This is where the old days of animal husbandry, arable and market gardening was just perfect, absolutely nothing was wasted. Animals grazed the fields and while doing so they fertilised the soil, in return the soil giving up it's goodness for animal feeds, nature and life in perfect balance.
Also they used to keep their "night soil" to feed to their pigs. I think they still do in China for food pond fish.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Genuine Bocking 14 is the variety of comfrey to grow in gardens because it is a sterile clone and only spreads via the roots. Only buy from a reliable source!
Wild comfrey seeds and spreads like wildfire .., don’t plant it in your gardens unless you want it to take over. Don’t say you’ve not been warned! 😉
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I've often mused on whether compost heaps are really necessary other than to keep gardens, etc, looking neat and tidy. Why not just cut up foliage, not roots and seeds obviously, and let them rot where they fall ? Surely more wildlife friendly and with a reduction in energy expenditure because of no trips backwards and forwards to the compost heap. There will be a nett loss of nutrients but that can be mitigated by replacing them by other means which many gardeners do anyway.
For the record I leave my hedge cutting (mainly beech) stay where they fall, at the back of the borders. Except where they fall on the lawn. I rake up the autumn leaves and throw these to the back of the borders too. I fill one large ex-bark bag each year with some leaves to make leaf mould for potting. Turned black-side out for better garden aesthetics.
I still need a compost heap for lawn mowings, herbaceous clearings, kitchen waste, and some comminuted hedge cuttings.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
bédé, as a chemist, you may be interested in the following article - and I would be interested in your thoughts of the ‘traditional’ V ‘contrarian’ approaches. I must say I’m inclined to side with the contrarians.
I cannot speak for the credentials of the Canadian author, who claims a background in chemistry and biochemistry, but food for thought..
Any scientist is trained to be sceptical (maybe had that character bias before deciding to study science).. So a bias towards "contarian", but after years of academic study, also a good knowledge of the "traditional".
I have pulled up your link and will read with interest. But I have also just done a lot of researching of my own whilst thinking about the subject.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
There was a piece on Beechgrove a year or two ago where they visited a garden where the owner did that, just left all the clippings, dead heads, weeds etc on the soil. It seemed to work.
Wouldn't it use up the nitrogen though? Believe that's the reason why farmers don't let straw rot on the fields after a combine has passed through.
Rotting vegetation causes an explosion in the bacterial and fungal population. They may be "eating' the cellulose, but they need a lot od Nitrogen to help this. When the cellulose and the like is all gone, they die, returning the N to the soil (and to waterways). Farmers are simply saving time..
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Whilst 'the_gravity_man" is musing, I am more grandiosely carrying out "Gedankenexperimente".
Imagine one plant, say a rose, all the cuttings, leaves and flowers that are cut or fall during the year are returned. Would that be enough to feed the plant for a year? Not necessarily the first year.
(If you don't like the idea of composting rose cuttings or diseased leaves, burn them and just use the ash. You will need to look elsewhere for N.)
If the plant needs more minerals, it will send roots out looking. A certain amout of N is fixed by soil bacteria, and the roots can go looking for that as well.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I'd never leave grass cuttings around plants. Just becomes a horrible, sludgy mass here
If I didn't have a compost bin, and had a hedging/shrubby area where it could easily be hidden at the back, I might do that. I do it with old plants that are too rooty/solid for the compost bin anyway. It's not going to be bonny though, so it would all need to be well hidden - easier if there are evergreen areas.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I think we make feeding far too complicated. My garden gets a Spring feed with a general purpose fertiliser, Roses, Clematis get a shrub feed, which is repeated, and Dahlias, Cannas and other tropicals, get fortnightly Tomato feed.
Everything gets well mulched.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Posts
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I rake up the autumn leaves and throw these to the back of the borders too. I fill one large ex-bark bag each year with some leaves to make leaf mould for potting. Turned black-side out for better garden aesthetics.
I still need a compost heap for lawn mowings, herbaceous clearings, kitchen waste, and some comminuted hedge cuttings.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I have pulled up your link and will read with interest. But I have also just done a lot of researching of my own whilst thinking about the subject.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Farmers are simply saving time..
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Imagine one plant, say a rose, all the cuttings, leaves and flowers that are cut or fall during the year are returned. Would that be enough to feed the plant for a year? Not necessarily the first year.
(If you don't like the idea of composting rose cuttings or diseased leaves, burn them and just use the ash. You will need to look elsewhere for N.)
If the plant needs more minerals, it will send roots out looking. A certain amout of N is fixed by soil bacteria, and the roots can go looking for that as well.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border.
If I didn't have a compost bin, and had a hedging/shrubby area where it could easily be hidden at the back, I might do that. I do it with old plants that are too rooty/solid for the compost bin anyway.
It's not going to be bonny though, so it would all need to be well hidden - easier if there are evergreen areas.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Everything gets well mulched.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border