About 20 years ago I had to rebuild my "garden" because the soil was very sandy and I couldn't grow very much. I removed all the large rocks that I could and tilled in 20 yds of mushroom soil and about 7 yds of compost that I made. I now have soil that is about 9-12 inches deep. For a long time I have been putting about 3-5 inches of newly shredded leaf mulch on the garden every fall. I started doing that because I knew that the composting worms just love the leaf mulch, plus their casting are good for the garden and they are my fertilizer. Also, the leaf mulch acts a fairly good weed barrier. In the spring, I remove the leaf mulch down to the soil line so I can plant. And I see a lot of worms on the top of the soil. (Here come the Robins.) Leaf mulch that is remove will be used to mulch around the plants after they pop out of the ground. About a year and a half go I started to do vermicomposting indoors (worms eat my garbage) to supplement the fertilization of the garden.
Rather than till in leaf mould (even just down a few inches) consider raking it to the edges & planting a winter kill fall over crop by mid fall. The roots of the cover crop will go down far deeper in adding organic matter than tilling in a few inches of leaf mould. After the frosts of winter kill off the covercrop, rake the leaf mold back over the rows. Peaceful Valley Soil Builder Covercrop is a good bet. Order the one with clovers, peas, legumes & oats. Will kill off when temps go below about 25F.
You soil is fill from when the builder dug the foundation. Had he trucked it away, it would've cut into his profit margin. It's not top soil. If you mulch your leaf compost with wood chips, it will hold water . Either way, you need to check the moisture level weekly. Most vegetables need an inch of water per week. Your problems with peppers and broccoli falling over is normal whether you are in clay or sandy soil. Normally, for peppers, it's because there's more fruit on one side than the other. Staking is part of being a gardener. Sometimes you have to, sometimes you don't. If you use square foot gardening method , you may have to stake less. Leaf compost is one of the best mediums to use to break up clay soil because of the fungi that is in it. If you broad fork or garden fork your beds, it will help. Either way, you made a great decision to use leaf compost in your garden and the proof of that pudding will show itself to you in a few years. Blessings!
It takes 3 years for a Wood Chip Garden to really develop a good 4-8 inch soil base in a 35+inch rainfall region. Just keep adding woodchips and the beds will build. Just keep the grass pulled up around the perimeter.
As others have suggested, a cover crop over winter would be a great benefit. Consider daikon - those long radishes pushing deep into the soil (and left to rot) may do some of your broadforking for you! And how about mulching around the plants? I make leaf compost but add my chicken manure (only 4 chickens) and vegetable scraps to it. It's still mostly leaves, but it's not as crumbly as your pure leaf compost.
I have mostly sand in my yard and have been making leaf compost for a couple of years and stock piling it. Plan on tilling it into the the sandy siol for the first year then going no till after that. Your plants all look healthy and productive and I'm hoping for the same results using leaf compast without the leaning and dryness problem.
Plant wild lettuce around your garden, they get big, have moist hollow stalks that can be added green and some left in ground till harder. Add the green and dried in situ stalks, plus the leaves on top of your soil. I put the wild lettuce hard stalks, its leaves, soft stalks, leaves, hard stalks, leaves, fresh stalks, then leaves leaves leaves. It eventually all fills in and makes a natural structure to the soil and gives something for the food web to use as a lattice. Also unlike sticks, they break down quickly so you're not stuck typing up N for a long time. Lastly they produce an endless amount of seed that needs no planting. Think mega dandelion, free greens/browns all year not just in season, improves the loose fall leaf medium a lot. They also trap/kill aphids. Good for perimeters.
Sprinkling in coffee grounds or adding urea to the water will speed up decomposition significantly. One gallon of grounds to 40 gallons of leaves is enough to make a difference, but more is better. Alternatively mix one tablespoon of urea to one gallon of water. Increase to three for leaves that are hard to break down such as oak, gum, sycamore and persimmon.
Ok. "I am organic gardening" channel has huge piles of woodchips & fall leaves, separate, & rotted down. He compared results in growing different things in them & found the leaf mould had better results. He doesn't compost them, he just grows in the soil underneath the piles. Check out his series. Back to Eden vs Fall leaves. 👌
Thanks for the video. FYI, the different size of worm is likely indicative of a different sepcies of worm than your uzed to seeing. Different medium composition and environmental factors attract different species of worms.
