Compost in place and perpetual mulching are the way to go for me. My gardens has grown exponentially these last 3 seasons of watching your channel. Turns out I enjoy the harvest much more than the fussing about with weeding, watering and compost bins. I plan to age some horse manure in an old leaky boat so I have some fresh soil going forward. History has shown I will increase my garden again next year. Keep up your no nonsense, direct, cost effective method of growing food, great work 👍
All my kitchen scraps go into the blender before going in the compost piles. It breaks down very fast and the worms and garden love it. The chickens love the worms too! I also have a wood chipper to shred large stalks left after harvest is done. Both work great! My children call it Mom's gold. I also chop and drop when plants need trimming up.
This is how I garden for both my vegetable, and my pollinator garden. They are side by side, and each fall I collect leaves from my neighbors, and spread that all over both gardens. The soil is beautiful now. It used to be compacted clay, and hardly any worms. There are so many worms now! And this is so easy! I can speak to the termites. I have a raised asparagus bed with rotting logs in the bottom. The bed is 4 or 5 years old now, and every spring termites swarm out of that bed, but they don't hurt the asparagus so I really don't care. It's nature. Leave the ecosystem alone, and enjoy the wildlife you get wherever you are. Awesome content, thank you!
I just want to say that I really enjoy watching your videos. They are so informative, and what I really like is your style. You are no nonsense and so practical. Keep up the good work!
Love that you gave the advice to look for advice from people who actually know. So frequently people give advice that is great for living in their sub climate and preach that it is the only way.
I do that “lazy” method of composting you described. I’ll be cooking and will have the throw aways from vegetables or fruits I’m chopping etc. I just open up my back door, take a few steps towards my gardens, and THROW my bits and pieces out into the garden!
Just started a. Raised bed. Needed fill dirt of one yard and supplier won't sell less than three. So, made my own your way with rotting firewood tower bed edge dirt trimmings, weed pulls, cardboard, compost and wood mulch.Didn't take any time at all to fill for next years planting. Easy peasy..
Thank you for the video! Great information! I've tried all those methods over the years. I do not have to deal with bears. I definitely agree with the lazy method. I have chickens, so I also give them any excess veg waste throughout the year... they process it ... then I clean up their coop and roost area and store all that, mixed with their soiled bedding, in a 45-gallon plastic garbage can for a year, then spread it on my garden the following winter (basically about 18 months of breakdown in those plastic garbage cans). I do have a vermicomposting bin in my garage that I use over winter for household veg waste. I don't have as much veg waste, so it works fine for me.
I really like your practical, hands on advice. I live in the Midwest, yet I can take what you say and apply it to my area. Anyone can do gardening with very little money and a lot of elbow grease!
There are as many methods of gardening as there are gardeners. Lol And thank goodness for that. If it wasn't for your willingness to share your innovation, I would still be creeping along feeling discouraged. Feeling like I could never be the gardener I wanted to be. I mean, I like gardening, I'd even say I love it, but I also have a life outside of the garden too. I have to say, your methods were a game changer for my gardening and a rebirth of my confidence. I always felt trapped and unsuccessful; not able to expand due to lack of 2 basic things #1 TIME! #2 finished compost to amend my terrible clay soil. But really time is the only real vice. From your videos, I have used trenching (vegetation & animal waste from processingour own meat), hugelkulture (and a combination of the two) for new/future beds. Combined with composting directly on my beds. If I have too much "compost" on the beds/rows from the previous fall & winter, I just push the excess into my walking paths in between beds & rows. There it sits until I might need an extra handful or more later in the season. My paths are kind of my 'stock pile' for mulch as the growing season gets going anyway. Using the compost in place technique has allowed me to double my garden space each year and if I wanted to do more, I could. It has also allowed me to plant further away from irrigation sources because I'm not needing to constantly water. The raw soil isn't always fabulous the next season, but its always more workable. I am confident, every year it will be better and better. Like you,, I'm not against other methods. In fact, if I'm lucky enough to have more leaves and brown waste than I can use on my beds, I might set up a hot or cold compost bin. But...i rarely feel inclined. So for now,, I just use what I have & compist in place. I'm taking some rabbit or other aged manure, maybe grass clippings or other green waste, then piling on some leaves or paper, and possibly mulch on top of that. Then I leave it. You can't get better than that. If you're willing to collect leaves from others in the fall, as you are, that's another bonus! More abundance, less work. Nature does the work, and I can use my time for why I garden in the first place...feeding & loving my family. I guess it might not look fancy to some. It won't be featured in a Pinterest picture or polished competitions, but that's OK with me. Thanks again for another great video.
This is great Rachael ! It's comments like this that motivated me to keep making videos. I'm doing this to help people - so it's so nice to hear when people tell me that I've helped them :)
Hi from New Zealand. I'm with you on the minimum effort / maximum results theory of composting. Although we do get occasional extreme winds ... so I scrape an inch or two of dirt aside, basically adding all my layers as my veges finish producing, vege scraps from processing, supplementing with autumn leaves, seaweed, manures, interspersed with scrunched up newspapers so as to retain some air to prevent matting. And any other free resources. Then sprinkle the dirt back over the top to keep flies away. And sit back and let it do it's thing.
Charles Dowding... A hard man for a Canadian to be compared to. He said in a video that I watched recently that he is in equivalent to USDA Zone 8. Of course he can heat his greenhouse with compost, it never gets cold.
For me, the mulching is pretty much vermicomposting. I had a worm bin of red wigglers but dumped them into my garden along with some night crawlers cuz i figured they'd be happier out there. Worms are carbon feeders, so they love fungus, and constantly are mixing in worm castings into my mulch. In fall I had a couple woodchip loads dropped off, which steamed a little bit at the beginning of winter, and kept them warm by insulation when it wasn't hot. When I came back six months later there were worms up in the 3 feet of woodchips, all the way to the surface, and castings all throughout. I made a worm bin somewhat purposefully but didn't expect that kind of habitation.
Hi from a new gardener in northern NS (Oxford). Really great to find content from a fellow Nova Scotian!. Retired end of 2019 and did some minor container and small tilled garden last year while we were renovating. Now finally have time to focus more seriously on gardening! Have some infrastructure to get in place (raised beds, tiered hillside, etc) and am setting up to try hot composting. May even publish some videos here on youtube at some point. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. I'll be watching and learning as I go.
