On 09/18/2016 06:03 AM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
...
And since I will be putting vegetable scraps at the bottom,
how long should I wait before planing the bulbs? Can I
do it the same day?

since i didn't answer this part and haven't seen
it addressed elsewheres...

when you use veggie scraps it depends upon what
type they are as to how far and how much time you
would give it.

the wetter and more fungi or other questionable
things going on the further away and more time you
want to put them from your bulbs. how much stuff
you putting down there? an inch or less?

because i worm compost the veggie scraps here
they can be planted right into directly (worm poo
is dominated by bacterial species which will die
off as the worm poo ages -- similar to how human
poo bacteria will also die off as the poo ages, but
i would never plant human food directly into human
poo).

so given that information and further thoughts
i generally only isolate things that are going to
actively ferment and rot (green stuff, fruit scraps,
spoiling meats, fungi laden stuff) from the plants
and seeds by about four to six inches of dirt.
as the stuff rots the dirt settles, so i also leave
some extra up top to compensate for that.

oh, meat stuff i would bury deeper so that the
critters/flies don't smell it or dig it up.

this all reminds me, i have a bucket of tomato
trimmings to bury.


songbird


Hi Songbird,

I chop it up with a shovel. It comes out to about
1 to 3 inches loose packed when I am done. Then I
cover it up with dirt mixed with peat. (I don't have
leftover extra dirt, as at least half of the dirt is
rocks.)

The vegi scraps consist of avocado skins and seeds (which
I whack with the back of my ax), jicama skins, tomato
rinds, failed zuke fruit, lettuce trimmings, parsley
stalks, garlic wrappers, ends of carrots, ends of
cucumbers, purslane stems, bolted purslane (whole plant),
pepper ends, melon rinds, and so and and so forth. Plus
any weed that was foolish enough to invade my garden (not
dandelions as I am afraid they will sprout). I
keep a bag I fill with vegi scraps as I cook.

And, I plant about 4" above the scraps. The idea is that
when the root get long enough to reach the scraps, they
will be broken down.

The one time I have to dig up one of my holes to make
it deeper, I only found one onion skin that had not
decomposed. The rest had vanished. The hole was about
two weeks old.

I really do not know what the effect of a new plant
would be sitting on top of a bunch of vegi scraps. I
would like to not wait so long that nutrients get washed
away before the plants above it can take advantage.

But then again, I do not know what I am doing.

-T