwise you get Nitrogen tie up. By the time i use it the following spring, its around a third less vole, stone cold in the centre and FULL of worms and insect life, and much more usable.
With all the amending you're forced to do, are you sure the compost is doing any good at all? You might do just as well and save money by forgetting the compost and just amending your native soil.
Amending the native soil is man option, though I would want to add some compost or grow green manures to prevent the levels of soil organic matter from dropping too much. The other reason for doing these trials is to find a way to support all those people who are using this kind of compost as a mulch in their no-dig gardens, or in other contexts, to fid ways to get the most out of it, if I can.
@@REDGardensIf they're using it on a mature no dig garden, then this stuff would be fine. It's just food for the soil biome, which is the focus of no dig to begin with
Well thought through! I have been pursuing similar on smaller scale. Similar issues with other plants. I always start by growing beans. Seeds are soaked a few days in water and planted after "staining" with a little soil that earlier had beans with nodules. Goal is to ensure there is lots of rhizobia from the start. I try to get the beans planted as early as possible, effectively a cover crop. I later plant my intended plants. In some cases, I don't get many nodules and bean plants get chlorosis, so I get the idea rhizobia can die. If that happens, I plant more beans. The bean growth (green leaves, chlorosis, etc) has been good early indicator.
I am so thankful for this video. As an urban gardener that buys bags of compost in my no dig garden, this video has verified my findings too that store bought compost is not as fertile as homemade compost. I have to also add chicken manure pellets and fish blood bone at least once a year to top the soil up
My theory is that compot usually has no nutrients enough all time. Compost is for feeding the biology but it is hard to feed the plants just by itself. A good mix in a potting soil adding red earthworms and earth worm poop works very good, also add some biochar and egg schells and ashes. For drainage no need of perlite or vermiculite if there are enogh earthworms. All that mix have things that release faster than other... but my potting soil mixes last for the whole season (about 6 months) after that I mix it with 2/3 of the same that used at the beginning, when it is time to repot or start again. Of course if I am growing leafy greens I add , a little bit of chicken or seagulls composted poop by the second month, and if it is fruit as tomatoes, I add compost of horse manure or mushrooms compost, more ashes and I do not have any problem, get a lot of havests.
I've had a lot of success in my flower beds (I know it's different to edible crops) with bins full of compost material sitting next to the flower bushes in the bed and letting it rot down directly next to the plants. I think a lot of the success there is that the leachate from the decomposition goes straight into the soil instead of being left behind and there's been no issues there with nitrogen burn. Since I close off my bins, there's no issues with weeds coming out of the bin.
Commercial compost is often made with high proportion of wood chips (for aeration), I tend to agree with you that this locks up the N with a long slow job of breaking it down. I haven't measured, but assume it could be 2 to 3 years. Now some compost geek questions: Does all of your purchased compost have a C:N analysis? Is it 20 or less? When you did your amendments to your spud bags did you add the same amount of total N to each? Have you ever conducted a NO3 test for plant available N?
Would the compost you make at the garden be the competition that one of these bags should need to beat? I guess that does not solve the scaling issue with not having enough for the whole garden project. I would be interested in it maybe just as a reverence point / baseline. Thanks for the videos.
That would be interesting, and I am comparing similar things in the other large potato grow bag trial that is going beside this one. Last year our my own compost produced much better than this stuff. With this experiment, I am really trying to explore how to make the most of this resource, and it seems just adding a lot of nitrogen in some convenient form is the best option, but I want to wait until I harvest this year's potatoes.
I sift my compost to remove wood parts. I compost leaves, manure and some wood. I have considered making an automatic sifter, its alot of work to sift it manually. The wood parts i either use as a mulch, or goes into to bottom of new rasied beds. Or into the beginning of the compost-system. I realised that i probably need to add more nitrogen during the growing season, and if i copied your new automatic watering system i would probably increase my yield. Thanks for another good video!
I compost as well but I look at compost as a soil amendment that makes the soil more loose, easier for root penetration etc. but I used 9-9-9 for nutrient plus bone meal.