Maritime Gardening We live in BC in a townhouse and i am growing plants in pots like crazy. Retired March 11 with the plan to start creating a nice big garden at our cottage in Birch Bay Washington USA but can’t cross the border right now. So it’s tomatoes in pots and dreams of gardening like Maritime Gardening in the future.
I have a fenced in area that i throw leaves into to let them breakdown into leaf mold. Also just built the 3 composting bins to toss tree limbs, grass clipping and such in there and see what happens! I also tend to toss kitchen scraps into worm towers that i placed into each of my raised beds, which i also use the worm towers to do deep watering.
I really like this video, You give each method it's due. I am layering my beds with organic materials much like you. I have to be careful of kitchen scraps also, There are a lot of bears and other critters that would be drawn in. I currently have an experiment I am doing where i cut the bottom out of a 5 gallon bucket and placed it in a bed just outside the back door, Once it is full of kitchen scraps I want to trench it into my larger beds. Also loking at setting up a small barrel for weeds (A lot of bind weeds) and make some swamp water as a liquid nutrient booster. Happy gardening!
I did worm composting in a 50gal stocktank. It worked well enough, used it like trench composting, was slow in the winter and still slow in summer. Then some black soldier flies arrived and I couldn't add enough kitchen waste to keep them fed. They were amazing, fast digesters. I've never managed to get good compost without semi regular turning.
Geez....great video again Greg! I still do a cold compost pile for our kitchen waste which is an unbelievable amount of stuff for 2 people, but as you said we cook everything from scratch so we generate a lot of scraps. Now the biggest pest we have to deal with is squirrels and even they don't seem to bother the compost pile. I am lucky in that I have pretty unlimited supply of mulch materials in that we have lots of deciduos trees on our property so have lots of leaves and grass clippings from our lawn and the neighbours as well. Plus I am lucky in that I can get all the horse manure I want from my sister who has 8 or 9 grass convertors at her farm! I do have to say I would love some ducks but only because they are so tasty! 😉 Have a great weekend and stay safe!
Thanks for this video. It helped clarify this topic for me, even though I am not growing edible plants. I am clearing a neglected garden and to think of all that plant waste going to the tip! Also, mulch is less of an eyesore than dry, weed sprayed soil.
I have three diff compost methods, love my wigglers best. ( can’t believe you used them for fish food, lol) only really got into gardening to play with compost, bc I love the black gold from leftovers.
Yup. Chop and drop. If it can compost, normally it stays within arm's length of where it grew. Most of the soil I use was once manure anyway. 31+ years without chemicals also. Last year I gathered a serious amount of leaves. Before winter, we'll be hauling huge amounts of sawdust from the mill next door for bedding, and the extra will cover the garden as it expands by a few more rows.
Great video on composting. Personally I use three composting methods; hot composting using four bins from old pallets; two bins composting, one empty bin for turning over either of the composting bin and the fourth bin for storage of grass clippings/manures/hay etc. Second method is direct burial in the beds in the fall using manure/kelp/caplin/foliage from crops, etc.Third is a large hugelkultur pile with a tarp; been covered for a couple of yrs now just keep adding to it. I also make Caplin tea and kelp tea in 80L garbage buckets plants love it. Anyway great video's as usual.
You must be in NL with all that caplin! Man its been ages since i had a good feed of them. Normally I get smelts this time of year here - but with c-19 I can't do any fishing.
Another method is chickens I feed them all my yard wast, kitchen wast ,meat rabbit manure, wood ash from my stove, they do all the work for me... I also do back to eden style gardening... I even feed my trout in my pond rabbit manure... Denis
Look into Bokashi composting. I do it, and am very very pleased with it. We have eliminated ALL of our food waste from out garbage. All I use is a 5 gallon bucket and a turkey baster to remove the liquids that collect, and use those as a fertilizer.
I live in Texas. I use heavy wood chips to mulch my entire garden; foot paths raised beds and ground beds. My raised beds are made of wood. No termite problem so far. Garden is about 4 years old now.
We have to build all from scratch this year. I'm a beginner and I dicided to do the lazy way, to have more time to finish the small house to get out of the motorhome around autum. Even when I don't get a great yield I prepare a better soil for next year. Unfortunatly I have to buy hay and straw because climate is very dry hot summers and on our property only weeds survive with lots of seeds which I don't want to have in my garden beds. I'll put card bord first and water it. I'll give it a try and will be happy when I can find some edible vegetables at the end. Lol
I use mostly leaves that I stock pile each fall for mulching and works great but I also do it the hard way and build piles with garden/kitchen waste, grass and leaves. I like have a compost pile around in case I want to make a new bed or add to an existing bed that looks like it needs help (no bears here lol). Also the one situation that mulch does not work real well is lettuce or spinach which I like to grow in squares which makes mulching difficult if the plants or real close together. Anyway your videos are great! Just stumbled upon you and I watch you all the time now!
@@maritimegardening4887 haha I used to always have Sinatra playing when I did my Sunday gardening with Sid Marks. Not sure if you get him up there in Canada but he played Sinatra from the mid 50's until just recently. My plants always liked Sinatra also :)
Bury a Black dustbin with lid in your bed. Just drill the bottom and sides full of holes for earthworms to move in and out. Then throw scraps, seaweed and paper towels, ect in. Put a lid on and keep adding scraps to keep feeding the worms.
I know this is an old video, I love your videos, and fully agree composting in place is the best. I do both. Your clay soil is not so bad, mine would take years to improve so I make compost for that jump start. I do think you are missing the boat on vermicompost, nothing could be easier. Freeze scraps over a week, feed once a week, takes 5 minutes maybe, that is in keeping with what you do.
For the most part I compost mainly in your preferred method but I am trying the hot method once the grass has started and like you the neighbours here will supply me with a few bags. Also my fridge died this winter so just for experience I'm going to give the vermiculture way a try this year.I have time to experiment at the moment.
