Soil Bit by Bit Soil Improvement

[seraphima]

Most of us here compost, but there is also a way to work with soil by a sort of sheet composting over time. By this I mean adding materials as your have them.

For example, eggshells are saved, and when I have a cookie sheet worth, they go into the oven after something else is done and are dried in the leftover heat. The shells are then crushed fine by rolling a jar or rolling pin over them, then taken outside to spread. Today I sprinkled egshell bits over all the beds and containers on this side of the house.

Friends who were moving gave me old spices and herbs they were going to toss. I mixed them in a bucket and powdered my beds and pots. Smelled a bit funny out there until it rained! I was careful not to use anything with salt or chemicals like msg in them,, too.
The paprika and dried peppers kind of things were saved for pest control.

I wanted to add peatmoss to some beds I was renovating last year, so I just spread it on top in the winter. The peat was moistened by the snow and rain, and the bulbs and perennials came up right through the peat so everything looked tidy.

Coffee grounds are a good use of this technique; coffee plants take a lot of nutrients out of the soil they are grown in, and are a rich source of nutrients and humus for your garden and containers, withno weeds, either. Just pouring your diluted old coffee

Bit by bit, a lot can be done.

 

[summerthyme]

Absolutely! One thing I do is, when weeding, lay the weeds on the soil to dry out. DO NOT do this if you expect rain, or in a really humid climate! They will just re-root!) Once the roots are totally dry, they can be tilled in. Our soil back home was rich, deep loam, and weeds were a constant problem. I would use them as sheet mulch between the rows, in dry weather... it made a huge difference in keeping weeds down, but again, even a heavy dew will help them re-root.

Grass clippings are another excellent sheet compost/mulch material.

Summerthyme

 

[ioujc]

Leaves in the fall.
Chicken and rabbit and goat manure work great too. The chicken manure is aged at least a year, but the goat and rabbit poop are applied as needed.
Yes, amending the soil is done bit by bit.

 

[hammerhead]

Absolutely! One thing I do is, when weeding, lay the weeds on the soil to dry out. DO NOT do this if you expect rain, or in a really humid climate! They will just re-root!) Once the roots are totally dry, they can be tilled in. Our soil back home was rich, deep loam, and weeds were a constant problem. I would use them as sheet mulch between the rows, in dry weather... it made a huge difference in keeping weeds down, but again, even a heavy dew will help them re-root.

Grass clippings are another excellent sheet compost/mulch material.

Summerthyme

I do both, the grass clippings in a thin layer that I sprinkle. Where I live, it all dries to crispiness, and I also get some soil cover from the broiling sun in the process.

 

[seraphima]

Grass is so invasive here that I don't even put it in compost if it has roots. Rooted grass is instead thrown on areas where lawn has been destroyed by the snowplows and gravel, or on areas of lawn that need resodding. Otherwise, i make a heap and cover it until it all dies. My neighbor gives me bagged lawn clipping which are set near the compost heap and used as needed to layer.

 

[Murt]

several years ago (maybe 6-8) my main garden (about 100 feet square) was mostly red Georgia clay
today it is a dark soft soil ----twice a year I have been adding what ever I could get to it
stall sweepings (sawdust and critter poo) from the local 4H group
a lot of partially to completely composted or rotted wood chips
rabbit manure---composted horse manure (tested for herbicide)--some chicken manure--grass clippings and a lot of leaves
I drive around in the late fall looking for bagged up leaves on the curb in town and pick up all that I can get
I have also added dried molasses and some store bought organic amendments as well as commercial compost
I grow way more turnips that we can use and cut them back in in the spring
I have planted clover twice as a cover crop
the tranformation has been slow but in the end nearly amazing

 

[AlaskaSue]

I never thought about baking the eggshells I toss on my compost. I collect coffee grounds, eggshells and some greens thru the week and add it to the big compost pile out back (that the resident moose LOVE to snack on when the snow is deep; I think they sense the heat and dig for the goodies left from last summer’s garden). I’m going to start doing that like you said, and crush them up to add to various beds.

I still plan to come down and collect sea peat for Mary’s raised beds; would love to bring some back for me too. Miss you!

 

[packyderms_wife]

Won’t baking eggshells strip them of 5heir minerals? I let mine air dry and then blitz in the food processor. Add to garden and compost piles as needed.

 

[Martinhouse]

Baking the eggshells is to kill things like salmonella so they don't infect your garden. I can't remember the temp or duration, but I don't think it's anywhere near enough to break down minerals in the shell itself.

 

[Chicken Mama]

Some people bake, others don't, and I doubt it really matters. Considering that we put animal manure in the garden, I don't spend time worrying about salmonella from egg shells which are calcium, and can't be baked out of them.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

Absolutely! One thing I do is, when weeding, lay the weeds on the soil to dry out. DO NOT do this if you expect rain, or in a really humid climate! They will just re-root!) Once the roots are totally dry, they can be tilled in. Our soil back home was rich, deep loam, and weeds were a constant problem. I would use them as sheet mulch between the rows, in dry weather... it made a huge difference in keeping weeds down, but again, even a heavy dew will help them re-root.

Grass clippings are another excellent sheet compost/mulch material.

Summerthyme

My feathered kids love to eat weeds. I pick them (or cut them, in grass cutting season) and throw them into the chicken yard. They play in the weeds, scratching their way into them. They eat what they want. What they don’t eat, they poop in.

What weeds they scratch into, and poop in, yet don’t eat, just accumulates over time on the dirt surface of their yard, or on the floor of their henhouse. . The scratching they do aerates the rotting leaves. Rain and fresh poop adds moisture.

Every spring, i go into their house and their yard and laboriously scoop up the composted manure and add it to my garden beds to feed a new crop of vegetables. And weeds, too. Which I promptly pull out of the garden when they emerge and feed to the chickens.

And thus, the cycle begins again every spring.