I have been waiting for your new video for soooo long. I look forward to them. Green waste compost, i have been adding 20kg bags of chicken manure to it in autumn and covering it with tarp. Wetting it until soaking. Then letting it sit. Seems the nitrogen to carbon ratio has some what evened out. Compost seemed far more fertile come spring. It heated up to 28-30 degrees for some weeks. I then turned after 3 months. Only one turn. Potatoes grew significantly better with only one feed of comfrey from march to june. Yield was excellent. Thanks for video
Here are my notes for my potatoes this season. The pots I grew in last year and this year have only been averaging about 1.5 lbs per pot. I’m not sure the pots are as good as in ground growing. The yields seem lower for my potted potatoes. 1. Pots seem to dry out too fast 2. Nutrients are not getting to the potatoes if they dry out 3. In ground potatoes hold more moisture 4. You can add way more compost per potato for in ground potatoes Ruth stout growing potatoes works best for me.
I saw 2 possible mistakes in your Video. 1. You pur your amendments in top and Mix IT only in the surface. I would pur it Out in the graund, showle it 3times to another place and than, back into the growingback. 2. I Always Take Control for the PH. Therefore Put ca into it.
Have you thought about amending the compost prior to planting for several months? So the plants aren't competing for nutrients against the composting process. Of course, its just more to manage...
It’s a good experiment, thanks for sharing. But I think the problem is the bags. What we expect from compost is to nourish the soil life, not the plants. Bags can’t always provide the complexity that is needed for different types of microorganism activity.
Hi. Thank you for sharing this video with us. I think the key factor for making nutrients in the soil available to be absorbed by the plants is the PH of the soil. I sounder if you checked soil PH after all these different amendments? Some times the nutrients may be available in the soil, but the PH is either high or low which will lock up them in the soil.
Well, at least you can use the compost as soil, and then add conventional fertilizers for nutrients. That's what I've been suspecting for years. This "grow bag" thing seems like it would be useful for someone trying to grow a few things in the city, where the yard soil might be contaminated with construction residue or even heavy metals
Here's my take on what's happening. There's still way too much wood chip like material in the compost that hasn't broken down yet, burying it in the ground locks nitrogen while the wood is breaking down. In order to use it as deep soil compost you'd have to sift it first, otherwise it's best used as top dressing where the nitrogen lock effect won't affect the plant. Try this, sift a portion of compost and mix the fine powder with native soil 50/50 and mostly fill a pot finishing with a top dressing of 2 inches of unsifted compost and try growing in that.
Have you ever done a soil analysis on the "municipal compost"? If you have, what was the C/N ratio? Did you do another test after the first year of decomposition? This year I have added a lot of brewers yeast to both the compost piles and directly to the soil. WOW! What a huge difference! The compost has decomposed incredibly fast and the rows that I added yeast to have been very vigorous with the exception of the peppers, which I think is due to the pH being too low for them. Need to add CaCO4 with the yeast to buffer out the pH I think. Great follow-up to last years experiment, will there be a 3rd?
I haven't done a analysis, but the analysis from the company that produces it indicates it is 'less than 20:1 carbon:nitrogen'. Brewer's yeast is great stuff. I have used it a bit, but want to explore more. I think there will be a third year ... easier to keep going than to empty all those grow bags!
There are three things I think you could toy with here that may be helpful. Some of those plants looked a bit mildewy. Something to spray to help with that might be beneficial. I think a lot of yellowing can be caused by iron deficiency. A tiny amount of (say less than 5% by water volume) of some chelated iron could be very helpful. Might as well put 5% pot(ato) nitrate in there as well. Foliar spraying is an art form in itself. We spray with a very fine mist, to the point of dripping from the leaves, but very dilute. Too much is bad because it is very direct and can burn easily. Nothing that is sulphates. Uptake is somewhat temperature dependent to. Lastly, do you have enough time in your season to grow bush beans before the potatoes are planted? Even if it is at the end of last season and you don't get a harvest? Plant them late and let the frost kill them. Plucky little nitrogen fixers they are. Interesting stuff as usual. Hopefully you have time for more content coming up. We miss you when you're not around.
Here's an idea: Try growing peas, beans or other crops that produce their own nitrogen. Maybe those could serve as a transitional plant for the compost. So the first year or two you only grow legumes in a new batch of compost. This might help add nitrogen to the compost, and help it to break down faster. And then you can use the compost for growing other crops. Thanks for your work. I love it when I get the notification that you released a new video.
