where are you ...

and why do you think the leaves failed ... what is your goal with them??? .. how ground up are they ... and what kind of leaves ....

i think i would have put the compost on first.. and then tilled that in ...

though you seem to say the leaves were a fail .. how did the veg themselves do this summer ...

ken

ps: you can always pile the leaves.. and let them compost until spring or summer ....

I think I would put the leaves on first, then the compost on top so that it could all break down over the fall/winter/spring. I would cover the whole thing with a tarp to keep the nutrients in (stop them from washing away). I like to use a tarp in the winter as it keeps those pesky spring weeds from growing like crazy before I can get out there to deal with them in the early spring, but maybe all your compost and leaves would deter weeds.....

The only problem with using a tarp is that you need some heavy items to put on top to stop it from blowing. One year I used bags of mushroom compost which I added to the garden in the spring.

Linda

I'd suggest planting a cover crop now....compost can always be added in the spring if you feel like you need more nutrients, after incorporating the cover crop but before planting.

Yes to cover crop, no to smothering coverings like tarps, if you are in the US your State Extension Service should have lots of information about home food production

Ken, cover crops can be grown in pretty much any climate........it just depends on the type of cover crop one chooses. It is getting a tad late for colder zones but they still have time to sprout NOW - not next May or June!! These are plants that are intended to be grown over winter.......

This is a common question on the vegetable gardening forum and a search there will pull up countless threads on the subject. I would add the shredded leaves and compost to the soil in the fall as well as a nitrogen source to break everything down a but faster. That doesn't mean that you won't have to add more nitrogen in the spring and throughout the growing season though. Nitrogen is not a stable nutrient in soil.

I'm not against cover crops, just don't use them personally. I prep my vegetable beds in the fall so that they can be plantable as early as possible. That can't happen with cover crops as I would have to wait for the soil to dry out before I could turn them under. Potentially delaying planting by weeks.

Putting a tarp on the soil for 4-5 months at a time when most everything is frozen isn't going to do any long term harm to the soil. And Ken, you being in Michigan know that when the soil is frozen no water is moving and nutrients are staying put. Once that soil thaws, and more importantly, all that snow on top starts to melt that quite a lot of water is saturating the ground. That said, I don't tarp my beds and won't in the future.

Of course, much of what I said above could be useless depending on where you are located. And a professional soil test should probably be done as soon as possible to check for any deficiencies or ph issues.

Rodney

Just digging it all in, leaves and compost, would be best. You're going to want to do it in the spring, but if you do it now, you'll end up with composted leaves as opposed to just a lot of surface mulch. You'd have to be way way north to have soil frozen to a spade depth. In fact, the composting activity in the leaves underground will warm the soil. You're after improved soil structure - not nutrients.

I have a little raised bed and in fall I clean it out of all the dead plants and put compost and some worm castings on the top layer. I mixed that in and covered all with dry leaves. I covered my bed with screens that were never used from a window. I held them down with a brick on each end. It worked great. I took them off to dry and warm the soil in the spring. A tarp would never work for me in Chicago. It would be in a neighbors yard the first windy snow storm. Everything that is done in the garden is done by only me and I’m very arthritic so I’d never get a tarp bolted in the ground good enough. The screens are lightweight and lets the air and sun go through. I have also put my winter sowing containers on the screens too.

About 50 percent of the biosolids produced in the U.S. are returned to farmland through a process that is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Even so, some people – including the Sierra Club — remain skeptical of the use of this waste product in food production. They worry that heavy metals, pathogens or pharmaceuticals might survive the treatment process and contaminate crops. So what's an urban gardener to do in light of mixed perceptions about whether it's OK to use poop to grow your food?

I set out to investigate this, hoping that whatever I learned would help my garden decide whether to accept the donation or not.

First, remember that for thousands of years, before the invention of synthetic fertilizer in 1913, many farmers utilized their decomposed sewage, sometimes called "night soil," to replenish the soil with nutrients lost in farming. The Chinese were especially adept at using human waste this way – one historical account notes that in 1908, a contractor paid the city of Shanghai $31,000 in gold for the privilege of collecting 78,000 tons of human waste and carting it off to spread on fields.

When growing urban areas required that sewage be piped outside of the city, the practice dropped off and attention turned to improving wastewater treatment to avoid polluting waterways. Raw waste is, of course, nasty stuff until all the dangerous bacteria have been killed off, either by heat or anaerobic digestion.

