Au contraire. The presence of so much organic matter almost certainly meant that soil was severely nitrogen deficient - the bacteria breaking down the organic matter were consuming large quantities of nitrogen rather than making nitrogen available to your plants.
interesting results that contradict my own experience. At my old home I filled all 20 of my raised beds with compost I got from a landscaping company. Most of my plants thrived in it for several seasons. I also typically start all my seeds in Leafgro which is 100% leaf compost and they grow just fine. Maybe it was the specific compost from the city and whatever inputs they used to make it that caused your problems. One compost is not always equal to another. I have since at my new property reverted to growing directly in the ground with a lawer of compost and woodchips on top, much like Charles Dowding does. I found raised beds dried out too quick, were expensive to fill and build. I had promising results with this my first year last year.
That's good to hear you've had better luck than we have! Did you have the soil/compost tested? Our city compost comes from organic waste pickups from all over the city. It was risky to use it because we have no idea what went into it, though the city did provide test results that showed it to be safe for veggie gardening. It was also extremely cheap compared to other options. It's true that composts can vary greatly, but soil testing is always a good idea to avoid overfertilizing.
@@SomeRoomtoGrow never had a soil test done, but the first year i started here, I had a similar problem. I knew herbicides and such will stay in the plant matter and also in the soil for several years causing major problems in organic non-gmo vegetable gardens. The following year, we got our mulch from a different town. There was still a little problem in growth on the upper side and a bit more on the down hill side. I added a heavy boost of nitrogen, watered it in once and gave it no more water.....letting nature be nature. After that, there was no looking back.... a 30×35 garden area gives our family of 4 more that we need ond can..... seems like back then, we couldn't eat, can or give it away fast enough to keep a lot of it from ending up in the compost pile.
Sounds like the problem is the compost did not break down completely, looks more like wood chips, which can be a good mulch, but not for planting directly in.
Yes, planting directly into wood chips doesn’t work well. The landfill facility breaks down the material for a full year, then lets it sit for another month so it isn’t still “hot” when people purchase it. That footage is also from last year, so the compost has had even more time to age and we still had the same problems this year. I’m doing a follow-up video to this that I’ll be posting this weekend.
another thought on how to deal with it is to remove 50-75% of the soil and add lower nutrient soil to the beds. Use the extra soil you removed to make more beds. This lets you plant in them this year.
I'm definitely planning to add more low-nutrient soil. The beds have sunk a little so they could use more anyway. It's too cold in our area already and soil suppliers aren't available now, so we'll have to wait til the spring.
Doesn’t Charles Dowding plant into beds of compost? I believe his compost is mostly homemade, which is perhaps less potent than the black municipal stuff. I plant straight into my homemade compost and everything grows beautifully...except the year we (stupidly) hired a lawn service and caused many of our beautiful crops to shrivel from herbicide drift.
I believe Charles just lays an inch or two of compost on the surface at least once a year or maybe 6 months. Same with Huw Richards. I’ve started doing the same with our new food forest garden and it’s working well. Homemade compost is much better, we just didn’t have enough at the time we built the beds. We also mixed that potent compost into the full 10 inch depth of the beds, which I’m sure didn’t help.
Have you tried winter squash? They grow really well on compost piles. I wonder if it's something else in the compost apart from the high nutrients...perhaps weedkiller residue that they don't test for? We have had problems in the UK with compost and manure being contaminated with the picolinic acid family of herbicides. Lawn weedkillers in particular contain herbicides which are more environmentally persistent, and grass clippings are likely one of the most common green waste materials taken to municipal composting facilities.
Winter squash is one of the many things we haven't tried growing yet, but we'd like to! I agree, it is quite possible there are some long-lasting chemical compounds in the compost. I was trying to save some money when I bought this compost but I won't be using it again. It's making me think more about completely removing the raised beds and growing in the ground again.
@@SomeRoomtoGrow I agree with Simon B. Try winter squash, especially since they are such heavy feeders. Worse thing that would happen is they do not produce which is what you would have had anyway.