This is a bit of a misconception aboute legumes. Yes, plants like peas, alfalfa and beans do fix nitrogen with the help of rhizobia. However, this is only for the plant those are attached to. The nitrogen they produce will not just "appear" in the soil whiule the plant grows, produces fruit or even after harvest. In order for the nitrogen to be fully released, the whole plant needs to remain where it was and decompose fully. That is the only way how the nitrogen that was fixed by the bacteria is released into the soil in form of humus.
@@stubbiAnd you're assuming the leguminous plants are being removed... Why? Yes, the crop is removed and yes, developing that crop does consume a sizeable margin of the Nitrogen. But a large portion remains in the structure of the plant- a plant which just spent a whole season in that soil exuding sugar to promote soil biota
@@priestesslucy3299 Because often the plant waste ends up on the compost which is distributed to other plots. If you really want to get the best of it the plant waste needs to stay on the same plot. Also yes of course, the roots with the rhizobia stay and most of the rhizobia survive for the next plant. However: My main point was that simply growing a legume produces nitrogen. Which is only true in parts when you dont fully commit to a circular economy for your garden plots.
@@priestesslucy3299 Exactly! What my grandparents used to do is that they mulched with a lawn mower any plant in their spot. Everything that grew must remain they always said.
Last years leaves and this years grass clippings is the very best mix for my DIY compost. Adding more fresh grass clippings to semifinished compost that is rotovated when turning restarts the hot composting and adds more nitrogen. I try to keep woody materials out and use the woody stuff for bonfire kindling. I quench the bonfires with water to obtain charcoal and ash that is added to my compost. I also obtain free compost from my municipality as well that is low quality but I fine screen it when getting it from their pile to eliminate much of the wood, rocks and trash that it contains. In my experience the fine screened stuff is much more fertile. I suspect the undecomposed wood that I'm removing locks up much of the nitrogen in that given volume. A fair and informative test would be to fine screen a volume and compare grow results with an unscreened volume. If the compost you are getting is clean and stone free, the screened out wood will make a good surface mulch. Both 'Back to Eden' (surface arborist wood chip mulch) and Hügelkultur ( buried wood) have the wood distinctly separate from the growing media/soil. My conclusion is that the undecomposed wood incorporated in the growing media/soil is the problem and the remediation for municipal compost fertility needs to be mechanical. I'm going to wait for your test to call it fact though.😀
Low grade Municipal Compost is good for making fungal dominated compost for trees and perennials not bacterial dominated compost I've found growing a thick legumous cover crop like Broad beans or chick peas to ad nitrogen in bulk but I don't think it's a nitrogen issue
Maybe you should switch to composted manure? It will be probably easier to get in bulk in some areas, not sure about your garden. Or you can start collecting some manure for the next growing season. After all my gardening years I still agree that variety is a key to a healthy and bounty crop. I missed your videos 🍀
Compost manure is hard to get around here. I wanted to do this experiment to see how to improve what is easiest to get. Glad to be missed, and apologies for the absence. Things got a bit too busy, and I needed to step back for a bit to prevent burnout.
Is feather meal available in your area? We use feather meal to bump up our nitrogen when we use fresh woodchip. Its a slow release nitrogen that could be a good compliment to your quicker nitrogen sources like urine.
I haven't run such extension trials as yours (btw, thank you for the update) but I've had best luck mixing this nearly inert sort of material roughly at 50/50 with my mostly finished, but active, compost - almost thinking of it as a weak carbon/organic to mix into over-rich homemade stuff. Look forward to seeing where you go with all this,
If maybe planting a bean in each bag, allowing it to grow before flowering, or when it starts making nodules on the roots where it stores the nitrogen, then cut the top off. I have been struggling for years with garlic (South Africa) very hot and for some reason we only get hardneck varieties. By accident, last year, I presumed a failed crop after it started to grow(only some), Because it was store bought, I deemed it a loss. I planted peas in that bed and never removed the cloves, leaving it for the worms. It stood for 6 months, march to September (Autumn and winter). When I removed the peas, I discovered some garlic in between, and it was thriving. I mulched it and left it. However, had to remove it before it made scapes, as the cloves started sprouting or something. Never saw that before. It was huge! I managed to save some for seed, and I have planted them 14 February. This time I experimented with bush beans. Planted them at the same time as the garlic. Looking at the stems, I am extremely happy. Also, if possible, try replacing your browns in your compost heap with a bag of municipal compost. Sure, this will take time and you would have to make more heaps, but It would add more nitrogen and biological life. I don't think there is a quick fix to get the same results as good manure/compost from something that is inferior. However, I love these experiments, I really learned a lot from you. I believe if anyone can beat this conundrum, it is you. Look at the genius that is : no rules compost
That would be interesting to try. I wonder how much nitrogen one bean plant can actually fix? Mixing this stuff into the other compost, to bulk it up, is a good option I think. Glad you are getting a lot out of the videos!
