Sorry,
followup that I forgot to ask....

I can also get a decent amount of cardboard/ paper and shred that into the mix as well (or instead of)....

(sorry for messing up the original post by adding this.... newbie nerves maybe?)

I'm not even close to an expert, but perhaps you might want to investigate 'lasagna beds' and 'double digging?'

You can use manure in your compost pile, with or without clippings.

I would suggest that you mulch the clippings into the lawn, rather than rake them up and put them into the pile.

When your compost is finished you can spread it on the lawn as a topdressing.

Soil is a combination of silt, sand, clay, organic matter, water and air. Compost, when spread on the lawn or used in a garden, eventually becomes part of the organic matter component of the soil.

If you have a large area with soil that bad, consider just composting on top of it and letting the worms do the tilling. If you can rake some of the gravel off, do that first, and then make flat compost piles a couple feet high. Maybe in sections, one at a time as materials become available. You can plant in them next spring, and if you don't have enough materials to cover the whole area, keep doing new sections next year.

If the manure is not already composted, if it looks like manure and bedding, you'll need to compost it before tilling in anyway. See above.

You do need a balanced pile, so if you only have manure, clippings and kitchen waste, you do need some browns! If the manure has high levels of straw or sawdust, you may have plenty of browns. If the piles get stinky, you need more.

As far as lawn compost - it takes a lot if you have any amount of lawn at all. Consider buying a truckload from a composting facility. Does your city make compost, or the local green waste hauler? Best to go to the source, cheaper than the nurseries.

Good luck!

Tox,
Thanks for that info. Would the shredded trees the local tree people produce be "browns"? I can get some of that easily.
If so, basically I get the manure/ shredded trees and make a big huge pile of them (mixed together as best I can) and let them "cook" for a couple of months, or should I spread them onto my (tilled or untilled) "soil" (clay) straight away and turn everything in immediately?

I won't be planting anything until spring in this area, but REALLY want it ready by then..... Since I work from home and have more than enough time to do the labor I will do whatever I need to to make the new garden work.

Re the lawn: I can't add to much to the top of the lawn as the height of it won't allow me to (runoff goes TOWARDS the house for heavens sake!). Since we rent I am unwilling to spend the gazillion bucks it would take to rip everything out and start from scratch and then lay sod.... Am I stuck with adding what little topsoil/ mulch I can and then having to fertilize it to keep it decent?
thanks again

Making a compost pile of manure and grass clippings would give you a compost pile with the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio way out of whack. You need a mixture (without getting too technical) of about 3 parts of a high Carbon source to 1 part of a high Nitrogen source, ie. 3 parts of shredded leaves to 1 part of manure (or grass clippings). You may want to spend some time with the compost tutorial linked below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Compost tutorial

>Would the shredded trees the local tree people produce be "browns"? I can get some of that easily.

If they have green leaves mixed in there is some N content but generally this stuff leans toward brown.

>If so, basically I get the manure/ shredded trees and make a big huge pile of them (mixed together as best I can) and let them "cook" for a couple of months, or should I spread them onto my (tilled or untilled) "soil" (clay) straight away and turn everything in immediately?

I would do the former, make a pile and let it cook till spring. Easier and will be able to plant through the much shrunken remains of the pile next spring. It will even be pre-mulched. Now the surface is probably going to be a little rough with the top layer not yet composted, so it works great for tomatoes and other plants, but not so much for fine seeds. Depends on what you're planting. If you need a seed bed, in spring you can remove the uncomposted top layer and either rake and plant or till, rake and plant. Just beware digging in clay when it's wet! You may do more harm than good.

>Re the lawn: Am I stuck with adding what little topsoil/ mulch I can and then having to fertilize it to keep it decent?

Yeah, sounds like you're kinda stuck. Compost does not add much elevation, it kinda disappears into the soil. If it's really causing problems like water in the house the landlord should pay for some regrading or adding fill near the house to change the drainage.

If your main goal is prepping an area for veggie production next spring, I second the previous suggestions of "lasagna" garden, but forget the double digging.

Another name for this is sheet composting. Basically just layer your compostable materials on the site you want as future garden. You do need a mix of greens and browns as pointed out above. Your grass clippings and horse manure will be great greens and wood chips will be ok as browns, better if you can get leaves, straw, shedded paper, sawdust etc. Wood chips just take a while to really break down but thats not a big deal. Important thing to remember is top off the bed with a material that will not directly support seed growth (a mulch). All of materials i mentioned except manure will serve this purpose. My preference is grass clippings for top layer.

Going this route instead of a traditional compost "pile" has several advantages:

- All your materials are moved only once, not to a pile then back to final destination in garden
- worms and soil life will do you tilling for you under the materials, in spring just plant away!
- no weeds in the spring to deal with if your mulch on top is thick enough.
- your garden plot will get a one year head start on becoming fertile, untilled, soft and easy to work soil

Yes it will take a lot of materials to sheet compost a sizable area this way but it does all have to happen in day. Do it as time and materials permit. And dont get hung up on any precise formulas or ratios, just toss it on!

Also for your greenhouse check out the link below. I built one just like this last year and it worked great. I added one internal wood support so I didnt have to worry about snow but that should not be issue in your area

Here is a link that might be useful: greenhouse

Hey kikifoow, I'm not a composting expert and am learning a lot from this forum, just as you are.

So, the only thing I might add which hasn't been said is to consider building raised beds in your space. I have found these have some nice benefits to planting right in the ground, for example.

