Plan for this winter?

[OneDahlia]

I have a new garden bed in Virginia clay soil, and I want to amend it as much as possible this winter. If I layer horse manure/wood shavings/a little straw, plus grass clippings (no chemicals), leaves and coffee grounds right on the bed, it will decompose enough by spring, right? Do I have to shred the leaves? Should I turn it in with a pitchfork as I add it or just leave it alone until spring? And when should I stop adding stuff to give it enough time to decompose?

Also, I'm assuming that amendments like this and cover crops are an either/or situation, right? I wouldn't do both? Or maybe I should grow a cover crop, compost all the other stuff, and use it in the spring? But then I won't be able to apply as much of the amendments because I don't have a very big space to compost.

Is there anything else you would recommend adding? I haven't had a soil test -- figured I'd do that in the spring after all this stuff is part of the mix.

(Sorry if these are really basic questions!)

ETA: I just found a thread on horse manure. Hmm. Lot of varying suggestions there. I'm getting this from a friend who normally spreads it back over her pasture. Hoping that means it's OK for the plants. Last thing I want to do is cause new problems.

[Keiththibodeaux]

This far in advance, I would turn some in with a pitchfork, and then lay it on generously on top as well.

[dice]

You should mix some of the horse manure into container mix and do a
test germination of some susceptible plants to test for aminopyralid
contamination before using it in your garden:
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/aminopyralid/

You would not see it in a pasture, because grass is not affected by
aminopyralid, only broadleaf plants.

Someone from your state asked this same question back about 2007
or so. A retired (I think) landscaper working out in California suggested
a first amendment with 6-12" of hardwood chips for your type of soil.
There would be some nitrogen drawdown the first year (based on studies
in Africa where fields were amended with hardwood chips to test
repression of some soil disease), but the test plots showed no loss of
productivity in subsequent years, which I guess means that after the first
year carbon/nitrogen levels had normalized to what they were before
the fields were amended with hardwood chips.

So if you did that, you would want to add some higher nitrogen material
than tomato plants usually need for the first year (blood meal, fish meal,
etc). As for the rest of the stuff, you can just pile it up over the winter,
turn an inch or so of dirt on to the top of it in spring, and plant in it. Mulch
next year with leaves or straw or similar to keep the rain from washing it
out of the sides of the garden. It makes a kind of de facto raised bed, like
farmers making "hipped-up rows" with a plow.

edit:
Lasagna gardening:
http://organicgardening.about.com/od...agnagarden.htm

[casserole]

Why would you add coffee grounds ?

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Right now I am composting heavily directly into the soil....even this morning already. I'll even do it in spring right up before planting time. I started doing that religiously about 5 years ago and my soil looks so rich in the Spring time.

Every vegetable or fruit scrap and coffee grounds/egg shells along with heavy doses of grass clipping, pine needles and leaves. I'll keep turning it quite often until the ground freezes. I don't shread the leaves.

Everything always seems to be gone by planting time.
It's made such a difference since I started doing this. I had some absolute tomato tree stalks this past Summer....largest and healthiest plants I ever grew.

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by casserole

Why would you add coffee grounds ?

I've added coffee grounds to my garden beds (especially when I started new garden beds that needed to be built up) and to my compost bins. It's just another nitrogen source. The only caution is that if you get bags of free coffee grounds, they need to be mixed with other materials or covered up; if they sit on the surface and are thicker than about a quarter-inch, they can form a water-repelling layer. When I add them to my compost bins, I break up the chunks and then water them in, which helps sift them through the pile.

For a while I was experimenting with coffee grounds sprinkled on the surface as a snail and slug deterrent. (Concentrated coffee is supposed to be a snail/slug poison.) I'm not sure it worked, but it's time to try it again -- the baby snails are all over my garden, after a few years of hardly any snail/slug damage at all.

Several years ago, Merritt College in Oakland, Calif., started a permaculture garden on a steep dry hillside. They brought in free bags of coffee grounds and bales of straw to build up and protect the soil, and after a year or so it was nice rich soil that was producing lots of vegetables.

[OneDahlia]

Thank you for all the responses! I'll go ahead and start adding leaves and things now, and test the manure with some tomato seedlings. Wanted to test my first saved seeds anyway. (If they don't grow, then I'll test the two variables separately.)

I'm a bit afraid to deplete the nitrogen with hardwood chips, and actually don't think the ground is hard enough to need that. I was surprised -- it wasn't really bad to deal with. It wasn't lawn -- it's an area that was left to go completely wild for years, and I guess there was some natural composting going on.

[RayR]

Here's a good article on using coffee grounds in gardenung.

One thing is for sure, it's better to have the coffee grounds in your garden compost than to have it in the land fill. Spent tea is also good stuff, I think it has a higher N content that coffee also.

[dice]

What coffee grounds contribute to the soil:
http://www.sunset.com/garden/earth-f...0400000016986/

A good explanation of what was probably happening with the plants in
your wild area before converting it to garden use:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/p...ry/007522.html

[OneDahlia]

Originally Posted by dice

A good explanation of what was probably happening with the plants in
your wild area before converting it to garden use:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/p...ry/007522.html

Interesting! There were LOTS of roots.

[BigBrownDogHouse]

What coffee grounds contribute to the soil:
http://www.sunset.com/garden/earth-f...0400000016986/

Great info!

I remember my folks sprinkling them all around the yard as a kid.....or should I say they had me sprinkling them all over the yard. That was a good 35 plus years ago.
Back then I think the word was that they kept ants away.

Now I know about slug control(haven't had any recently) and the good stuff it adds to the soil and realize Mom and Dad were on to something.
Mom of course probably read it in Reader Digest.

[JerryL]

If you plan to plant in this new bed next year I WOULD NOT add wood shavings. I’m an avid woodworker and have plenty of shavings/sawdust available. I have on several occasions added shavings/sawdust directly to my gardens. First time in the spring, next time in the fall thinking it would decompose over the winter. NEVER AGAIN. In both cases my production was some of the worst I’ve ever had.

I now compost the sawdust with other material for a year and then add it to my gardens.

Read Dice’s third paragraph in post #3 about the study in Africa.

Just my two cents.

[OneDahlia]

Jerry, thanks. The manure is mixed with the shavings, but I'll try to pick up as little of the shavings as possible. (I get to pick it up myself. )

Question about testing the manure on some plants. I have a tomato plant in a pot that I can test it on, but the manure is not composted, so it will burn the plant anyway, right? How will I know if it has the problem stuff in it? I don't really want to have to pile it up till spring before knowing if it's ok to use.

[dice]

You can make manure tea and test that on the tomato plant in the pot.
Put a shovel full in a 5-gallon bucket and let it sit for week, stirring it maybe every other day with a stick or something.

Then filter it some way (one way is to use a big funnel with an old t-shirt
in the top), and water the plant with that. The symptoms of fertilizer burn
(leaf margins dieing and turning brown) are quite different from the
symptoms of aminopyralid contamination (leaves distorted, top of plant
twisting up as if it has a virus or has been hit with some 2-4,D wind drift,
etc.)

edit: Dow Chemical was doing some testing for aminopyralid
contamination for people that had amended their gardens with
manure and then were seeing those symptoms on their plants,
but I think they were testing soil samples rather than pre-amendment
manure samples.

[OneDahlia]

That's very helpful, Dice -- thanks! I'll do that.