That's an interesting idea and I see what you're thinking, but I'm not convinced about biochar. It seems to be a popular yet controversial topic these days and many gardeners rave about its benefits, but as of yet there is very little scientific research to back up the claims.
I’ve always been a “real local soil” gardener, so I have not experienced this situation with custom soil. That being said, the soil around my porch is showing weird results compared to everywhere else. I should get it tested. It is very friable and lose.
We already have great soil here and I was silly to try growing in anything different! But it's heavy clay and I figured raised beds would drain better. We wound up with a dozen other problems instead. Oh well, back to basics. For your garden: perhaps a previous owner used peat moss for landscaping?
If your city compost is anything like ours, it basically comes from yard wastes (mostly wood and leaves) that are finely shredded into large piles and so heat to maximum temperatures, and sifted, and the resulting compost is super black and super fine. It's great stuff but super saturated with readily available nutrients, so you don't need much. If I were you, as the levels in the beds dip I would replace it with fill dirt (very low organic-matter soil, preferably clay). It is my understanding that the mineral component of soil, particularly clay, can adsorb certain nutrients, including phosphorus and potassium.
Yup, that is exactly what they do in our city. The compost is black, dense and heavy when you first get it. I should’ve only used maybe 20%. I hope I can find some filler soil in the spring, or maybe I’ll use more of our native soil. That should make a big difference.
Im soooo confused. In another UA-cam video, a guy did a garden experiment using 100% compost and grew quite a decent harvest comparable*** with a traditional soil blend.
This brings up a good point and it’s the reason I made this video. Every compost is going to be different. Homemade is probably going to be safer in many cases. The compost in this video came from our municipal organic waste facility and it is extremely potent. Some gardeners can grow veggies in their own compost. This stuff is much too strong for that.
Please let me say upfront that I am in no way trying to be disrespectful and I have enjoyed your videos, however I respectfully disagree with your assessment. I have been gardening for over 20 years, and have been making raised beds with 100% compost. I have never had any issue with pests or disease in these beds and in fact, have had more success with these beds than any other medium. I think you problem is more likely contaminants from your community compost. Have you tested for pesticides, i.e. roundup in the community compost? There is no way to guarantee that people dropping off grass clippings, limbs or branches, has not been treated with some form of chemical, and in fact it is likely a certainty that this has been contaminated, it only takes a small amount to ruin a compost pile. How are you assuring that there was not an over abundance of allopathic elements such as walnut leaves, or branches? This would be impossible to assess from an unknown source without testing. Your were in the right church, but unfortunately the wrong pew. Over abundance of nutrients can be a bad thing, especially when out of proportion, when another is lacking. This is the problem with chemical fertilizers as it sways the ecosystem of the garden too far one way, as well as ruining the microbial layer, bu this does not happen with compost. If the plant has adequate resources to all nutrients, there should be no deficiency, certainly not to the extent that you have had. Also, your pH caused more of an issue that you may think, it is simply too high to allow plants to uptake many of the other nutrients, the P count was high, and can interfere, but how did it get there, likely chemical contamination. I would ask you to apply your theory to these questions and explain why these methods should not work, when in fact they thrive. 1. Hugelkultur: There is a massive amount of nutrients in a hugelkultur, and this is one of the main reasons it has become so popular, along with others such as water retention, low maintenance, etc. Yes, they release a lot of these nutrients over time, however they are still available in massive quantities, by your definition, toxic. 2. Forrest floor soil. This is essentially 100% compost and is some of the most nutrient rich and dense growing medium available and is packed with organic matter. 3. My 100% compost raised beds that have had proven success for decades. The only difference in your beds and mine are: 1. I used 100% compost, to your 60% I believe you mentioned, which should mean that my beds are more toxic than yours, and they are not. 2. I make all of my compost using fall leaves and animal manures as well as grass clippings and yard waste FROM MY OWN PROPERTY. I’m certain that the compost you used from the community pile had been contaminated in some way by chemicals or by other allopathic materials.