- No amending poor soil. You build the soil as you want it right in the bed.
- No compacting of soil that might be caused by walking on your garden/around your plants (not sure how you would lay out your garden, so this may not be an issue).
- Easier controlling mulch and other dressings to your soil. The mulch or compost I put in my beds tends to stay there rather than be blown away or dispersed by pets, etc.
- I think (this is not supported by any research I know of) that the raised beds helps with soil warming, although it may be argued that they similarly contribute to soil cooling down sooner.
- I also think I have read that due to some of the factors I mentioned above, soil drainage is very good in raised beds.

These are my opinions only, but I have found raised beds work very well for me. Either way you go, good luck!

Thanks for all the great suggestions everyone. Can someone answer this (probably) dumb question.

I can get a bunch of 4'x8' sheets (plywood) without cost. I already have 2"x6"s ready to make a raised bed for the vege patch.

So if I build my vege patch now and then temporarily attach the plywood sheets (to get a 4'x8' deep "pile) and then fill the sucker with my greens and browns (ie a huge compost pile) would it then be ok to pull of the plywood sheets a week or so before spring, bringing the vege patch back into play and then using the top couple of feet of the combined pile to start a new patch, which I would then layer on new material...

ie use the upper part of the mix as the base of the new bed, while using the lower 2' of the pile as the first vege patch, which contains the lower portion of the pile. Would that work ok? Seems to me I can save moving 1/2 the pile if I do it that way. In the long run I would end up with 2 8'x8' beds to work with which is about right for what we want to grow.

Once again, appreciate the help very much!
Peter

Hey Peter, again, I'm not a composting expert so I'll defer to those who have more experience in this, but I don't think you want to plant in straight compost.

I follow your idea of basically making a huge compost pile, the bottom of which (presumably completely composted material) will fill your raised beds. But, I think you want to have some mixture of dirt in with the compost. I used a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost which worked great.

If you do what you're planning and mix in some topsoil when you prepare the beds, I think it will work better. Either way, good luck!

Peter,
I was raised on the peninsula and now live in the East Bay. I found this site a couple days ago, just like you. Maybe there's something in the air? I know what you mean about the clay (Bay fill).

You're right. There's more to read, but it's not well-organized and or easy to search. I'm trying to keep my obsession under control, but here's my plan:

1. I'm going to Michael's to get their flimsy corrugated cardboard shipping boxes to use for mulch. I'll have to cover it with something.
2. Starbucks and local fast foods will probably be willing to give me coffee grounds. I wonder how it would look to cover the cardboard with coffee grounds?
3. Coffee grounds are high nitrogen, paper/cardboard is high carbon. Seems like I ought to be able to combine the two somehow to get a good result.

I have horses and lots of manure available, too. If you use horse manure to mulch, you'll likely kill whatever you cover up . . . and next year the weeds will grow bigger than ever! As you've learned from your reading, compost isn't a mix, it's a process. The reaction of carbon to nitrogen takes time and produces heat.

Hey, let me know if you have more free plywood than you need. I'm moving my horses to a private pasture with three stalled horses and a pen full of sheep. There ought to be some good compostables there. I need to build a couple things . ... Maybe we can work out a trade?

Also, there's a site that tells how raising vegetables in containers is fighting hunger in the slums of Mexico. They fill 5G buckets 80% with chopped leaves and other carbons, cut a drainage hole a few inches from the bottom, put a couple of inches of soil on top, and plant their veggies. They use the household supply of "liquid gold" for nitrogen, and at the end of the season they have a crop of veggies and a bucket full of finished compost planting medium. It sounds like a good idea, but I can't find enough specifications to ensure success. Maybe you can find something on that site that will work for you since you're just renting.

Search around on the journeytoforever.org site for more interesting information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Container Farming - Organic Food Production in the Slums of Mexico

It is possible to plant some things in pure "compost" and I'll say it mostly depends on the condition of your compost in terms of structure, and some crops that like leaner soil than others would not be as happy but compost hogs would, etc.

For example, though a large pile will "cook" and break down a lot over several months it may not get to the consistency of loam, and without turning occasionally and consistent moisture it may have hot and cold spots and break down inconsistently, and so may actually be kinda loosely or rough structured (this may not be a technical soil term), or may be inconsistent, may allow more air pockets, inconsistent watering, and so forth. If you plan to really fork it around and mix it up before planting, then you will get more consistent soil--but that's a little different from planting directly in whatever pile you make. If you're not going to live or die by the veggies you grow, and are not a perfectionist, then it's not such rocket science--you can plant stuff next spring but as you continue to mulch and the underlying stuff matures, the next spring is better, and so forth.

If your materials come into your possession in a way that you can spread materials in multiple thin layers, I find that helps to make cold sheet-composting go quicker--it's essentially "mixing" by careful layering (so not a foot of wood chips and then a foot of grass clippings, but multiple 2 " layers). You might try your plywood "container" for a specific raised bed, but also just identify other areas you want to improve or that might be gardens in a year, as mentioned above, and include them in occasional layers of whatever browns or greens you come across, and over not very much time, those soil areas will be improved.

What I use for potting soils anymore is compost and I have no problems with that and have not had any problems using compost as a potting soil for a number of years.
Raised beds can be a good way to solve a drainage problem, but if your soil is already really well drained (like my sand) a raised bed will be like a giant pot and you will find that keeping the soil moist more difficult.

r_skirt,

Where in the east bay are you exactly? I might be able to get my hands on an easier solution than plywood. A bunch of shipping crates that I think are about 4'x4'x3'. I think they are made of ply for memory. And do you have a truck?

Speaking of which all,,, If I grab a few of these shipping crates, should I pull the bottoms out of them to put them on the ground or leave the bottoms on so that I don't "lose" any composted material? I figure wetting the pile might make it too wet if there is nowhere for the water to run off if I overwater it a bit accidently.