Additional leaves on top would work well to keep the moisture in. I have had similar results with leaf compost in my boxes. I put a 4" diameter pvc pipe cut to about 10 inches and start the plant in these covered with as much leaves as possible for mulch. The results are amazing here in the dry southwest. Your garden might not look as clean with leaves blowing around.
Reminder- Leaf mold is not "soil" or a "soil medium." The solum of soil is sand, silt & clay. The parent material is rock. Add some air, water & a bit of organic material & you have soil. The "parent" of Leaf mold is organic material. It is at best compost or mulch. It is a micro-organism delivery system to feed soil life when used properly. Leaf mold feeds the soil life in your garden just as it does in a forest.
My soil in 2000 was awful clay with weird colors from Mars I’m sure. Should have used jack hammer instead of shovel to make first seed bed. I implore beginners to mow leaves, bag them in black plastic, saturate them, tie them, poke holes in top and place the out of sight in out of way place and forget them until the following September then harvest the black gold
@8:00 Please don't stop using leaf compost because of support, stop using STRING.. to support your pepper's just build around them with that wire fence you used, that won't buckle and give like string doe's. Your garden is BEAUTIFUL! everything is lush and green from mother nature's leaves don't stop.
I am excited to keep building soul with leaf compost. I think some of your success is using wood chips in the pathway. I suspect the yucky soil underneath is far better now than it was.
I know about plant lean too...had to change my strategy. I now amend soil where planting and mix in compost, sand and some native soil. I try to avoid tilling the entire garden.
Soil Blocks? What mix are you using for those? Mine start out solid & then fall apart so I end up falling back to traditional seed starting. Love my leaf mulch and have started 5 new compost bins this year! Excited too try vermicomposting once I can figure out where to do it inside.
Water drops as droplets...Not as fine mist .When you pass water through a fine mesh you can actually see that it doesn't pass through the mesh till more water passes through,creates a bigger drop and then it drips... Could be that the same thing happens here with the leaf compost .It turns into a fine mesh and the water has to seep that way... So maybe one could observe when does this happen...Before that he can keep the moisture by watering and coming thenext day to create with a garden fork deep and bigger air channels (again now picture the water passing thourgh a mesh with big holes). Could be wrong and the soil would still dry fast and become again hydrophobic.
Did you ever do a follow-up video on how you resolved the issues you addressed at the end of this video? I have a large amount of humus and would be very interested to know. Thank you in advance!
Its always a plan to keep up with the followups since thats where the meat of the story. Unfortunately have time behind just loading new ones. Hopefully the slow down of the winter will help me catchup :)
I have not personally tested. Given the scale I work on, leaf compost makes the most sense to use. I’m sure they are similar in absorbing crazy amounts of water.
Can I speed up the process by turning over the soil with a layer of leaves digging in 6 inches then adding more leaves on top of the turned over/leaves added soil?
I googled free wood chips for my area and found a number of tree cutting services that dump them free in my driveway when they cut down trees in my area
Try also Chip Drop. It's a nation wide service connecting tree cutting services with gardeners. Just be aware that you might get a ton more wood chips more than you expect. Cut up logs can be requested too if that is what you need.
Where did you ever get the idea that all you needed was leaf mold you have to have more than leaf mold you can make the leaf mold, which is good but you have to mix it with compost and soil .The amount of leaf mold you have there would require two huge dump trucks full of leaves. Leaf mold is pretty much used as a fertilizer
Never said all was needed was leaf mold, but a perspective if you were to use only leaf mold since theres a lot of videos on it. I agree, using as is, is not the way to go but still a solid additive for mixing with nature soil.
Tilling for one year is probably a good idea for the reasons you mentioned! For additional assistance in getting the water to saturate you may consider using a soil surfactant every now and then. Especially in the summer. It really helps using this wetting agent and is often used with outdoor potted plants where the potting soil becomes hydrophobic when it dries out. You can purchase the product or make your own.plenty of videos online to ring out how to. Enjoyed the video!
Uphill Acre: "It's not soil, it's not dirt, I don't know what it is, it won't support growth." It's called earth, i.e., sand, clay, rock, aka, subsoil. It is the foundation of soil, before the organic material. It provides all the nutrients., the organic micr-organisms allow plants to absorb them. Feed them, they feed your plants, which feed you.