I cannot find the link now but there was a paper I read that showed that alfalfa was the best legume to grow for fixing nitrogen (as long as you cut off any flowers and, obviously, leave the roots in the soil when you cut it down).
@@REDGardens you created a great community here. I sometimes want to experiment, but statistics is not my thing. You are meticulous and data driven. I can't wait for the potato harvest. (P.s, dilute urine is my go to fertilizer, don't tell my wife😂)
I wish our town still offered municipal compost. They used to make it out of grass clippings and leaves collected in the fall, and put out a huge pile for the taking every year. However, last year they stopped. They claim it was because they dredged out the pond and mixed it with the compost, so it hadn't yet decomposed and couldn't pass inspection. I suspect it's because they decided to sell it for profit instead of giving it to residents, as I noticed several construction companies driving off with truckloads of it last year. Sure enough, this year there is no municipal compost, even though it's July now, and there are mountains of it visible behind the fence. So much for my plans for a no till garden.
With compost the idea is to use it only to add organic matter to the soil. Not as a system to rely on as a complete fertiliser. I make compost with horse and chicken manures and it seems to do alot better but I always add either blood and bone or chicken manure pellets to the bed even with the compost added
I am finding that compost in the Pacific Northwest is too acidic with all of the decomposing organic matter releasing CO2. Did you consider trying a calcium carbonate (lime) amendment?
Repost : just mix all of them : (Chicken Manure 1gr/L + 18-6-12 0.3gr/L + COF 2gr/L + Biochar + Mushroom compost + Woodchip + MCompost + Our Compost+ basalt 3gr/L substrat ) not on top but mix with substrat and liquid feed & compost tea every two weeks. Thank for the video
I have two suggestions: 1 - bury bags into the ground. The advantage is to keep the temperature stable. I noticed that if you plant vegetables in a pot, on a hot summer day, I have to water them twice or more. If the pot is in black color, the soil temperature changes a lot, which I believe is not good for plants. I see Chinese farmers use a growing bag, which has two colors: outside is white, and inside is black. But burying it into the ground is the best way to keep the temperature stable. 2 - I use the Bokashi method to ferment Kitchen wastes. This method does not create any heat during the fermentation process, it is anaerobic process, no turn needed. Keep energy inside to the maximum. In summer, it takes about 1-2 week to mature, then bury into ground about 1 foot deep. After one month you can grow potatoes, zuccinies, pumpkings, etc. Since all of the nitrogen is kept, the color of the leaves are dark green. DIY Bokashi fermentation bucket: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JheiuLbIdqU.html
I thought I was doing well by getting aged composted horse bedding/manure from a local horse farmer. I grew some amazing plants, but had a plethora of weeds I had never seen on my plot before! Wow, what a chore! Since there looked to be a lot of woody material in your compost, would it help if you added green manures to the compost to energize further decomposition activity for later use? Thanks for the video!
The nitrogen is physically lost from the compost. Firstly as volatised amonia. Then as the compost ages as nitrogen gas as denitrifiers utilise the carbon. You have to add it back in. As the experiment showed.
Don't forget compost is not a quick feed. You're probably expecting too much. Just put it on top of the soil and forget about it; add new each year. It's the compost that you put down five years ago that's going to be feeding the plants today. Think of compost like investing in your future. You should not then need to add any amendments. For new gardens it might be worth adding a quick feed to the plants or buying a compost with a quick feed already added.
I would look into the korean natural farming space to try to boost microbiology. JADAM has the cheapest and easiest method to boost soil biology- and if you're too squeamish to use during the season even just doing the bed prep by applying the microbial solution to begin the season will make a huge difference in nutrient cycling.