Hello Greg! I did a hugelkultur two years ago. Last fall I stared a bed the way you do. I put at ground level though, my first on the ground its narrow it was going to be a flower bed. Well with the craziness I actually made it a potato bed instead. I don’t know if it will produce potatoes but there’s a lot of plants coming up. I hope at the end even if no potatoes, I at least hope the soil will be better like your potato beds you did on the ground a while back, thank you for what you show and share with us, much appreciated. 😉
I'm so glad that you now have potatoes instead of flowers! It should work - just wait for all the plants to started dying - that's when the potatoes are ready :)
I’ve thrown Vegetable and potato peels into little holes (vs trenches) that I dug around my garden for spot composting and was surprised to find a potato crop in August! I’d forgotten that I even put them there!
Just watched two of your videos ,never garden in my . I'm pushing sixty and still work boku hours at work. I know you have to put in the hours, but why do more than nature does it self. Thank you New Scotland from Delaware.
You’re right about covering the soil. I like the Leaves in the fall. I have my hubby mow them and bag so I can dump a layer on all my beds. We have a big maple. In the spring a lot of it has broken down and my beds are ready to plant in.
Thank you for your videos. I appreciate your 'down to earth' approach to composting. I mean if this is what happens in nature.... leaf litter, branches/trees fall, animals poop on the surface of the soil why isn't it good enough for humans to do the same on their gardens... maybe not the poop part. No one fertilizes in a forest.
You just saved me a huge pile of work and money trying to amend my soil. We have an abundance of yard waste on our property with beautiful clay soil. We also have alot of ants and I was worried they were going to destroy my garden but I will just do it this way and save the trouble.
I do like your idea of composting by just tossing the compostable stuff on top. I do add whatever mulch I have to put on top of my beds. I have a ton of chicken manure that I need to compost. Therefore, I do hot composting. Yeah, a lot of work to turn. What is your suggestion on the "lazy-man" way of using chicken manure.?
You can plant a black plastic bucket with lid. Drilling holes in bottom and sides. Plant it in the middle of your bed. Throw your cardboard or Lapeer pieces in bottom and throw your kitchen waist in and put up the lid. It will break down in quick if it's in black dark bin/bucket. So worms can move in and out the bucket
Two thumbs down?? Must be termites. Great video Greg. Been trying the hot compost method with my horse manure to break it down faster but it keeps going cold. It’s gotta be at least 6 months old but there’s still pucks and when I break them they’re green inside. Is this still too fresh for the veggie gardens do ya think? Well, you’ve totally inspired me to give it up for the mulching method. I love that whole concept...way easier. Thanks Greg!
If there's still green then yes, it's not yet broken down enough - also if there's still "pucks". Just cover it and it should be good by the fall :) You could maybe try planting squash in it - I've done that sometimes with the the semi-green h-manure. Just mulch the whole thing, and plant a few pumpkins/squash in the middle - thin them to the best one after they'ye grown about 6" high. The manure will continue to compost while you get some squash out of the deal :)
What you’re doing is technically called sheet composting. I think the reasons for hot composting is when you have weeds and other undesirable things that need the heat treatment to make them either safe to use on vegetables or not spread weed seeds. It’s also to shorten the time it takes to get to finished compost. I agree that slow composting is one of the best ways, but when you’re adding manure like we do, you need to either hot compost it or slow compost it and cure it, which can take 2 years.
An easier way than hot composting, because it requires temp control, turning, watering & constant monitoring, is plastic. He mentions this in the video. And I gave to say, plastic or a silage tarp is the best way to kill off weed seeds, especially if your garden plot is large. You could never make enough compost for say a 100x100 plot. Composting in place & using plastic is more practical, effective & time conscious.
You may find that as your soil improves, you don't need to keep adding manure. Once your soil becomes "ideal soil" the mulch is all that's needed to maintain it's fertility in my experience.
Maritime Gardening yes, once the soil is improved to that point and the mycorrhizae have a chance to recolonize the soil, and the organic matter is increased, the soils ability to infiltrate and retain water is greatly improved, and the slow decay of the mulch covering is more than sufficient to provide for even the “heavy feeders.” Were working on getting our gardens built up to that now using BTE and rotating chickens over the garden beds yearly.
I absolutely love your videos. I often put them on while gardening or cooking. Even when I'm driving. And I love videos like this. I move mulch around too. I keep using it untill its gone. I do have a composting system several meters long. Actually its called compost street by my husband because I have 3 leafmold bins, 4 composting bins, one donkey manure bin and a sieving 2 system bin for posting soils. I don't have bears though. I only have free range chicken who thankfully love compost street so much they don't turn the corner or they would be in the vegetable gardens
Thanks :) Toe is letting me work in the garden at a reduced pace - so I guess that's ok.I get snails on mine - but they seem to leave enough for the plant to live and get by
This year, because of ALLLLL the many issues with urban composting; from animal issues, space issues, smell issues, to neighbour issues... I’m experimenting this year with something new... all winter I’ve taken the kitchen vegetable scraps and run them through the food processor to make them super fine and then dehydrating them. Once they are dehydrated I toss them into a dedicated spice grinder that’s only used for this and egg shells, and I’ve been making a vegetable compost powder... I’ve kept this mixed about 50/50 with ground egg shells in giant pickle jars. My plan is to sprinkle this powder into the garden under the mulch and under anything transplanted... I’m hoping this will make our many worms happy without attracting any critters. It’s not that much work... mostly waiting while it dehydrates... I just hate to waste all the scraps... like your family we make everything from scratch and we eat a ton of veggies so there’s a ton of scraps that we’re going to waste... I’ll see if it’s worth the effort. I do use your mulch method but I get hubby to run it all through the lawn mower... more to make it look better than anything because we’re on a small corner urban lot so people care how it looks... but it’s working... we started the gardens 3 years ago and the soil is beautiful and just loaded with worms... so even if the compost powder thing doesn’t work I’ll definitely keep up your mulch system because it works so well... and BIG bonus, almost no weeds!
Wow - sounds like a lot of work with that dried kitchen waste idea - I could not imaging keeping up with all our kitchen waste that way - but I hope it works for you.
Hello. Thanks for sharing that info. I like your way of thinking. Keep it simple but do it as right as possible. You metioned you used to compost horse manure. How long does that need to compost before if goes in the garden. There are lots of horse farms around here where I live.
It really depends on how its treated. if it's just left in a pile it could take 6 months to a year. If its turned & worked it cn be ready quicker. You can usually tell by the smell. If it smells like earth - it's ok to use, it it smells like urine... nope :)
I've been following your methods, this is second season. I was astonished how rich the soil looked this year... And the watering is cut in half, thank goodness. I'm curious how you grow cucumbers.... trellis and vertical, or just rambling on the bed...?