A trench might be a way around your HOA rules. I recommend three feet deep minimum. Mine is four feet deep with one foot of logs in the bottom to regulate moisture. Three feet wide by forty feet long. It holds an enormous amount of leaves! Begin by filling a ten foot section about one foot above the surface. Continue to feed until it setles down, then begin fillin the next ten feet.
There is a very dark corner in my yard (because of trees). The soil there is exactly that dark black leaf compost. Everything grows there, and reaches out for the light. Flowers, perennial bushes, strawberries, and A LOT of massive weeds. I steal some of that leaf compost to amend the soil in my garden areas.
When using municipal water for this purpose, it's important to remove chloramines. Inexpensive K85 filters such as Camco and Boogie Blue are only 70% effective when new. The remainder needs to be neutralized with sodium ascorbate ot Vitamin C. 1/4 teaspoon is more than enough to treat five gallons of water.
title of video above = too much = (244012) Must Watch Before Using Leaf Compost - Pros and cons as a soil medium - UA-cam.............i then need to edit the title and change it to Leaf Compost so i can read it easily above.
What kind of drip edge do you use, could you metion the size, type and where you bought? I have drip tape but it breaks and tears easily was looking for a good alternative.
Ive struggled with irrigation and havent found a good setup for my water collection. I have something in the works and hopefully be able to show once I use it a bit more.
@@uphillacre1585 thanks I have a channel called organic farming solutions I tried a certain system that was working alright but the drip tape breaks and has to be replaced every year or two
Yea i have too many beds that would necessitate lots of drip tape and constabt oversight. I have a pvc connector system that is easy to move to each bed and works with my gravity watering system.
I guess I was confused on the second con. Are you saying that it’s so absorbent that it hydrates horizontally rather than going deep? Also any new videos on where your at now with leaf mulch? Thanks from Texas!
I plan on using yard waste to my advantage. I get some leaf shed, but also grass clippings, twigs, fallen tree branches, and the occasional split tree. I have some huge logs I plan on using as the base for hugelkultur style raised beds.
Leaf compost is like salad without dressing. You need to turn leaf compost into compost. Create bins and add to shredded leaves, grass, any type of fall squash, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, etc. you will turn pile as needed. A year later, your compost is gold. Dense, rich, and is incredible for all crops. That is my process. I also use broadfork for beds before adding adding it. This allows depth for compost to leach deep into your bed area. Trust me. You will have the rewards you seek.
Thanks for sharing. Haven't watched all your videos yet so unsure if you already tried already cover crops, but I plan on doing something similar in 2022, with some prep work already done: I used a garden fork to loosen my heavy clay soil and cover cropped in the autumn(mix of buckwheat, tillage radish which winterkill plus wheat) that should help with compaction and feeding the soil biology over winter. Come spring I'll be laying down cardboard and 2-3" of compost on top. As prep to expand for 2023 I'll try buckwheat/phacelia mix (spring) followed by Sorghum-Sudangrass (during the hot, dry summer months) and see how that works, since I can't afford to buy enough compost for 1/4 acre that would cost quite a bit, and I can afford to wait for the cover crops to work my heavy clay soil instead
The soil is more rocky here than anything but like any soil, it still compacts. I originally thought about doing cover crops for a year or so to improve the soil beforehand but just want straight to the cardboard/compost method. Still need to till to break and mix the layers so its not just fluffy on top and compact on the bottom. Im aiming to use some spring cover more for attraction of the bees before the summer crops go in.
@@uphillacre1585 sounds like you're trying to make the best of it, I'd probably do the same too, and then cover with a tarp if time allows to germinate&kill the weed seeds you're probably bringing back up. Can't hurt to try some tillage radish cover over winter if it gets cold enough to winterkill(I'm zone 7 and just about to get cold enough for it here). Good luck with your next growing season and let us know how it works out!