I fall asleep listening to you video playlist with the hopes of “Skilling Up”. I am using a lot of what I learn on the permaculture and restorative homestead I hope to have fully up and running soon. 😊
@@REDGardens it’s definitely not boredom! I’ve listened to the playlist countless times. I pick up on a little bit more each time. It’s a lot or information to digest. I love that type of format. Well, that and Neil DeGrasse Tyson the astrophysicist’s formats.
I just noticed something. It seems that the bags that did better were regular fed with fertilizer or dilute urine, and the other bags weren't. Could it just be that the amendments were just washing out of the grow bags?
I wonder if adding microbes (e.g. handful of homemade compost in a bucket of rainwater) might make a difference to the performance of the municipal compost... Since you are doing such a rigorous trial, it might make noticeable any benefits.
Have you ever contemplated adding egg laying chickens to your enterprise? I think the added nitrogen would be a big plus! And they would happily turn your " no rules" compost for you... and provide an additional side income as well!
Have you considered the possibility that it is not the amount of nutraints in your compost that is the problem but the lack of soil fungi lots of Local councils make compost will sterilise it at the end to prevent diseases from being spread but if there is no soil mycology plants cant uptake the nutrients.
Depending on your growing zone, and if you get all 4 seasons, and if you're not in the "no-till" group, IMO it is hard to beat skipping compost all together and put leaves, manure, or a combination on your garden in the fall and tilling it in. The soil does an excellent job of adding the right moisture and ingredients to grow beautiful vegetables the following year, with NO fertilizer needed. With the concerns of persistent herbicides, leaves seem to be your safest bet. I apply them so heavy each fall that the zero turn can almost get high centered as I chop them down to powder prior to tilling them in. Through the winter, you need to rototill the garden several times to help them break down, or you will have a mess in the spring. Also, if you direct seed, something like radishes early in the spring, that area would be better to apply less leaves or just manure you know is safe to use. When you get leaves from a recycling center, you will get rocks, sticks, socks, lots of water bottles, or anything else people rake up. But, it's free and gives you something to do after the frost has taken your garden. Great video, as always. I appreciate your hard work!
Why do you need to till it several times? Decomposing only works by letting bacteria and worms do their job.The more often you till the more you disturb the soil critters and the slower your decomposing progresses. A good friend of mine who is a farmer just switched to No-Till a couple of years ago. Before he would till his fields 2x a year and still have straw of the previous year on his fields. Now, it doesnt even take half a year and its fully gone already - all eaten by worms and other creatures turning bio material into valuable humus.
Tilling could be increasing the bacterial to fungal ratio, can be beneficial for annuals depending on soil type! That’s why tilling soil seemed so essential when we cut down forest for farm land! We tend to over do it now though 😂
@stubbi you're absolutely right, but only the leaves in the soil break down. Anything brown on top of the dirt is the same as the outer layer of a compost pile. It needs to be turned in to break down, or it will lay there all winter.
Lol I have those days .. distracted. I have a potato leaf tomato growing in my actual bag I thought was a potato. 3 months later I'm like hey!! That is not right.
Curious about the bio amended bag! Would be interesting to check out each compost sample under a microscope at the end!
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Municipal composting facilities' aim is to get rid of the yard waste and organic material. They don't care about fertility. That is why it is cheap. We have a company here using only restaurant waste to make a compost. IT is very fertile but expensive as hell. I am wondering what happens, if you can distribute bokashi buckets to your members and ask them to recycle kitchen waste as an added fertility to municipality compost.
potatoes would grow better with contact to the earth, so they get its needs from there. this compost could be used as mulch cover which can earth up during season.
Yes, probably. I don't think this is the best way to grow potatoes, but the potato plants have been really useful to test the different amendment options.
I once bought compost and never again. It had hydraulic oil in as it was pine bark comp from the local paper mill. That set me back years. Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
Oh no. Where in South Africa are you? Im in Gauteng, Pretoria. I have a local woodworker where I get woodshavings for free. I use it for my pathways and for browns in my compost heap. I would hate for something like that to happen to me. Was it equipment contamination? P.s, I love your user name. No dig all the way!
@@gertwolmarans6974 I am in White River Mpumalanga, we have lots of wood products like chips and shavings available here, but nun are free 😄. I raise meat birds as well, their first 3 weeks are on a 3 inch bed of pine saving and this is good for my compost bins.
Is not only about compost being fertile but about supporting the life of beneficial bacteria and fungus that break down the compost in nutrients that can be absorbed by plants. Try to improve the soil biome more.
