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Cornelius, Oregon

Okay now we have some tillable soil. Lets look at bulk organic matter. What does everyone use? Personally I love mint compost. This is rather expensive so I also use horse manure and just deal with the sawdust adding acid and sucking nitrogen, and extra weeds.
What else sees the patch?

3/4/2009 11:32:56 AM

I like to compost that horse manure, start with 40-50 yrds, turn weekly, end up with 20-25yds of finshed compost in 8 weeks. This is straight manure cleaned from a turnout, no shaving or sawdust.(yes a machine for turning and break it down to 5-7 yd piles)

Every other year add 1/3 leaves when composting. Seems to work for me.

3/4/2009 12:03:44 PM

Dummer Twp - Ontario

Leaf compost that is tested by the local county, two 50lb bags of old chicken manure per planting site, some composted cow manure (two trailer loads), a years worth of eggs shell per 3 planting sites, some granite chips for remineralization and some sandy topsoil ( 1 triaxle load last year and probably a trailer full this year)

3 bags of soy bean meal to get it all going along with 2 gallons of molasses

Kirk

3/4/2009 12:15:46 PM

Darfield, British Columbia, Canada

I use old shavings that we have used for bedding in our dairy barns and to off set the nitrogen loss from the rotting bedding. Same mix my grandma had used for the last sixty years or so. Get the mix wrong though and a whole year will go out the door.

3/4/2009 12:44:44 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Being a city dweller, we don't have the room like Dan to do our own composting so we have to buy the completed product in bulk from suppliers in farm country.

I buy composted manure (mixture of chicken, cow, horse) that is composted along with fruit and vegetable waste from local manufacturing and packaging plants.

3/4/2009 12:45:10 PM

[email protected]

Every greenhouse get 6 yds of mulched straw, I try and get Barley straw, It takes 8 square bales to get 6 yds of straw, Then each site gets 6 to 8 yards of cow manure, Friend of ours has corrals I clean out and get to keep the maure, so its a year old when I spread it, I also add 40 pounds of Humic acid, 40 lbs of Sulfer pellets and 50 lbs of a mix of kelp, dried fish and dry mollases. Each green house is an average size of 1000 sq ft. After tilling everything in, my organic matter should be about 10-12% and by fall its down to 7 or so.

3/4/2009 12:46:41 PM

Minnesota

I use horse manure free from a racetrack, I know I have been told about seeds in it, I asked the guy at the race track and he said (Idon't remember word for word) they feed them a special diet, no real seeds in it.

3/4/2009 12:49:17 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Brent, I've never heard of mint compost. Is this they kind of stuff you use? If so, looks real nice.

http://www.laneforestproducts.com/products/index.php?product_id=11

3/4/2009 1:29:45 PM

Oz

Old leaf compost helps add carbon,and loosens up the red clay soil in the south USA.

3/4/2009 9:28:42 PM

Little-TON - Colorado

GLenn I saw that Mint compost when I was in Oregon at Sherwoods........Great looking stuff and fairly inexpensive.....Wish we had it here....Well have to find our local sources for great compost......

3/5/2009 10:26:49 AM