Yes, love silage tarps. So effective, resilient to the elements and easy to use especially when preparing new land for gardens. Now id like to switch to the natural approach for ground cover
I had a huge area leased rent free to my growers group too late to do a cover crop at the beginning of winter. We covereed with leaves, cardboard, brush, anything...raked it back & planted mamoth sunflowers, black oil seed (for chicken feed) and pro-cuts on the perimeter for sale. Cut at base, then chopped & dropped stalks & leaves & covered wit tarp. Did a decent job approving soil. Sunflower roots go deep. Mammoths in particular.
About 20 years ago I had to rebuild my "garden" because the soil was very sandy and I couldn't grow very much. I removed all the large rocks that I could and tilled in 20 yds of mushroom soil and about 7 yds of compost that I made. I now have soil that is about 9-12 inches deep. For a long time I have been putting about 3-5 inches of newly shredded leaf mulch on the garden every fall. I started doing that because I knew that the composting worms just love the leaf mulch, plus their casting are good for the garden and they are my fertilizer. Also, the leaf mulch acts a fairly good weed barrier. In the spring, I remove the leaf mulch down to the soil line so I can plant. And I see a lot of worms on the top of the soil. (Here come the Robins.) Leaf mulch that is remove will be used to mulch around the plants after they pop out of the ground. About a year and a half go I started to do vermicomposting indoors (worms eat my garbage) to supplement the fertilization of the garden.
Rather than till in leaf mould (even just down a few inches) consider raking it to the edges & planting a winter kill fall over crop by mid fall. The roots of the cover crop will go down far deeper in adding organic matter than tilling in a few inches of leaf mould. After the frosts of winter kill off the covercrop, rake the leaf mold back over the rows.
Peaceful Valley Soil Builder Covercrop is a good bet. Order the one with clovers, peas, legumes & oats. Will kill off when temps go below about 25F.
You soil is fill from when the builder dug the foundation. Had he trucked it away, it would've cut into his profit margin. It's not top soil. If you mulch your leaf compost with wood chips, it will hold water . Either way, you need to check the moisture level weekly. Most vegetables need an inch of water per week. Your problems with peppers and broccoli falling over is normal whether you are in clay or sandy soil. Normally, for peppers, it's because there's more fruit on one side than the other. Staking is part of being a gardener. Sometimes you have to, sometimes you don't. If you use square foot gardening method , you may have to stake less. Leaf compost is one of the best mediums to use to break up clay soil because of the fungi that is in it. If you broad fork or garden fork your beds, it will help. Either way, you made a great decision to use leaf compost in your garden and the proof of that pudding will show itself to you in a few years. Blessings!
It takes 3 years for a Wood Chip Garden to really develop a good 4-8 inch soil base in a 35+inch rainfall region. Just keep adding woodchips and the beds will build. Just keep the grass pulled up around the perimeter.
As others have suggested, a cover crop over winter would be a great benefit. Consider daikon - those long radishes pushing deep into the soil (and left to rot) may do some of your broadforking for you! And how about mulching around the plants?
I make leaf compost but add my chicken manure (only 4 chickens) and vegetable scraps to it. It's still mostly leaves, but it's not as crumbly as your pure leaf compost.
I have mostly sand in my yard and have been making leaf compost for a couple of years and stock piling it. Plan on tilling it into the the sandy siol for the first year then going no till after that. Your plants all look healthy and productive and I'm hoping for the same results using leaf compast without the leaning and dryness problem.
Yea, the same hope for me that the work upfront will minimize the work years later. Best of luck to you!
Nice. I plan to use it to make a potting mix. I've been collecting it out of the woods on our property.
Ah, great to have a ready source! Takes a good year of constant turning to finally get to a useable stage.
Plant wild lettuce around your garden, they get big, have moist hollow stalks that can be added green and some left in ground till harder. Add the green and dried in situ stalks, plus the leaves on top of your soil. I put the wild lettuce hard stalks, its leaves, soft stalks, leaves, hard stalks, leaves, fresh stalks, then leaves leaves leaves. It eventually all fills in and makes a natural structure to the soil and gives something for the food web to use as a lattice. Also unlike sticks, they break down quickly so you're not stuck typing up N for a long time. Lastly they produce an endless amount of seed that needs no planting. Think mega dandelion, free greens/browns all year not just in season, improves the loose fall leaf medium a lot. They also trap/kill aphids. Good for perimeters.
Awesome response, will do!