I appreciate your considerate response! I agree, the problem with the municipal compost is likely to be much more complicated than simply toxic nutrient levels. I have only tested it for macro- and micronutrients, but not for the presence of any herbicides or pesticides. I know those should break down with microbial activity but some may persist a lot longer than others. Nutrient toxicity is a known issue backed by scientific research, so I'm certain that is at least part of the problem with our raised beds. In any case, now that we're producing enough compost at home using on-site resources, we don't need to use the municipal product anymore. I made a video a few years ago saying that stuff was safe to use, and maybe it is in moderation, but I may need to address that topic again. So far we're seeing great results using our own compost as a top dressing soil amendment. I still haven't tried growing plants in a 100% compost environment. As I said in the video, it all depends on the materials that go into the compost. It sounds like the compost you're making at home is significantly more mild than the stuff we got from the city. I still have yet to test our hügelkultur beds to see how those nutrient levels have changed since before I built them. I'll certainly make a video about that when I learn more. Thank you again for your thoughts. You've given me a lot to consider for future video topics. Happy gardening!
@@SomeRoomtoGrow There's an easy method to test any compost you source from outside your own property: simply put some in a pot and plant a few test plants in it. If they thrive, then go ahead and use it in your garden beds. If not, there's something wrong with it. It could just be PH, which you can fix with amendments, but there can also be persistant herbicides lingering in compost (and manure) for years. People have ruined entire gardens with contaminated compost and manure, it's not just you.
Your PH level is high therefore your plants cannot uptake the nutrients in the soil. Acidify your soil to 6.0-6.5 range that will make a big difference.
That’s what I thought, too, but I asked plant biologists about it and they assured me the high nutrient levels from excessive organic matter were much more to blame than high pH (which is also a result of excessive OM)
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
⌚TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
1:00 "Organic Matter" definition
1:38 Problems with overfertilization
2:36 Soil testing
3:36 Toxic phosphorous
4:12 General nutrient toxicity
5:20 Labs don't test Nitrogen
6:03 Excessive organic matter
6:38 Raised bed soil mixture (2019)
7:28 How to fix this?
9:52 New garden location
Au contraire. The presence of so much organic matter almost certainly meant that soil was severely nitrogen deficient - the bacteria breaking down the organic matter were consuming large quantities of nitrogen rather than making nitrogen available to your plants.
That’s a very good point! It was probably a combination of problems, all the result of too much organic matter.
interesting results that contradict my own experience. At my old home I filled all 20 of my raised beds with compost I got from a landscaping company. Most of my plants thrived in it for several seasons. I also typically start all my seeds in Leafgro which is 100% leaf compost and they grow just fine. Maybe it was the specific compost from the city and whatever inputs they used to make it that caused your problems. One compost is not always equal to another. I have since at my new property reverted to growing directly in the ground with a lawer of compost and woodchips on top, much like Charles Dowding does. I found raised beds dried out too quick, were expensive to fill and build. I had promising results with this my first year last year.
That's good to hear you've had better luck than we have! Did you have the soil/compost tested? Our city compost comes from organic waste pickups from all over the city. It was risky to use it because we have no idea what went into it, though the city did provide test results that showed it to be safe for veggie gardening. It was also extremely cheap compared to other options. It's true that composts can vary greatly, but soil testing is always a good idea to avoid overfertilizing.
@@SomeRoomtoGrow never had a soil test done, but the first year i started here, I had a similar problem.
I knew herbicides and such will stay in the plant matter and also in the soil for several years causing major problems in organic non-gmo vegetable gardens. The following year, we got our mulch from a different town. There was still a little problem in growth on the upper side and a bit more on the down hill side.
I added a heavy boost of nitrogen, watered it in once and gave it no more water.....letting nature be nature.
After that, there was no looking back.... a 30×35 garden area gives our family of 4 more that we need ond can..... seems like back then, we couldn't eat, can or give it away fast enough to keep a lot of it from ending up in the compost pile.
Sounds like the problem is the compost did not break down completely, looks more like wood chips, which can be a good mulch, but not for planting directly in.
