Hi, New here, so please bear with me. I'm having trouble figuring out what is right and wrong for making compost.
I have a ranch with not the best soil. It was an old cotton farm and that may have depleated the soil. In reclaiming the pasture I cut out tens of thousands of mesquite and cedar trees. After burning most of them, I finally bought a 6" chipper for my tractor. It makes fabulous mounds of fairly small chips which I hope will make some good compost someday to apply to my soil.
The question is, when I chip lots of freshly cut down cedar, youpon, mesquite, elm, oak, etc., can a portion of that be considered "greens"? I'm having trouble getting enough cow manure to add to the piles and other greens are in short supply in the winter. When the summer comes, manure is in short supply because the dung beetles cart it off so fast. I added 2 yards of cow manure to 5 yards of green chips. Is that enough to make good compost? For a month, the chips by themselves didn't heat up much, so they aren't really greens, I'm guessing. They did start to turn a nice brown color.
Does anyone have experience mulching fresh wood?
wood chip compost
Moderator: Chris_W
I have been using fresh wood chips for a number of years to improve my fairly sandy soil on my actual garden beds. I live in an area where the very rain itself is alkaline so I am always trying to go to the acid. Surprisingly, the wood chips have not done much for that. I find the nitrogen grabbing nature of decaying wood makes me a scrounger for green stuff-- untreated lawn clipping, asking people if I can rake their leaves and I sometime chop them before adding, other times I just throw them in. I pull any non-invasive weeds and drop them where I pull them in the bed. Clipping are left behind.
I remove quack grass, and annual grasses when they are setting seed, and try to pull other weeds before they set seed.
If I feel like I am way behind on nitrogen I add chemical fertilers with a predominant nitrogen component.
My dad is a dairy farmer so I get cow manure, but that often has weed seeds so I have to be vigilant. Anything organic I add it (shredded newspapers, coffe grounds, veggie cuttings, etc.).
Against prevailing wisdom, I have an area I design as my doggie poo area. My dog (and unfortunately MANY neighbor hood dogs) poos only here. I rottotil this into the soil in the spring and mulch with wood chips. My large shrubs and fruit trees seem very happy with this.
I remove quack grass, and annual grasses when they are setting seed, and try to pull other weeds before they set seed.
If I feel like I am way behind on nitrogen I add chemical fertilers with a predominant nitrogen component.
My dad is a dairy farmer so I get cow manure, but that often has weed seeds so I have to be vigilant. Anything organic I add it (shredded newspapers, coffe grounds, veggie cuttings, etc.).
Against prevailing wisdom, I have an area I design as my doggie poo area. My dog (and unfortunately MANY neighbor hood dogs) poos only here. I rottotil this into the soil in the spring and mulch with wood chips. My large shrubs and fruit trees seem very happy with this.