Sprinkling in coffee grounds or adding urea to the water will speed up decomposition significantly. One gallon of grounds to 40 gallons of leaves is enough to make a difference, but more is better. Alternatively mix one tablespoon of urea to one gallon of water. Increase to three for leaves that are hard to break down such as oak, gum, sycamore and persimmon.
Ok. "I am organic gardening" channel has huge piles of woodchips & fall leaves, separate, & rotted down. He compared results in growing different things in them & found the leaf mould had better results. He doesn't compost them, he just grows in the soil underneath the piles. Check out his series. Back to Eden vs Fall leaves. 👌
Yes, great stuff there too. Where it all started for me.
Thanks for the video. FYI, the different size of worm is likely indicative of a different sepcies of worm than your uzed to seeing. Different medium composition and environmental factors attract different species of worms.
Good to know, thanks! We have invasive worms in the area that are massive but they tend to like the grass versus the garden
Additional leaves on top would work well to keep the moisture in. I have had similar results with leaf compost in my boxes. I put a 4" diameter pvc pipe cut to about 10 inches and start the plant in these covered with as much leaves as possible for mulch. The results are amazing here in the dry southwest. Your garden might not look as clean with leaves blowing around.
Reminder- Leaf mold is not "soil" or a "soil medium."
The solum of soil is sand, silt & clay. The parent material is rock. Add some air, water & a bit of organic material & you have soil.
The "parent" of Leaf mold is organic material. It is at best compost or mulch. It is a micro-organism delivery system to feed soil life when used properly.
Leaf mold feeds the soil life in your garden just as it does in a forest.
Great points!
My soil in 2000 was awful clay with weird colors from Mars I’m sure. Should have used jack hammer instead of shovel to make first seed bed. I implore beginners to mow leaves, bag them in black plastic, saturate them, tie them, poke holes in top and place the out of sight in out of way place and forget them until the following September then harvest the black gold
Absolutely, leaf compost is underused and underappreciated!
I love foraging leave mold compost from my backyard. It’s in old growth Forest in Hawaii …maybe even ancient
@8:00 Please don't stop using leaf compost because of support, stop using STRING.. to support your pepper's just build around them with that wire fence you used, that won't buckle and give like string doe's. Your garden is BEAUTIFUL! everything is lush and green from mother nature's leaves don't stop.
really nice looking garden.
Informative video. Thanks!!
:40 Start by determining the qualities of your soil. It may simply need an amendment. But you have to take some samples and look, feel and test.
I am excited to keep building soul with leaf compost. I think some of your success is using wood chips in the pathway. I suspect the yucky soil underneath is far better now than it was.
I know about plant lean too...had to change my strategy. I now amend soil where planting and mix in compost, sand and some native soil. I try to avoid tilling the entire garden.
Yea the native soil really helps making the fluff a little more manageable.
You need to mix this with your soul it's like a companion to your mix
What happens if you just throw it in the hole without mixing it with your soil? I made the mistake of doing that a few days ago 😮
Nice garden. Your soil is also dry because you do not cover it with chips or mulch. Sun dries it because the black colour does its job.
Yea, i always say i will cover it with something each year and just dont get around it. The plants do a good job once they mature
Good job
Soil Blocks? What mix are you using for those? Mine start out solid & then fall apart so I end up falling back to traditional seed starting. Love my leaf mulch and have started 5 new compost bins this year! Excited too try vermicomposting once I can figure out where to do it inside.
Water drops as droplets...Not as fine mist .When you pass water through a fine mesh you can actually see that it doesn't pass through the mesh till more water passes through,creates a bigger drop and then it drips... Could be that the same thing happens here with the leaf compost .It turns into a fine mesh and the water has to seep that way... So maybe one could observe when does this happen...Before that he can keep the moisture by watering and coming thenext day to create with a garden fork deep and bigger air channels (again now picture the water passing thourgh a mesh with big holes). Could be wrong and the soil would still dry fast and become again hydrophobic.
Did you try broad forking so that your roots can get down into the soil below your compost? That might help with your plants being more sturdy
Yes, broadforking twice a year. Another year or two of that plus plant roots should get me to where i want the soil to be
Consider a soaker hose
Did you ever do a follow-up video on how you resolved the issues you addressed at the end of this video? I have a large amount of humus and would be very interested to know. Thank you in advance!