I appreciate that you're trying to help - but seriously - you want me to run a few gallons of kitchen waste a week through a food processor every week and then, every week, make a hole somewhere in my garden without messing up what I have planted in there. It's a good notion in principle, but I don't see it being practical - and unless it's got about 6-8" of soil over it - it might draw in bears - which I do not want.
Dandelions are blooming. Greg told me that's a sign.... can't remember what I'm supposed to do.... tulips blooming means something too. God man, write a book! My memory is too bad. :)
@@maritimegardening4887 Really! I knew about the potatoes but not the squash. I slways though I had to wait until it was above 70*F. My tulips are all way past spent. 🤦♀️ Well, a gardener who's never late is a unicorn 🦄.
Why not trench compost your kitchen scraps? You could have an outdoor shed to store the kitchen scraps and let the kitchen scraps degrade then trench compost the kitchen scraps. Would that work for you?
Ok so I love in some 9b Central Florida. My yard is all grass but I want to do a few raised gardens the easiest way but I know nothing about gardening!! Right now I am just experimenting with seeds.🙈 Can I just put cardboard or wood chips right on the grass where I want to plant or do I have to take grass off? Any help will be greatly appreciated🙏🏼 I m so glad I found your UA-cam Chanel oh by the way lots of rain and sun right now 🤷🏼♀️
I have a lot of pine needles, would these be too acidic to use as mulch in my garden? I’m a new subscriber from New Brunswick and love your channel and gardening methods. 😊
I use pine needles and spruce boughs all the time. When used as a mulch, the acidity gets reduced dramatically as they break down on the surface of the soil, so that it's at negligible levels by the time it's totally broken down by the worms, etc.
I’m still trying to get my head around the mulch thing. Do you typically chop up leaves before adding them to your beds, since they take so long to break down?
I generally use them in whatever state they are in. Usually when people put them in leaf bags they have gathered them using the bag of their lawnmower - so in that sense they are chopped up - but at least half the leaf mulch that I have in my garden is just as is. It doesn't matter that they take awhile to break down - the main thing is that they ARE breaking down - and slowly releasing the good stuff into your soil.
Except oak leaves. Oak leaves should be chopped finely and treated more like a wood chip vs a leaf. Maple, poplar, pine needles, etc are finer & break down relatively quickly, but not oak. It can take years in my experience. But...let the problem be the solution if you've got lots of oaks. 😉
So I’m wondering. We have a mulcher and could chip all that yard waste to a nice small size. Do you think that would be a good thing and hasten the compost process? Or do you think it would get too dense on the beds and smother things? Chipping it up appeals to me cuz it wouldn’t look as messy, but like you, I’d prefer the best function over “fashion”when it comes down to it. What’s your take? Thanks...
Yes absolutely if you don't mind taking the time. It will smother things - mainly weeds - so that's a god thing! I do this with my lawnmower sometimes when I'm feeling industrious. Like you - I think it looks nicer that way :)
I put fresh mulch in my paths each spring and put the former path mulch in my beds. It breaks down faster walking on it, too.
good idea.....
Compost in place and perpetual mulching are the way to go for me. My gardens has grown exponentially these last 3 seasons of watching your channel. Turns out I enjoy the harvest much more than the fussing about with weeding, watering and compost bins. I plan to age some horse manure in an old leaky boat so I have some fresh soil going forward. History has shown I will increase my garden again next year. Keep up your no nonsense, direct, cost effective method of growing food, great work 👍
Thanks for sharing!
All my kitchen scraps go into the blender before going in the compost piles. It breaks down very fast and the worms and garden love it. The chickens love the worms too! I also have a wood chipper to shred large stalks left after harvest is done. Both work great! My children call it Mom's gold. I also chop and drop when plants need trimming up.
This is how I garden for both my vegetable, and my pollinator garden. They are side by side, and each fall I collect leaves from my neighbors, and spread that all over both gardens. The soil is beautiful now. It used to be compacted clay, and hardly any worms. There are so many worms now! And this is so easy! I can speak to the termites. I have a raised asparagus bed with rotting logs in the bottom. The bed is 4 or 5 years old now, and every spring termites swarm out of that bed, but they don't hurt the asparagus so I really don't care. It's nature. Leave the ecosystem alone, and enjoy the wildlife you get wherever you are. Awesome content, thank you!
Awesome!
I just want to say that I really enjoy watching your videos. They
are so informative, and what I really like is your style. You are no nonsense and so practical. Keep up the good work!
Glad you like them!
Love that you gave the advice to look for advice from people who actually know. So frequently people give advice that is great for living in their sub climate and preach that it is the only way.
I do that “lazy” method of composting you described. I’ll be cooking and will have the throw aways from vegetables or fruits I’m chopping etc. I just open up my back door, take a few steps towards my gardens, and THROW my bits and pieces out into the garden!
Just started a. Raised bed. Needed fill dirt of one yard and supplier won't sell less than three. So, made my own your way with rotting firewood tower bed edge dirt trimmings, weed pulls, cardboard, compost and wood mulch.Didn't take any time at all to fill for next years planting. Easy peasy..
Thank you for the video!
Great information! I've tried all those methods over the years. I do not have to deal with bears. I definitely agree with the lazy method. I have chickens, so I also give them any excess veg waste throughout the year... they process it ... then I clean up their coop and roost area and store all that, mixed with their soiled bedding, in a 45-gallon plastic garbage can for a year, then spread it on my garden the following winter (basically about 18 months of breakdown in those plastic garbage cans). I do have a vermicomposting bin in my garage that I use over winter for household veg waste. I don't have as much veg waste, so it works fine for me.
Just found this video. It’s the way I’ve gardened for years, although I rarely start by using hugel beds.
Appreciate you publishing your approach. I agree 100% with how you do this. Simplicity is usually the best
Absolutely!
Sounds good.... there's more than one way to do composting, for sure!! Thanks for sharing.
I really like your practical, hands on advice. I live in the Midwest, yet I can take what you say and apply it to my area. Anyone can do gardening with very little money and a lot of elbow grease!
Awesome, thank you!
