You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
I got the impression from some posts that you could compost in the ground; mix compost materials directly into the soil. I don't have enough room to compost, and I have bad soil. I'm going to be turning it in the next couple days and I have quite a bit of non-weed organic matter, so it would be great if I could put it directly into the soil.
So, is this true and if so is there any special ways to do it or anything I should know before I start?
I always compost directly into the ground during the winter when I don't have a garden in. In fact, I have very bad clay soil so I plant a cover crop of clover in my garden every winter and then hubby disks it in during late winter. That really helps the soil a lot . Think about how Mother Nature does it--just piles up leaves, dead trees, etc., and they break down and enrich the soil very nicely.
You can definitely do that. I compost leaves on top of the garden every year (don't even dig them in usually). Things might not decompose as fast and won't get as hot as if you did a regular compost pile so I would definitely avoid throwing weeds in, but for anything else it should be fine. The one thing I would suggest is to try and chop things into smaller pieces if you can to help them decompose a little faster (I have a leaf blower that reverses to a vac and has a chopping blade, if you don't have something like that, tossing everything in a trash can and hitting it with the weed whacker will work too!)
Thanks, that should work for me. I've been thinking about worm composting, and that's where I'd get the worms. I'll turn the soil and leave it till we get cooler weather for a couple days, or better yet rain, before I plant anything. So if I cut the stuff up and mix it in it should have time to get started composing at least.
I know not to put weeds where I don't want them to sprout, or where they will sterilize. Right now I just throw my weeds on the grass and mow them. I really don't care about my lawn. If the landlords want to get rid of the weeds they can do it and I figure the weeds actually help the soil, super hard under the grass. We actually had a mole come out of the bed and it was hiding under grass, I think it couldn't dig in the soil. If it was my house I'd rip the grass out and plant something else.