Its always a plan to keep up with the followups since thats where the meat of the story. Unfortunately have time behind just loading new ones. Hopefully the slow down of the winter will help me catchup :)
How much did it break down, like is there any left now
Have you compared the moisture retention of leaf compost vs Peatmoss or cocopeat. Would be interesting to find out
I have not personally tested. Given the scale I work on, leaf compost makes the most sense to use. I’m sure they are similar in absorbing crazy amounts of water.
Nice
Thanks!
Can I speed up the process by turning over the soil with a layer of leaves digging in 6 inches then adding more leaves on top of the turned over/leaves added soil?
Turning and adding in more is the way to go
where do you get the wood chips/ mulch between the rows and walking areas?
I googled free wood chips for my area and found a number of tree cutting services that dump them free in my driveway when they cut down trees in my area
@@uphillacre1585 that is awesome
Yes, sure is!
Try also Chip Drop. It's a nation wide service connecting tree cutting services with gardeners. Just be aware that you might get a ton more wood chips more than you expect. Cut up logs can be requested too if that is what you need.
thanks, ye s I am aware of chip drop i just got a load of chips but they are pine and or spruce was hoping for hardwood chips
@@oldporkchops
roots are haPPy....how do you know
What if you have one year leaf compost, what would I need to add? Our city gives this away free and I got some. Thx
To my compost layer i add some powdered lime and 10-10-10 fertilizer. Thats what works so far for soil amendments
Where did you ever get the idea that all you needed was leaf mold you have to have more than leaf mold you can make the leaf mold, which is good but you have to mix it with compost and soil .The amount of leaf mold
you have there would require two huge dump trucks full of leaves. Leaf mold is pretty much used as a fertilizer
Never said all was needed was leaf mold, but a perspective if you were to use only leaf mold since theres a lot of videos on it. I agree, using as is, is not the way to go but still a solid additive for mixing with nature soil.
Tilling for one year is probably a good idea for the reasons you mentioned! For additional assistance in getting the water to saturate you may consider using a soil surfactant every now and then. Especially in the summer. It really helps using this wetting agent and is often used with outdoor potted plants where the potting soil becomes hydrophobic when it dries out. You can purchase the product or make your own.plenty of videos online to ring out how to. Enjoyed the video!
Thanks for the tip! I’ll definitely look into it!
Is it safe for the worms and good stuff in the soil?
That is a clean looking garden good info thanks
Thanks so much!!!!
why do you say.......must watch. Everyone says....must watch. That is wasting our times with unneccessary words.......clutter
I agree click bait
@@riverunner9978You both watched so it worked
Your garden is absolutley look amazing.beautiful healthy tomatoes. And the parhway looks soo clean.very nice
Thanks!
Uphill Acre: "It's not soil, it's not dirt, I don't know what it is, it won't support growth." It's called earth, i.e., sand, clay, rock, aka, subsoil. It is the foundation of soil, before the organic material. It provides all the nutrients., the organic micr-organisms allow plants to absorb them. Feed them, they feed your plants, which feed you.
I put my drip hose under my leaf mulch. Thanks.
A trench might be a way around your HOA rules. I recommend three feet deep minimum. Mine is four feet deep with one foot of logs in the bottom to regulate moisture. Three feet wide by forty feet long. It holds an enormous amount of leaves! Begin by filling a ten foot section about one foot above the surface. Continue to feed until it setles down, then begin fillin the next ten feet.
There is a very dark corner in my yard (because of trees). The soil there is exactly that dark black leaf compost. Everything grows there, and reaches out for the light. Flowers, perennial bushes, strawberries, and A LOT of massive weeds.
I steal some of that leaf compost to amend the soil in my garden areas.
Yes, the darker the soil, the better. Nature knows best!
I planted potatoes on top of the ground and covered them with half composted leaves and got one of the best harvest ever and clean potatoes.
I still have potatoes growing in the same places from previous years :) such robust little buggers
Leaf compost=black gold
Thank you for the video. Very informative. I will get much more leaves in the fall.
Hopefully you look at leaves differently now like I do!
Thank you for the video, but your camera moves so much I get so nauseous. I hope you can keep the camera steady next time.