Yes, planting directly into wood chips doesn’t work well. The landfill facility breaks down the material for a full year, then lets it sit for another month so it isn’t still “hot” when people purchase it. That footage is also from last year, so the compost has had even more time to age and we still had the same problems this year. I’m doing a follow-up video to this that I’ll be posting this weekend.
another thought on how to deal with it is to remove 50-75% of the soil and add lower nutrient soil to the beds. Use the extra soil you removed to make more beds. This lets you plant in them this year.
I'm definitely planning to add more low-nutrient soil. The beds have sunk a little so they could use more anyway. It's too cold in our area already and soil suppliers aren't available now, so we'll have to wait til the spring.
Doesn’t Charles Dowding plant into beds of compost? I believe his compost is mostly homemade, which is perhaps less potent than the black municipal stuff. I plant straight into my homemade compost and everything grows beautifully...except the year we (stupidly) hired a lawn service and caused many of our beautiful crops to shrivel from herbicide drift.
I believe Charles just lays an inch or two of compost on the surface at least once a year or maybe 6 months. Same with Huw Richards. I’ve started doing the same with our new food forest garden and it’s working well. Homemade compost is much better, we just didn’t have enough at the time we built the beds. We also mixed that potent compost into the full 10 inch depth of the beds, which I’m sure didn’t help.
Have you tried winter squash? They grow really well on compost piles. I wonder if it's something else in the compost apart from the high nutrients...perhaps weedkiller residue that they don't test for? We have had problems in the UK with compost and manure being contaminated with the picolinic acid family of herbicides. Lawn weedkillers in particular contain herbicides which are more environmentally persistent, and grass clippings are likely one of the most common green waste materials taken to municipal composting facilities.
Winter squash is one of the many things we haven't tried growing yet, but we'd like to! I agree, it is quite possible there are some long-lasting chemical compounds in the compost. I was trying to save some money when I bought this compost but I won't be using it again. It's making me think more about completely removing the raised beds and growing in the ground again.
@@SomeRoomtoGrow I agree with Simon B. Try winter squash, especially since they are such heavy feeders. Worse thing that would happen is they do not produce which is what you would have had anyway.
@@SanguiniusCardinal thanks, it’s worth a try!
Cabbage is a heavy feeder. This is a good illustration of "more is not always better".
Maybe try adding some fresh bio char to absorb the excess and spread it through new beds?
That's an interesting idea and I see what you're thinking, but I'm not convinced about biochar. It seems to be a popular yet controversial topic these days and many gardeners rave about its benefits, but as of yet there is very little scientific research to back up the claims.
I’ve always been a “real local soil” gardener, so I have not experienced this situation with custom soil. That being said, the soil around my porch is showing weird results compared to everywhere else. I should get it tested. It is very friable and lose.
We already have great soil here and I was silly to try growing in anything different! But it's heavy clay and I figured raised beds would drain better. We wound up with a dozen other problems instead. Oh well, back to basics. For your garden: perhaps a previous owner used peat moss for landscaping?
If your city compost is anything like ours, it basically comes from yard wastes (mostly wood and leaves) that are finely shredded into large piles and so heat to maximum temperatures, and sifted, and the resulting compost is super black and super fine. It's great stuff but super saturated with readily available nutrients, so you don't need much. If I were you, as the levels in the beds dip I would replace it with fill dirt (very low organic-matter soil, preferably clay). It is my understanding that the mineral component of soil, particularly clay, can adsorb certain nutrients, including phosphorus and potassium.
Yup, that is exactly what they do in our city. The compost is black, dense and heavy when you first get it. I should’ve only used maybe 20%. I hope I can find some filler soil in the spring, or maybe I’ll use more of our native soil. That should make a big difference.
Im soooo confused. In another UA-cam video, a guy did a garden experiment using 100% compost and grew quite a decent harvest comparable*** with a traditional soil blend.
This brings up a good point and it’s the reason I made this video. Every compost is going to be different. Homemade is probably going to be safer in many cases. The compost in this video came from our municipal organic waste facility and it is extremely potent. Some gardeners can grow veggies in their own compost. This stuff is much too strong for that.
Farmers can grow crops with less than 10% organic matter and it's not just due to added fertilizer.