There are as many methods of gardening as there are gardeners. Lol And thank goodness for that. If it wasn't for your willingness to share your innovation, I would still be creeping along feeling discouraged. Feeling like I could never be the gardener I wanted to be. I mean, I like gardening, I'd even say I love it, but I also have a life outside of the garden too.
I have to say, your methods were a game changer for my gardening and a rebirth of my confidence.
I always felt trapped and unsuccessful; not able to expand due to lack of 2 basic things #1 TIME!
#2 finished compost to amend my terrible clay soil. But really time is the only real vice.
From your videos, I have used trenching (vegetation & animal waste from processingour own meat), hugelkulture (and a combination of the two) for new/future beds. Combined with composting directly on my beds. If I have too much "compost" on the beds/rows from the previous fall & winter, I just push the excess into my walking paths in between beds & rows. There it sits until I might need an extra handful or more later in the season. My paths are kind of my 'stock pile' for mulch as the growing season gets going anyway.
Using the compost in place technique has allowed me to double my garden space each year and if I wanted to do more, I could. It has also allowed me to plant further away from irrigation sources because I'm not needing to constantly water.
The raw soil isn't always fabulous the next season, but its always more workable. I am confident, every year it will be better and better.
Like you,, I'm not against other methods. In fact, if I'm lucky enough to have more leaves and brown waste than I can use on my beds, I might set up a hot or cold compost bin. But...i rarely feel inclined.
So for now,, I just use what I have & compist in place. I'm taking some rabbit or other aged manure, maybe grass clippings or other green waste, then piling on some leaves or paper, and possibly mulch on top of that. Then I leave it. You can't get better than that. If you're willing to collect leaves from others in the fall, as you are, that's another bonus! More abundance, less work.
Nature does the work, and I can use my time for why I garden in the first place...feeding & loving my family.
I guess it might not look fancy to some. It won't be featured in a Pinterest picture or polished competitions, but that's OK with me.
Thanks again for another great video.
This is great Rachael ! It's comments like this that motivated me to keep making videos. I'm doing this to help people - so it's so nice to hear when people tell me that I've helped them :)
Thank you for SO MUCH information!
Thanks Greg. Great job. Two of my favorite things are “free” & “easy”. : )
Hi from New Zealand. I'm with you on the minimum effort / maximum results theory of composting. Although we do get occasional extreme winds ... so I scrape an inch or two of dirt aside, basically adding all my layers as my veges finish producing, vege scraps from processing, supplementing with autumn leaves, seaweed, manures, interspersed with scrunched up newspapers so as to retain some air to prevent matting. And any other free resources. Then sprinkle the dirt back over the top to keep flies away. And sit back and let it do it's thing.
Charles Dowding... A hard man for a Canadian to be compared to. He said in a video that I watched recently that he is in equivalent to USDA Zone 8. Of course he can heat his greenhouse with compost, it never gets cold.
Exactly :)
Lmao I love how you laugh at things like the worms I was confused by that too I think your my new favorite channel for gardening keepin it real
For me, the mulching is pretty much vermicomposting. I had a worm bin of red wigglers but dumped them into my garden along with some night crawlers cuz i figured they'd be happier out there. Worms are carbon feeders, so they love fungus, and constantly are mixing in worm castings into my mulch. In fall I had a couple woodchip loads dropped off, which steamed a little bit at the beginning of winter, and kept them warm by insulation when it wasn't hot. When I came back six months later there were worms up in the 3 feet of woodchips, all the way to the surface, and castings all throughout. I made a worm bin somewhat purposefully but didn't expect that kind of habitation.
Cool!
Red wigglers aren't native to Canada (not sure where you are located) and can't tolerate the winters without a heat source.
Yes, I’ve done trench composting when the kids where here... I love the rustic look of your garden area... Mother Nature at work all around👍
Hi from a new gardener in northern NS (Oxford). Really great to find content from a fellow Nova Scotian!. Retired end of 2019 and did some minor container and small tilled garden last year while we were renovating. Now finally have time to focus more seriously on gardening! Have some infrastructure to get in place (raised beds, tiered hillside, etc) and am setting up to try hot composting. May even publish some videos here on youtube at some point. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. I'll be watching and learning as I go.
Happy gardening!
Love your garden and thank you the compost video.
Thanks for watching!
Your videos are on my list of the best videos to watch!
Wow, thanks!
Maritime Gardening We live in BC in a townhouse and i am growing plants in pots like crazy. Retired March 11 with the plan to start creating a nice big garden at our cottage in Birch Bay Washington USA but can’t cross the border right now. So it’s tomatoes in pots and dreams of gardening like Maritime Gardening in the future.
Pat Lucking I’m with you!!
I love the way you compost . I'm doing the same thing . And I live in Mississippi . Thank you
Keep doing your inspiring programs!
Thank you! Will do!
Wonderful video! So much great information.
Glad it was helpful!
I have a fenced in area that i throw leaves into to let them breakdown into leaf mold. Also just built the 3 composting bins to toss tree limbs, grass clipping and such in there and see what happens! I also tend to toss kitchen scraps into worm towers that i placed into each of my raised beds, which i also use the worm towers to do deep watering.
I really like this video, You give each method it's due. I am layering my beds with organic materials much like you. I have to be careful of kitchen scraps also, There are a lot of bears and other critters that would be drawn in. I currently have an experiment I am doing where i cut the bottom out of a 5 gallon bucket and placed it in a bed just outside the back door, Once it is full of kitchen scraps I want to trench it into my larger beds. Also loking at setting up a small barrel for weeds (A lot of bind weeds) and make some swamp water as a liquid nutrient booster. Happy gardening!
Check into those nutrient boosters. I see people doing tests and they say plain water works better than the "tea".
I exclusively just bury my kitchen scraps, which is veggie peelings, egg shells, coffee grounds, used tea bags, and occasionally paper napkins.
I did worm composting in a 50gal stocktank. It worked well enough, used it like trench composting, was slow in the winter and still slow in summer. Then some black soldier flies arrived and I couldn't add enough kitchen waste to keep them fed. They were amazing, fast digesters. I've never managed to get good compost without semi regular turning.
Binge Watching your videos. Love them! I
Glad you like them!
