Long ago when we had a small garden with no room for a compost heap (pre-Daleks) I always used to dig a trench across the Veg patch, put all the composting material in it and when full, cover it over with the soil from the next trench and so on down the plot. It worked and the stuff disappeared into the soil with no trouble.
As long as the soil is not compacted then there should be enough oxygen (which the bacteria need) for the process to work.
I'm trawling the depths of my memory - I think I remember someone on GQT saying not to do this because when vegetable matter/grass clippings etc are dug into the soil they use up the available nitrogen in the soil in order to decompose, thus depriving your vegetables of the nitrogen they need.
Of course, if you had an area of veg plot that you could leave fallow while the stuff is rotting down that would be another matter.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
a friend of mine does the "hole in the ground" thing. He fills up the hole, covers with soil, and then excavates the compost - usually in spring. Seems to work for him, but for me sounds a bit back-breaking!
I've got a couple of daleks. When one is full I start filling the second and by the time that is full, the other one is usually cooked. I did find it took a while for my compost bins to get really active - now they take about 3 months in the summer but it used to be a lot longer. I think that's down to building up the worms and bacteria that do the work. I carefully transfer any worms into the uncooked bin and there is always some material that needs to go back in, presumably that means some of the microorganisms go back in too. And yes, "recycled beer" helps!
Hole in the ground works well! I have so much green waste in the autumn that once my daleks are full I excavate a trench in the veg patch and fill that, then replace the soil I dug out plus the excavated soil from the next trench alongside the first. I add in the comfrey leaves left over from making liquid fertiliser, shredded paper from the study.....anything really.
In the spring I just dig it all over, and it's always full of fat juicy worms.
Posts
Long ago when we had a small garden with no room for a compost heap (pre-Daleks) I always used to dig a trench across the Veg patch, put all the composting material in it and when full, cover it over with the soil from the next trench and so on down the plot. It worked and the stuff disappeared into the soil with no trouble.
As long as the soil is not compacted then there should be enough oxygen (which the bacteria need) for the process to work.
I'm trawling the depths of my memory - I think I remember someone on GQT saying not to do this because when vegetable matter/grass clippings etc are dug into the soil they use up the available nitrogen in the soil in order to decompose, thus depriving your vegetables of the nitrogen they need.
Of course, if you had an area of veg plot that you could leave fallow while the stuff is rotting down that would be another matter.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Well, I never had any problem with growing Veg on this system and that Veg patch fed us for the years we lived in that house.
Easy enough to add nitrogen to the soil in any case. Still better than throwing material away.
a friend of mine does the "hole in the ground" thing. He fills up the hole, covers with soil, and then excavates the compost - usually in spring. Seems to work for him, but for me sounds a bit back-breaking!
I've got a couple of daleks. When one is full I start filling the second and by the time that is full, the other one is usually cooked. I did find it took a while for my compost bins to get really active - now they take about 3 months in the summer but it used to be a lot longer. I think that's down to building up the worms and bacteria that do the work. I carefully transfer any worms into the uncooked bin and there is always some material that needs to go back in, presumably that means some of the microorganisms go back in too. And yes, "recycled beer" helps!
Stuff here http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg071303221378.html about not planting over trenches used for composting until decompostion has taken place - of course that wouldn't apply to beans as they fix their own nitrogen from the atmosphere
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hole in the ground works well! I have so much green waste in the autumn that once my daleks are full I excavate a trench in the veg patch and fill that, then replace the soil I dug out plus the excavated soil from the next trench alongside the first. I add in the comfrey leaves left over from making liquid fertiliser, shredded paper from the study.....anything really.
In the spring I just dig it all over, and it's always full of fat juicy worms.
Good luck.