But the sludge was still piling up in landfills, so scientists began testing how to use it in agriculture safely; the waste was a free source of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, afterall. And letting it sit in landfills or incinerating it created its own environmental issues. By the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency created strict standards with two tiers for biosolids still in use today. To sell Class A biosolids to farmers and gardeners, facilities have to ensure that there are no dangerous heavy metals or bacteria in the end product.

The ick factor, however, has not faded entirely. While plenty of large-scale farms like this one in Kansas City, Mo., use biosolids, they are not officially allowed in organic agriculture. Bowing to public input, the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided in 2000 to prohibit the use of sludge in the National Organic Program. This was in spite of the fact that "there is no current scientific evidence that use of sewage sludge in the production of foods presents unacceptable risks to the environment or human health," USDA spokesman Samuel Jones tells The Salt.

A handful of activists have also sounded the alarm on the widespread use of biosolids in conventional agriculture. They allege, among other things, that the EPA-approved treatment of biosolids doesn't address all the possible contaminants in the waste.

A National Academy of Sciences report in 2002 also stated that while there have been some anecdotal stories of adverse health effects from exposure to biosolids, there are no studies that prove a causal link. Still, the NAS said that since biosolids may contain substances like chemicals and pharmaceuticals, more epidemiological research was needed to explore possible health effects of using them to grow food. (Currently, the U.S. Geological Survey is investigating exactly what happens to plants when biosolids are applied to soil.)

Still, some scientists argue that over the years, the biosolids industry has gotten much better at keeping contaminants out of the final product.

"We have systemically looked at all kinds of potential hazards," says Ian Pepper, a professor and director of the Environmental Research Laboratory at the University of Arizona who has been studying biosolids for 30 years. "Invariably we've found that the risks are much lower than those suggested by environmental activists."

And other proponents say that it's hard to prove that biosolids are a significant source of contaminants.

"These compounds are ubiquitous in the environment – in the soil, water, within our bodies," says Neil Zahradka, who overseas biosolids for the state of Virginia's department of environmental quality. "So the question is: If it's in the biosolids, then is that a problem? None of studies so far have been able to conclusively say that yes there's an issue here."

As for the pathogens, Zahradka contends that the composting process, one of a few different treatment methods (and the one used in Spotsylvania County, which offered compost to my garden), eliminates them.

Here's how it works: Spotsylvania receives the raw sewage and mixes it with mulch. The carbon in the mulch speeds up the decomposition process, and generates heat. The material reaches 160 plus degrees for 21 days, says Mills. That's enough to kill all harmful bacteria, she says. But the facility also tests the material regularly to be sure the pathogens and dangerous heavy metals are below detectable levels.

So will my garden be using these biosolids anytime soon? We'll have to take a vote to decide. In the meantime, it's interesting to see other urban gardeners getting on board with biosolids.

Thank you for this. I would suggest making this a new thread, rather than hiding it in a thread about garden winterizing, though. The "ick" factor has always perplexed me a bit. We have no trouble gardening in beds that are liberally seeded with bird and animal poop, as well as living and dead insects, and are rich in mold and bacteria. Plenty of nasty stuff there.

I agree that this is a topic worthy of its own thread. And probably better in the Soil Mulch and Compost forum than anywhere else :-)

Milorganite is probably the most widely sold and used commercial biosolid product. And it has long been used as an organic lawn fertilizer as well as a soil amendment.

WA state, where I live, has long been in the forefront of commercial composting activities.......including being the first state to legalize the composting of human remains! Other firsts include evaluation by state authorities to verify any and all fertilizers, mulch and soil products to not exceed certain levels of heavy metals, otherwise the product cannot be sold.

Although not sold specifically as fertilizers (no guaranteed analysis), mulches or soil conditioners including biosolids are frequently available and sold here. The City of Tacoma has a large and very profitable operation recycling their biosolids into a product called TAGRO but other communities have similar operations. I would not hesitate for a second using any of these products in my garden!

Our stuff is called "Dillo Dirt", and has been around for thirty years. It is a combination of biosolids and yard trimmings. It is tested, and EPA-approved for "unrestricted use" (e.g. including vegetable gardens). It is not tested for pharmaceutical residue, however. One can always find some admixture of toxics in this stuff, as you can in everyday soil, especially in urban areas. I don't use it myself, but I would not hesitate to do so if I needed it. In particular, I would trust it more than I would some random bagged commercial compost.

Add plenty of soil conditioner.You can buy it from Lowe's or Home Depot.