I have tried growing worms. Not so easy in my case. They kept dying within a couple of days. Puzzling, given they are all over our planet. I sense compost can be toxic.
My potato plants in the garden are as tall as a 4 ft fence and have just started to flower. I hope the potatoes are maturing for a good harvest at the end of the season. I will get back to your channel with my results. I live in northern Wisconsin, and these amendments may be helpful.
A very helpful video Bruce , thanks. As always, I’ll watch it at least twice. Not sure if you can name your liquid feed amendments but that would be useful.. It’s a lot of work to amend such a big volume of compost to make it productive.
Thanks! I buy the liquid feed from Fruit Hill Farm www.fruithillfarm.com/organic-soil-plant-fertilisers/liquid-fertilizers/organic-plant-food-opf-npk.html - expensive enough stuff, but useful in this kind of context. I think with compost like this, throwing in a lot of some cheap form of nitrogen will make a huge difference.
As you noted near the end, since you grew potatoes in the compost last year, you extracted a lot of nutrients from the compost last year. Even after the compost broke down another year, it is still missing those nutrients from the year before. If you grow year after year in the same compost you will have to keep amending year after year to make up for the stuff extracted the year before. I think you were on the right track adding a bunch of urine to the newly brought in compost. I'd bring in a load of compost at the end of the seaon, pour a lot of urine on it, cover it with a tarp, and let it mature over the winter, and I think you'll have a rich compost ready for the spring.
It's exciting to see the experiment continue! I live in an area with hot, dry summers and my container potatoes never do as well as my in ground ones. I use several organic amendments in every pot and bed but the biggest improvement I've made in container potatoes is striking the right balance between compost and clay, somewhere around one fifth to one third clay, depending on sand content. Clay is abundant where I live and find it for free, whereas compost is fairly expensive and of various qualities, so it's nice to be able to save money and improve my growing medium at the same time. One obvious benefit is that clay holds onto water longer in my hot and arid garden. Also, I recall Steve Solomon writing that when organic material decomposes in the presence of clay it creates a compost with anion exchange capacity in addition to cation exchange capacity, so this would help hold on to the valuable ammendments longer in the soil.
How much micro life do you have from start? As i had issues before whit heat that kill microbe maybe it is some to watch in your trial next year, as i seen u not use any fungus on the bought compost might help you keep microbes in the soil, It just some thoughts. Very good info you tell us so far very good channel
That could be an issue, which is why I added the slurry of different biologically active compost materials to each bag at the start of the season. I do wonder if the heat of the bags will be killing off or inhibiting some of the biology, but I don't think that would explain the differences in growth that I am seeing between the bags.
Great experiments and much appreciated! This year I have continued with growing my potatoes and tomatoes in homemade compost. This includes a fair amount of 'biochar', about 10%- ish. I did find out that addind the biochar at the start of composting, it tends to slow the decomposition down quite a bit. Once established as a soil I add calcium, woodash and vit P. It all grows well and this year the potatoes are absolute winners :)
I'm in the same spot but with hardwood mulch so it's worse! I'm starting to think I have to make my own compost just to stay away from Grazon and extreme nitrogen deficiency.
Making your own compost is worth it imo. You know what goes into it and you can make it as fast as a month if you turn it often. I turned mine every two weeks and got 3 cubic ft of compost in 3 months. I’d have a bunch now if I wasn’t pregnant. My husband saves the grass clippings and fall leaves. I just put them in a cylinder I made out of hardware cloth and zip ties in multiple layers. You don’t even really need the hardware cloth. You can just put it in a pile. Cover with a tarp if you need to keep the moisture in. You can also cold compost where you don’t even turn at all. I don’t prefer this method bc of the abundance of seeds in the compost that you need to weed if you put into your garden. Cold composting also gives you volunteers. I have a huge cherry tomato growing out of one cold compost bin and a huge pumpkin growing out of another. Both volunteers looks better than the veggies in my garden lol.
I've had similar struggles in my own garden. I've had to result to adding things like coffee grounds and blood meal to mine to get the desired results.
Thanks for the video, very interesting. It would be interesting to see a comparison with your own home made compost as well. I think that slow/homemade compost (stuff just rotting/composting naturally) would be much more rich in nutrients compared to extra fast hot composting. Maybe you can run some type of trial next time.