Geez....great video again Greg! I still do a cold compost pile for our kitchen waste which is an unbelievable amount of stuff for 2 people, but as you said we cook everything from scratch so we generate a lot of scraps. Now the biggest pest we have to deal with is squirrels and even they don't seem to bother the compost pile. I am lucky in that I have pretty unlimited supply of mulch materials in that we have lots of deciduos trees on our property so have lots of leaves and grass clippings from our lawn and the neighbours as well. Plus I am lucky in that I can get all the horse manure I want from my sister who has 8 or 9 grass convertors at her farm!
I do have to say I would love some ducks but only because they are so tasty! 😉 Have a great weekend and stay safe!
And those glorious duck eggs. I buy a half dozen every year at christmas for a nice treat for all of us.
Oh yeah the duck eggs...I am drooling just thinking about them!!!! 👍
Thanks for this video. It helped clarify this topic for me, even though I am not growing edible plants. I am clearing a neglected garden and to think of all that plant waste going to the tip! Also, mulch is less of an eyesore than dry, weed sprayed soil.
You're on your way I think! :)
I have three diff compost methods, love my wigglers best. ( can’t believe you used them for fish food, lol) only really got into gardening to play with compost, bc I love the black gold from leftovers.
Definitely going to mulch like that from now on great information 👍
Thanks - hope it works just as well for you as it does for me.
excellent and practical! Amen! I'm vindicated in my "laziness"!😂
Exactly!
Yup. Chop and drop. If it can compost, normally it stays within arm's length of where it grew. Most of the soil I use was once manure anyway. 31+ years without chemicals also. Last year I gathered a serious amount of leaves. Before winter, we'll be hauling huge amounts of sawdust from the mill next door for bedding, and the extra will cover the garden as it expands by a few more rows.
Great video on composting. Personally I use three composting methods; hot composting using four bins from old pallets; two bins composting, one empty bin for turning over either of the composting bin and the fourth bin for storage of grass clippings/manures/hay etc. Second method is direct burial in the beds in the fall using manure/kelp/caplin/foliage from crops, etc.Third is a large hugelkultur pile with a tarp; been covered for a couple of yrs now just keep adding to it. I also make Caplin tea and kelp tea in 80L garbage buckets plants love it. Anyway great video's as usual.
You must be in NL with all that caplin! Man its been ages since i had a good feed of them. Normally I get smelts this time of year here - but with c-19 I can't do any fishing.
Love your ideas
Glad you like them!
Enjoyed this video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I like easy. You make perfect sense to me.
Thanks :)
Perfect sense!!
I love your way of gardening I just wish I were able to do it.
Another method is chickens I feed them all my yard wast, kitchen wast ,meat rabbit manure, wood ash from my stove, they do all the work for me... I also do back to eden style gardening... I even feed my trout in my pond rabbit manure...
Denis
Good stuff
You feed them whit rabbit manure!Is that safe?
U have some great ideas i have many in 55 barrels and i put goat and rabbit and green 15 gallon a day
Look into Bokashi composting. I do it, and am very very pleased with it. We have eliminated ALL of our food waste from out garbage. All I use is a 5 gallon bucket and a turkey baster to remove the liquids that collect, and use those as a fertilizer.
I live in Texas. I use heavy wood chips to mulch my entire garden; foot paths raised beds and ground beds. My raised beds are made of wood. No termite problem so far. Garden is about 4 years old now.
cool, thanks
Haha! My laziness is actually composting! When I trim or dead head I just spread the cuttings around the base and it just breaks down in a week or so.
It's a nice feeling isn't it!
I think im going to try gardening like that from now on . I would like to try cover crops to .
These vids are valuable thank you...subbed ya
Thanks for the sub!
Hey ✌️from Cape Breton,Nova Scotia
Morning!
We have to build all from scratch this year. I'm a beginner and I dicided to do the lazy way, to have more time to finish the small house to get out of the motorhome around autum.
Even when I don't get a great yield I prepare a better soil for next year. Unfortunatly I have to buy hay and straw because climate is very dry hot summers and on our property only weeds survive with lots of seeds which I don't want to have in my garden beds. I'll put card bord first and water it. I'll give it a try and will be happy when I can find some edible vegetables at the end. Lol
I use mostly leaves that I stock pile each fall for mulching and works great but I also do it the hard way and build piles with garden/kitchen waste, grass and leaves. I like have a compost pile around in case I want to make a new bed or add to an existing bed that looks like it needs help (no bears here lol). Also the one situation that mulch does not work real well is lettuce or spinach which I like to grow in squares which makes mulching difficult if the plants or real close together. Anyway your videos are great! Just stumbled upon you and I watch you all the time now!
Thanks - big fan of your music Frank. :)
@@maritimegardening4887 haha I used to always have Sinatra playing when I did my Sunday gardening with Sid Marks. Not sure if you get him up there in Canada but he played Sinatra from the mid 50's until just recently. My plants always liked Sinatra also :)
Bury a Black dustbin with lid in your bed. Just drill the bottom and sides full of holes for earthworms to move in and out. Then throw scraps, seaweed and paper towels, ect in. Put a lid on and keep adding scraps to keep feeding the worms.
Thank you for sharing. 🇨🇦😎
You bet
I know this is an old video, I love your videos, and fully agree composting in place is the best. I do both. Your clay soil is not so bad, mine would take years to improve so I make compost for that jump start. I do think you are missing the boat on vermicompost, nothing could be easier. Freeze scraps over a week, feed once a week, takes 5 minutes maybe, that is in keeping with what you do.
Thanks man. I've got no problem with VC and have done it in the past.
Love your videos Greg. SO practical!
Like your idea of concrete mesh as a hoop house on bed !
I chose to start vermicomposting because I live in an apartment. I will use my vermicompost in my Patio Container garden.
Makes sense :)
For the most part I compost mainly in your preferred method but I am trying the hot method once the grass has started and like you the neighbours here will supply me with a few bags. Also my fridge died this winter so just for experience I'm going to give the vermiculture way a try this year.I have time to experiment at the moment.
Cool man :)
Charles teachers me try grow something somewhere theres all sorts of ways lol
I like your Canadian like us climate is similar i like your style
Hello Greg! I did a hugelkultur two years ago. Last fall I stared a bed the way you do. I put at ground level though, my first on the ground its narrow it was going to be a flower bed.