When using municipal water for this purpose, it's important to remove chloramines. Inexpensive K85 filters such as Camco and Boogie Blue are only 70% effective when new. The remainder needs to be neutralized with sodium ascorbate ot Vitamin C. 1/4 teaspoon is more than enough to treat five gallons of water.
title of video above = too much = (244012) Must Watch Before Using Leaf Compost - Pros and cons as a soil medium - UA-cam.............i then need to edit the title and change it to Leaf Compost so i can read it easily above.
What kind of drip edge do you use, could you metion the size, type and where you bought? I have drip tape but it breaks and tears easily was looking for a good alternative.
Ive struggled with irrigation and havent found a good setup for my water collection. I have something in the works and hopefully be able to show once I use it a bit more.
@@uphillacre1585 thanks I have a channel called organic farming solutions I tried a certain system that was working alright but the drip tape breaks and has to be replaced every year or two
Yea i have too many beds that would necessitate lots of drip tape and constabt oversight. I have a pvc connector system that is easy to move to each bed and works with my gravity watering system.
I guess I was confused on the second con. Are you saying that it’s so absorbent that it hydrates horizontally rather than going deep?
Also any new videos on where your at now with leaf mulch?
Thanks from Texas!
Yea, just cant get deep enough once it dries out. The soil can easily absorb inches of rain at a time tho. Just incredibly difficult to rehydrate
Youll make your presentations much better if you describe accurately, ie., garbage soil.
Thank you for your constructive criticism
I plan on using yard waste to my advantage. I get some leaf shed, but also grass clippings, twigs, fallen tree branches, and the occasional split tree. I have some huge logs I plan on using as the base for hugelkultur style raised beds.
Yea, absolutely. Nature is a constant provider of useful materials if look around and want to put the effort into it!
Leaf compost is like salad without dressing.
You need to turn leaf compost into compost. Create bins and add to shredded leaves, grass, any type of fall squash, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, etc. you will turn pile as needed. A year later, your compost is gold. Dense, rich, and is incredible for all crops. That is my process. I also use broadfork for beds before adding adding it. This allows depth for compost to leach deep into your bed area. Trust me. You will have the rewards you seek.
Couldnt agree more!
While u are right. The title is leaf compost.
Thanks for sharing. Haven't watched all your videos yet so unsure if you already tried already cover crops, but I plan on doing something similar in 2022, with some prep work already done: I used a garden fork to loosen my heavy clay soil and cover cropped in the autumn(mix of buckwheat, tillage radish which winterkill plus wheat) that should help with compaction and feeding the soil biology over winter. Come spring I'll be laying down cardboard and 2-3" of compost on top. As prep to expand for 2023 I'll try buckwheat/phacelia mix (spring) followed by Sorghum-Sudangrass (during the hot, dry summer months) and see how that works, since I can't afford to buy enough compost for 1/4 acre that would cost quite a bit, and I can afford to wait for the cover crops to work my heavy clay soil instead
The soil is more rocky here than anything but like any soil, it still compacts. I originally thought about doing cover crops for a year or so to improve the soil beforehand but just want straight to the cardboard/compost method. Still need to till to break and mix the layers so its not just fluffy on top and compact on the bottom. Im aiming to use some spring cover more for attraction of the bees before the summer crops go in.
@@uphillacre1585 sounds like you're trying to make the best of it, I'd probably do the same too, and then cover with a tarp if time allows to germinate&kill the weed seeds you're probably bringing back up. Can't hurt to try some tillage radish cover over winter if it gets cold enough to winterkill(I'm zone 7 and just about to get cold enough for it here). Good luck with your next growing season and let us know how it works out!
Yes, love silage tarps. So effective, resilient to the elements and easy to use especially when preparing new land for gardens. Now id like to switch to the natural approach for ground cover
I had a huge area leased rent free to my growers group too late to do a cover crop at the beginning of winter. We covereed with leaves, cardboard, brush, anything...raked it back & planted mamoth sunflowers, black oil seed (for chicken feed) and pro-cuts on the perimeter for sale. Cut at base, then chopped & dropped stalks & leaves & covered wit tarp. Did a decent job approving soil.
Sunflower roots go deep. Mammoths in particular.
Greatn info, thanks! Still struggling to get the roots deeper and been thinking of just tilling for one year to give them that jump start.