Thank you :) I tried grow potatoes in containers, I have used municipal and our compost and potatoes had huge big healthy stems and leaves but it seems to me that the plants invested everything in leaves not in tubers, there were many small tubers. Maybe too much of nitrogen?
Seems crazy that they can't get making compost right - compost ought to pretty much make itself! I wonder if it's the methods they use, presumably municipal waste is quite high in "greens" - excessively so, and they probably accelerate the process with a lot of turning, aeration etc. I wonder how all that affects the nutritional content of the finished compost. Never mind what sort of stuff can end up in municipal waste that you don't want in your garden.
I wanted to let you know that I also experimented with potatoes in containers this year. As most gardeners, I never have enough mature home made compost. So I decided to fill up the containers mainly with hardly composted or even fresh kitchen scraps and let the composting happen while the potatoes grew. This method seems to work without adding fertilizers. In fact, I inadvertently created worm bins in my grow containers, as I discovered during harvest. It appears that the decay frees up enough nutrients for the potatoes to grow nicely. I should mention that the compost in the bin reduced by more than half in volume during the growing time of the potatoes. This can lead to a few potatoes turning green. If I wansn't so lazy, I could add more compost on top to prevent that. But I simply use the green potatoes as seed potatoes the next year.
It’s not necessarily a “fertility” issue. A lot of municipal compost has grass clippings in it. Those grass clippings come from lawns where people frequently spray weed killers. Same thing with animal manure that comes from farms that are non-organic. It could very well be traces of chemicals in that compost that is giving you trouble. Google “aminopyralid in compost” and see what I mean. It’s a common problem worldwide
Hey Bruce, a while ago you talked about having hydrophobe compost, and I just ran into the same issue. I had a whole load of compost that just didnt absorb water, but would rather let it drain. I had take all the compost I bought (which was a bag of 20L) and mix that into several huge container. Then I had to quite literally waterlog it and mix it like a small child would play with mud. It took about 2-3 days of being fully submerged and mixed for the compost to be usable again. Another reason for me to not buy compost anymore.
If you mix a bit of shampoo or dish soap in several gallons of water and sprinkle it onto the hydrophobic compost or soil, it breaks up the hydrophobic parts and then you can water as usual.
isn't it related to heat waves as well? i found out that after the folliage reduces, the compost dries out quicker, try mulching with green grass clippings,it will react with the carbon. in a similar test i had a few bags in partial shade, those are still green mid july while the rest have dried out
I came to the same conclusion as many others. Municipal compost isn't very good and essentially only adds organic matter to the soil and not nutrients. I think the raw material source for their compost is very nutrient poor and only high in carbon. I'm fortunate. I have a fairly large garden so I have plenty of room to compost outside. I have several systems. One system is a series of 12 compost bins (in reality just large plastic garbage/rubbish bins with holes drilled into the bottom and sides for air circulation). I fill these with a mixture of kitchen waste, garden weeds, leaves and chicken manure. I also pick up some waste vegetables from the local supermarket (discarded cabbage leaves, veggie stems etc.) I throw in my red worms and they do a good job of decomposing the mixture. When a bin is full, I move it into storage for 6 months and allow it to dry out a bit, but keep it damp. Then I sift it through a home-made sieve. Un-decomposed material goes into the next compost. I separate out the biggest worms and they go into the next new compost bin too. The cycle continues. This works when the temperature isn't too high. Unfortunately, where I live it's too hot in the summer for worms (over 34oC) so I switch over to black soldier flies from June to October (they just show up naturally). They are able to eat waste 100 times faster than the worms but only when the temperatures are over 25oC. They produce excellent compost. The second system is a home-made compost roller made out of a giant oil drum on a frame with wheels to allow rotation. I only put leaves, used coffee grounds from the local cafes and friends, and crushed egg-shells in it. Add the red worms and they do a great job of producing leaf mold, which I believe is the real “Black Gold”. My third system is a very large open compost pile which consists of layers of leaves and “zoo poo” - mainly dried elephant manure from the local zoo. This naturally attracts red worms and also makes great compost.
Inspired by you, we also grow in bags this year. 100% in homemade compost and our plants are big, lush and healthy. I hope that the foliage mirrors the potatos underneath. Thanks for great content.