Well with the craziness I actually made it a potato bed instead. I don’t know if it will produce potatoes but there’s a lot of plants coming up. I hope at the end even if no potatoes, I at least hope the soil will be better like your potato beds you did on the ground a while back, thank you for what you show and share with us, much appreciated. 😉
I'm so glad that you now have potatoes instead of flowers! It should work - just wait for all the plants to started dying - that's when the potatoes are ready :)
I’ve thrown Vegetable and potato peels into little holes (vs trenches) that I dug around my garden for spot composting and was surprised to find a potato crop in August! I’d forgotten that I even put them there!
great video...!!! THXS
You're welcome!
Just watched two of your videos ,never garden in my . I'm pushing sixty and still work boku hours at work. I know you have to put in the hours, but why do more than nature does it self. Thank you New Scotland from Delaware.
Best of luck!
You’re right about covering the soil. I like the Leaves in the fall. I have my hubby mow them and bag so I can dump a layer on all my beds. We have a big maple. In the spring a lot of it has broken down and my beds are ready to plant in.
Sounds great!
Same re animals. We don't have bears here, but we do have wild pigs & vermin. After many tries, I'm now making compost in closed bins INSIDE my fence
Thank you for your videos. I appreciate your 'down to earth' approach to composting. I mean if this is what happens in nature.... leaf litter, branches/trees fall, animals poop on the surface of the soil why isn't it good enough for humans to do the same on their gardens... maybe not the poop part. No one fertilizes in a forest.
You just saved me a huge pile of work and money trying to amend my soil. We have an abundance of yard waste on our property with beautiful clay soil. We also have alot of ants and I was worried they were going to destroy my garden but I will just do it this way and save the trouble.
Generally speaking, the ants shouldn't be a problem
Love to have your rocks! None here in my sandy soil fl.
My mom takes he compost away from the yard
Into the woods it does attract them there not necessarily to the yard but the apples do
I like your KISS principle and approach...keep it simple, stupid !!!!!!!!
Like th plastic frame cover for the beds.
Great point about keeping nitrogen in the soil out of the air lol unless you're talking beans
I do like your idea of composting by just tossing the compostable stuff on top. I do add whatever mulch I have to put on top of my beds. I have a ton of chicken manure that I need to compost. Therefore, I do hot composting. Yeah, a lot of work to turn. What is your suggestion on the "lazy-man" way of using chicken manure.?
Add it in the fall, maybe a 1cm layer, or less and let it just work itself into the soil over the course of the winter
Would either of you add rabbit manure right on top of a veggie bed. I’ve been doing that and it breaks down incredibly fast.
You can plant a black plastic bucket with lid. Drilling holes in bottom and sides. Plant it in the middle of your bed. Throw your cardboard or Lapeer pieces in bottom and throw your kitchen waist in and put up the lid. It will break down in quick if it's in black dark bin/bucket. So worms can move in and out the bucket
That's not a bad idea, and I've been thinking about doing something like that
Two thumbs down?? Must be termites.
Great video Greg. Been trying the hot compost method with my horse manure to break it down faster but it keeps going cold. It’s gotta be at least 6 months old but there’s still pucks and when I break them they’re green inside. Is this still too fresh for the veggie gardens do ya think? Well, you’ve totally inspired me to give it up for the mulching method. I love that whole concept...way easier. Thanks Greg!
If there's still green then yes, it's not yet broken down enough - also if there's still "pucks". Just cover it and it should be good by the fall :) You could maybe try planting squash in it - I've done that sometimes with the the semi-green h-manure. Just mulch the whole thing, and plant a few pumpkins/squash in the middle - thin them to the best one after they'ye grown about 6" high. The manure will continue to compost while you get some squash out of the deal :)
What you’re doing is technically called sheet composting. I think the reasons for hot composting is when you have weeds and other undesirable things that need the heat treatment to make them either safe to use on vegetables or not spread weed seeds. It’s also to shorten the time it takes to get to finished compost. I agree that slow composting is one of the best ways, but when you’re adding manure like we do, you need to either hot compost it or slow compost it and cure it, which can take 2 years.
An easier way than hot composting, because it requires temp control, turning, watering & constant monitoring, is plastic. He mentions this in the video. And I gave to say, plastic or a silage tarp is the best way to kill off weed seeds, especially if your garden plot is large. You could never make enough compost for say a 100x100 plot. Composting in place & using plastic is more practical, effective & time conscious.
You may find that as your soil improves, you don't need to keep adding manure. Once your soil becomes "ideal soil" the mulch is all that's needed to maintain it's fertility in my experience.
@@maritimegardening4887
Great to know.
Maritime Gardening yes, once the soil is improved to that point and the mycorrhizae have a chance to recolonize the soil, and the organic matter is increased, the soils ability to infiltrate and retain water is greatly improved, and the slow decay of the mulch covering is more than sufficient to provide for even the “heavy feeders.” Were working on getting our gardens built up to that now using BTE and rotating chickens over the garden beds yearly.
Maritime Gardening good to know!!
Bury the kitchen scraps in the raised beds and put a herb potted pot on top so the bears won't smell the scraps.
I absolutely love your videos. I often put them on while gardening or cooking. Even when I'm driving. And I love videos like this. I move mulch around too. I keep using it untill its gone. I do have a composting system several meters long. Actually its called compost street by my husband because I have 3 leafmold bins, 4 composting bins, one donkey manure bin and a sieving 2 system bin for posting soils. I don't have bears though. I only have free range chicken who thankfully love compost street so much they don't turn the corner or they would be in the vegetable gardens
Thanks
I love your subtitles! How's the toe? Slugs love my asparagus fronds when they're huge!
Thanks :) Toe is letting me work in the garden at a reduced pace - so I guess that's ok.I get snails on mine - but they seem to leave enough for the plant to live and get by
You had me at lazy. 😁
haha
ditto
This year, because of ALLLLL the many issues with urban composting; from animal issues, space issues, smell issues, to neighbour issues... I’m experimenting this year with something new... all winter I’ve taken the kitchen vegetable scraps and run them through the food processor to make them super fine and then dehydrating them. Once they are dehydrated I toss them into a dedicated spice grinder that’s only used for this and egg shells, and I’ve been making a vegetable compost powder... I’ve kept this mixed about 50/50 with ground egg shells in giant pickle jars. My plan is to sprinkle this powder into the garden under the mulch and under anything transplanted... I’m hoping this will make our many worms happy without attracting any critters. It’s not that much work... mostly waiting while it dehydrates... I just hate to waste all the scraps... like your family we make everything from scratch and we eat a ton of veggies so there’s a ton of scraps that we’re going to waste... I’ll see if it’s worth the effort.