Please let me say upfront that I am in no way trying to be disrespectful and I have enjoyed your videos, however I respectfully disagree with your assessment. I have been gardening for over 20 years, and have been making raised beds with 100% compost. I have never had any issue with pests or disease in these beds and in fact, have had more success with these beds than any other medium.
I think you problem is more likely contaminants from your community compost. Have you tested for pesticides, i.e. roundup in the community compost? There is no way to guarantee that people dropping off grass clippings, limbs or branches, has not been treated with some form of chemical, and in fact it is likely a certainty that this has been contaminated, it only takes a small amount to ruin a compost pile. How are you assuring that there was not an over abundance of allopathic elements such as walnut leaves, or branches? This would be impossible to assess from an unknown source without testing.
Your were in the right church, but unfortunately the wrong pew. Over abundance of nutrients can be a bad thing, especially when out of proportion, when another is lacking. This is the problem with chemical fertilizers as it sways the ecosystem of the garden too far one way, as well as ruining the microbial layer, bu this does not happen with compost. If the plant has adequate resources to all nutrients, there should be no deficiency, certainly not to the extent that you have had. Also, your pH caused more of an issue that you may think, it is simply too high to allow plants to uptake many of the other nutrients, the P count was high, and can interfere, but how did it get there, likely chemical contamination.
I would ask you to apply your theory to these questions and explain why these methods should not work, when in fact they thrive.
1. Hugelkultur: There is a massive amount of nutrients in a hugelkultur, and this is one of the main reasons it has become so popular, along with others such as water retention, low maintenance, etc. Yes, they release a lot of these nutrients over time, however they are still available in massive quantities, by your definition, toxic.
2. Forrest floor soil. This is essentially 100% compost and is some of the most nutrient rich and dense growing medium available and is packed with organic matter.
3. My 100% compost raised beds that have had proven success for decades.
The only difference in your beds and mine are:
1. I used 100% compost, to your 60% I believe you mentioned, which should mean that my beds are more toxic than yours, and they are not.
2. I make all of my compost using fall leaves and animal manures as well as grass clippings and yard waste FROM MY OWN PROPERTY.
I’m certain that the compost you used from the community pile had been contaminated in some way by chemicals or by other allopathic materials.
I appreciate your considerate response! I agree, the problem with the municipal compost is likely to be much more complicated than simply toxic nutrient levels. I have only tested it for macro- and micronutrients, but not for the presence of any herbicides or pesticides. I know those should break down with microbial activity but some may persist a lot longer than others. Nutrient toxicity is a known issue backed by scientific research, so I'm certain that is at least part of the problem with our raised beds.
In any case, now that we're producing enough compost at home using on-site resources, we don't need to use the municipal product anymore. I made a video a few years ago saying that stuff was safe to use, and maybe it is in moderation, but I may need to address that topic again. So far we're seeing great results using our own compost as a top dressing soil amendment. I still haven't tried growing plants in a 100% compost environment.
As I said in the video, it all depends on the materials that go into the compost. It sounds like the compost you're making at home is significantly more mild than the stuff we got from the city.
I still have yet to test our hügelkultur beds to see how those nutrient levels have changed since before I built them. I'll certainly make a video about that when I learn more.
Thank you again for your thoughts. You've given me a lot to consider for future video topics. Happy gardening!
@@SomeRoomtoGrow There's an easy method to test any compost you source from outside your own property: simply put some in a pot and plant a few test plants in it. If they thrive, then go ahead and use it in your garden beds. If not, there's something wrong with it. It could just be PH, which you can fix with amendments, but there can also be persistant herbicides lingering in compost (and manure) for years. People have ruined entire gardens with contaminated compost and manure, it's not just you.
Thanks, that’s a good tip. Thankfully we have enough of our own compost now that we haven’t needed to buy any for a few years.
Your PH level is high therefore your plants cannot uptake the nutrients in the soil. Acidify your soil to 6.0-6.5 range that will make a big difference.
That’s what I thought, too, but I asked plant biologists about it and they assured me the high nutrient levels from excessive organic matter were much more to blame than high pH (which is also a result of excessive OM)
Changing soil pH is harder than people think it is. Look it up.