Thank you for sharing your valuable research, I bought 6 bags of 50L potting compost from a large DIY chain here in England and found a partially digested sock, directly contravening claims of its composition being 100% plant based and tested. Given the rarity of biodegradable clothing and the synthetic polluting nature of modern dyes this can only affect present and future nutrient availability, and in the 4 months since planting I have had poor results. Obtaining "better quality" compost is obviously not price or source related.
You have a great carbon source in this municipal compost, but you need more nitrogen. The results are clear, find a source of animal manure -- chicken, cow/horse, whatever -- and compost it in, treating the municipal "compost" as primarily carbon. Do this in bulk and get ahead of it, and you'll have the high nitrogen compost you need from then on. Good luck!
Have tried many of the same experiments with very similar results to yourself. Getting good results from drenching with urine prior to planting but most importantly mulching. Have found that compost loses water very easily and looking after the biology requires mulch, same in the garden. Using mulch over compost looks after the compost and enables the biology to take the carbon into the soil
Which is funny to me, because that is one of the things this municipal, woody compost is really good at ... mulching. That is, it itself is the mulch for the living soil below. Drip-feeds carbon into the soil and otherwise confers what benefits you expect from a good mulch.
@@aenorist2431 Yes, that is an interesting point about his type of compsot being a useful mulch. I find once the top layer dries, the stuff underneath stays moist. But if I did add straw, leaves, or grass clippings to the surface of the compost, that would probably help.
Not sure I agree with that, it depends on what it is made with. Some of the batches of compost I have made in the past were very fertile, and grew great crops of potatoes without anything else.
I normally think compost as adding a better water and nutrient buffer to my soil. I do not see it as a reliable source of nutrients for very productive areas. Another angle to decomposition could be: Does the presence of plants increase decomposition through a more active myco fauna? Perhaps the mutualisme with plants increase fungi activity and you are actually speeding up the process? Thanks for another great video. I use them in my work, just so you know the wide impact it is having.
I've come to a similar conclusion, that municipal compost just isn't that good. Ours is made from garden and household waste, so probably not that much wood in it, but still, plants just don't grow that well in it, nothing compared to my own compost, of which I don't have enough. I only use the municipal compost as a mulch these days and hope that it will eventually break down and become more useful, but at least it helps keep in the moisture during these many weeks of dry weather that we have been having.
Out of curiosity. Could alfalfa pellets be a viable option for additional nitrogen? I use them in my tiny worm composting bin and i noticed it shrinks faster than with other added green material. Thoughts on this?
everything u added is acidic. you need some garden lime to unlock the nutrients in the soil, and I would like to see your pH levels. the best is to mix this bought compost with your own worm castings and let it mature, maybe 1:5 with your own compost. then seems to be lacking iron. if its too acidic and not enough iron your plants can't unlock nutrients. this is what my journey has lead me to believe. I use a worm farm, and a submerged worm warm in a veg bed. And its going well, but I still need to spray iron every 3 months for it to grow strong and I sprinkle a little lime before harvesting worm castings
Have you thought about vermicompost? It seems that your amendments added need some help to convert to a more bioavailable form for plant growth. I was watching a Gabe Brown video. He teaches about using and supporting soil biology with growing plants. He is growing his own fertility in the soil and using a diverse combination of plants and animal manures. You could be adding too much as well.
I have also been unimpressed with this kind of compost on a small scale, and am thinking of sticking it on my regular compost heap when I have a lot of green material - do you think that's a sensible approach? Currently I generally use it around 1 part municipal 2 parts other compost in containers.
The reason for your challenges with nitrogen is after the heat cycles are complicated and your pile is at 70° F a nitrogen fixation stage begins and takes 3 to 6 months to be completed . What you will see is a white netting , kind of like a spider Web cover and penitrate thru out your pile . Do not disturb pile in this phase . After this phase is complete you have what is called finished compost that will absorb odors and release nitrogen . I have made compost for decades . Not many people understand this about compost and adding nitrogen to unfinished compost frustrates the nature of the biological process . Good things take time , patience and understanding . There are eliments in sand and silt and clay that are not in compost . All this can be verified by university and or college writings . Good luck my friend . .
thank you for doing these experiments. Looks like adding fertilizer is still a must. Don't assume that the municipal compost just isnt old enough yet. I've seen nutrient reports from some composts, even from an organic farm, that show that the compost is just too low in nitrogen.