I do use your mulch method but I get hubby to run it all through the lawn mower... more to make it look better than anything because we’re on a small corner urban lot so people care how it looks... but it’s working... we started the gardens 3 years ago and the soil is beautiful and just loaded with worms... so even if the compost powder thing doesn’t work I’ll definitely keep up your mulch system because it works so well... and BIG bonus, almost no weeds!
Wow - sounds like a lot of work with that dried kitchen waste idea - I could not imaging keeping up with all our kitchen waste that way - but I hope it works for you.
Hello. Thanks for sharing that info. I like your way of thinking. Keep it simple but do it as right as possible. You metioned you used to compost horse manure. How long does that need to compost before if goes in the garden. There are lots of horse farms around here where I live.
It really depends on how its treated. if it's just left in a pile it could take 6 months to a year. If its turned & worked it cn be ready quicker. You can usually tell by the smell. If it smells like earth - it's ok to use, it it smells like urine... nope :)
I've been following your methods, this is second season. I was astonished how rich the soil looked this year...
And the watering is cut in half, thank goodness. I'm curious how you grow cucumbers.... trellis and vertical, or just rambling on the bed...?
So nice of you! I grow the cukes on a trellis always - about 6' high
Love this video! So, do the bears bother your raspberries?
Not at all, but there's lots of other berries around, and they don't have the kind of smell that banana peels, etc might have.
Bears make good compost too.
Just a thought ,if you had a old food processor you could blend up and add honey holes to your garden
I appreciate that you're trying to help - but seriously - you want me to run a few gallons of kitchen waste a week through a food processor every week and then, every week, make a hole somewhere in my garden without messing up what I have planted in there. It's a good notion in principle, but I don't see it being practical - and unless it's got about 6-8" of soil over it - it might draw in bears - which I do not want.
Winnie the Pooh would go nuts.
Dandelions are blooming. Greg told me that's a sign.... can't remember what I'm supposed to do.... tulips blooming means something too. God man, write a book! My memory is too bad. :)
Dandelions mean plant potatoes; tulips mean plant your bean & squash :)
@@maritimegardening4887 thx so much
@@maritimegardening4887
Really!
I knew about the potatoes but not the squash. I slways though I had to wait until it was above 70*F. My tulips are all way past spent. 🤦♀️
Well, a gardener who's never late is a unicorn 🦄.
Maritime Gardening can’t remember, do you chit your potatoes first?
I fully endorse your lazy ways. Outside of work, lazy is the way to go.
I agree!
Why not trench compost your kitchen scraps? You could have an outdoor shed to store the kitchen scraps and let the kitchen scraps degrade then trench compost the kitchen scraps. Would that work for you?
Ok so I love in some 9b Central Florida. My yard is all grass but I want to do a few raised gardens the easiest way but I know nothing about gardening!! Right now I am just experimenting with seeds.🙈 Can I just put cardboard or wood chips right on the grass where I want to plant or do I have to take grass off? Any help will be greatly appreciated🙏🏼 I m so glad I found your UA-cam Chanel oh by the way lots of rain and sun right now 🤷🏼♀️
There's lots of options - watch my "garden build series" for ideas.
ua-cam.com/video/SLP3C11RtxE/v-deo.html
I have a lot of pine needles, would these be too acidic to use as mulch in my garden? I’m a new subscriber from New Brunswick and love your channel and gardening methods. 😊
I use pine needles and spruce boughs all the time. When used as a mulch, the acidity gets reduced dramatically as they break down on the surface of the soil, so that it's at negligible levels by the time it's totally broken down by the worms, etc.
Excellent, thank you!
I’m still trying to get my head around the mulch thing. Do you typically chop up leaves before adding them to your beds, since they take so long to break down?
I generally use them in whatever state they are in. Usually when people put them in leaf bags they have gathered them using the bag of their lawnmower - so in that sense they are chopped up - but at least half the leaf mulch that I have in my garden is just as is. It doesn't matter that they take awhile to break down - the main thing is that they ARE breaking down - and slowly releasing the good stuff into your soil.
Except oak leaves. Oak leaves should be chopped finely and treated more like a wood chip vs a leaf.
Maple, poplar, pine needles, etc are finer & break down relatively quickly, but not oak. It can take years in my experience. But...let the problem be the solution if you've got lots of oaks. 😉
What do you do about slugs? In zone four we have a short season for decomposition of leaves and garden waste. Slugs are a big problem in my garden.
Here's a vid explaining it: ua-cam.com/video/0SAv4EgM81w/v-deo.html
I didn't realize that you have bears near you. I'm sure that can be challenging at times
They like to poop on my lawn :)
@@maritimegardening4887 ha! I guess that's worse than wild turkeys. I deal with them scratching in my garden.
@@maritimegardening4887 since you can't get horse manure, perhaps the bear poo would work? I don't know, maybe worth a shot.
So I’m wondering. We have a mulcher and could chip all that yard waste to a nice small size. Do you think that would be a good thing and hasten the compost process? Or do you think it would get too dense on the beds and smother things? Chipping it up appeals to me cuz it wouldn’t look as messy, but like you, I’d prefer the best function over “fashion”when it comes down to it. What’s your take? Thanks...
Yes absolutely if you don't mind taking the time. It will smother things - mainly weeds - so that's a god thing! I do this with my lawnmower sometimes when I'm feeling industrious. Like you - I think it looks nicer that way :)
Also is it safe to put really holey leaves in i have muktiple trees dropping rewlly holey leaves worrying about blight
I suppose it would depend on the cause of the holes. As you might imagine, I'd gamble on it not being a problem and just see what happens.
Greg can you just use leaves has mulch?
Yes
Charles Dowding does cold composting
I think he mostly does hot to eliminate weed seeds
I planted my potatoes under straw already this spring. I woke up to -5C today. Dang. Should I replant do you think?
Hopefully the straw kept them warm enough. Where I am its a bit early for potatoes