Yesterday after work:
1. Meadows Farms Nursery. It's big and appears to be strongly oriented to landscaping. They had Black Kow in 50 pound bags for $10 each. Definite Maybe, but yikes on the price!
2. Manassas Topsoil. I tried to find them on the way back from the first place, and my GPS apparently lies, as I don't think there is a topsoil company in the middle of a ball park or the Manassas Museum. I was unable to find a street address via their website, so I may try the phone number, as they supposedly have leaf/grass compost.
Today at lunch:
3. Missed my intended target and wound up at a land development company. They scratched their heads when I asked for compost, then kindly directed me next door, to....
4. Shemin Nurseries, which looked wonderful. The employees were very nice, and broke the news to me gently that they (sob!) only sell wholesale to businesses. But they kindly referred me to....
Today after work:
5. Neff Brothers. Easy to find, but by the time I managed to get there, they were closed. I'm going to call them tomorrow.
The sad part is this: There are any number of places on Craigslist offering free, well-aged horse compost, just come and haul it away. I have the truck....contractor bags would be the easiest means of transporting the stuff, I think. But those locations are a good distance from here, and given gas prices and the terrible mileage the truck gets, it may make more sense to buy compost than pick some really good stuff for free.
Anyone got some nice compost? Hmmm?? I need 10 cubic feet more!
1 comment:
Works for me.
Accelerated Composting Experiments
Taking various combinations of materials, previous compost, active garden soil, liquid ingredients, etc. and putting them in a windrow less than 18 inches high, covered with weighted black plastic in a sunny area will usually find areas which compost really quickly. Take and store the compost from those quick areas.
Make compost tea from some of the stored compost. Use it to completly moisten a set of compostable material. Cover the material again with weighted black plastic. Check every few days (sunny ones only) and areas that have composted really quickly with a variety of compostable material need to be collected and stored.
Using this stored compost as tea and as mixing into compostable material along with some soil, even some complete soluble fertilizer can develop a complex mixture of strains of composting organisms and starter food that often completely compost a batch in under 7 days! Areas on the ground where this is done can store the organisms for the next year.
The method of putting this rotting material in a dark colored container in the sun can even compost quickly at the end of the season when there is so much trimmings that otherwise would set over the winter.
Keeping in mind that these communities of active composting organizms will not put on hiking boots, pack backpacks, carry water or food, so that they must be proactively spread evenly on all surfaces of the material along with a complete fertilizer and proper moisture in order to attack in waves and rot everything quickly.
Even material such as straw when only half rotted can then be placed anywhere in the garden with no harm to plants, making great mulch as it completes it's break down.
It is pretty important to ensure that the raw material is at or under a quarter inch of thickness in at least one of the three dimensions. The water, food and organisms kind of give out on thicker material.
Leaves which ordinarily become a soggy brick, if coated properly with the active tea solution also break down quickly.
This informational material may be used in any fashion you wish.
In the dear hope that this info helps many fine gardeners, I remain,
Hardy BackPlodder.
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