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Anyone else into organic gardening around here?


dalsingh101

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On 09/12/2015 at 5:13 PM, dalsingh101 said:

 I think most composters know about the value of autumn leaves. One of biggest thing missing from most of our compost heaps these days is animal shit. Mainly because we have less and less contact with such animals and consequently less access to their shit. I remember my neighbor collecting horse shit that the rag and bone man's horse would drop on the road to put around his garden.  

Leaves are excellent for composting but this year I have been unable to get them from my usual source - the gurdwara, because the eco-terrorists decided to cut down the 20 odd trees to extend the car park.

Horse manure is excellent but getting it is hard. Meat eating animals toilet is not advised to be used as compost.

 

On 10/12/2015 at 1:05 AM, BhagatSingh said:

 

Your pee has good amount of nitrogen. Peeing on compost helps compost faster.
 

 

what about other waste in urine? would that have any effect on soil?

 

Not so long ago, human "manure" used to be collected and spread out on farmlands, before sewage system and such were invented.

Anyone else been for a dump in a field in India?

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2 hours ago, chatanga1 said:

Leaves are excellent for composting but this year I have been unable to get them from my usual source - the gurdwara, because the eco-terrorists decided to cut down the 20 odd trees to extend the car park.

Around autumn I notice a lot of bags of leaves around on the sidewalks, I haven't plucked up the courage to take some home yet in fear of looking like a hobo. Next year I will!

 

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Horse manure is excellent but getting it is hard. Meat eating animals toilet is not advised to be used as compost.

Yep. People don't put your dog or cat shite in! Bhagat you ever put your budgie shit in? 

 

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what about other waste in urine? would that have any effect on soil?

Urine is good because it contains urea, which is really ammonia that your body has converted to urea as ammonia is dangerous for you. Ammonia is NH3, so the urea breaks back down into ammonia in your pile, which then further breaks down into its nitrogen and hydrogen components - presumably the hydrogen wafts off as a gas leaving good old nitrogen in your pile. I personally don't piss on my pile, but I do occasionally have a piss around concrete corners of my garden because I heard that foxes don't like it. 

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Not so long ago, human "manure" used to be collected and spread out on farmlands, before sewage system and such were invented.

Anyone else been for a dump in a field in India?

 

 

Yep. That used to be done in pre industrial revolution in England. Someone used to collect the contents to toilets and take them to the shires in a cart.  

Yep, when I was a kid. Never saw it as fertilising the land though! lol

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On 11/12/2015 at 0:49 PM, dalsingh101 said:

Around autumn I notice a lot of bags of leaves around on the sidewalks, I haven't plucked up the courage to take some home yet in fear of looking like a hobo. Next year I will!

Yeah I have the same feelings. Unluckily there are no trees anywhere on my estate, but so I would feel a little weird going to other streets to gather them up. It was so convenient at Gurdwara, but I have noticed there are some areas where there are loads of trees and the temptation is always strong whenever I'm passing through.

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  • 2 months later...

It's about that time folks!

I planted some seeds indoors to plant out later when weather improves. So far have planted 3 different types of tomatoes, a few broad beans, spinach in pots and have some purple broccoli bootay on the go from last year. Going to do chillis soon as well. 

 

Will post pics soon. 

 

Anyone try ginger btw?

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  • 1 month later...

Have been preparing the garden over the last few weeks. The compost has come out great again this year.

The lassan was excellent over the winter months as well.

Am planting red and white onions this years as well as methi, methe, dhania and palak. Not going to try kadu this year. Last two years have yielded nothing.

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Same here. I've got about two sackfuls of compost this year. How much did you make?  

Put in a raised bed too, but haven't filled it up with soil/compost; thinking of using it as an open compost heap for the moment. The makeshift worm-farm is still going but it has only produced a tiny amount of castings. 

 

I haven't dug my lassan out from winter yet. How do you know it is time? 

 

I've got a load of perpetual spinach growing. Have had no luck with dhaniya. Got a few broccoli plants going, and am trying Swiss chard. 

 

Got a load of pea, tomato, french bean, runner bean (and some chilli) boottay on the go on the window cills. A couple of testers I planted out didn't survive. 

 

Weather is crazy. Can be warm one minute, windy as eff the next, and then freezing at night. 

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I use drums to compost. they are quite big but i usually get around 1/3 of them full of good compost. It's enough for garden space that I have. I would have had much more but have been unable to get leaves last year. This year if i get the opportunity I deffo gonna pick up some of the bags of leaves i come across. The soil under the compost bins were expectedly rich with worms.

I was thinking this year of using raised beds for something. I have put together a wooden box, and it's about 20 cms deep so would be ok for something like onions but haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Re lassan, the lassan we have started to go yellow and wilt at the ends. It will do this as warmer temps are not good for it, so I knew it was time to "kill" them, and send the soul onto it's next stage in jooni.

Going to give my apple tree one last year. It has been extremely poor in the last two years producing rotting shrunken apples. If same this year I will dig it out.

 

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44 minutes ago, chatanga1 said:

I use drums to compost. they are quite big but i usually get around 1/3 of them full of good compost. It's enough for garden space that I have. I would have had much more but have been unable to get leaves last year. This year if i get the opportunity I deffo gonna pick up some of the bags of leaves i come across. The soil under the compost bins were expectedly rich with worms.

I was thinking this year of using raised beds for something. I have put together a wooden box, and it's about 20 cms deep so would be ok for something like onions but haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Re lassan, the lassan we have started to go yellow and wilt at the ends. It will do this as warmer temps are not good for it, so I knew it was time to "kill" them, and send the soul onto it's next stage in jooni.

Going to give my apple tree one last year. It has been extremely poor in the last two years producing rotting shrunken apples. If same this year I will dig it out.

 

I'm going to prowl about for leaves this autumn too! Now that I look at my compost bin, it's really surprising how small a volume all the stuff I put in, becomes in the end.

 

I think my lassan is ready now then. I heard they sometimes flower on top. I was waiting for that. Gonna pull it out in the next few days then. 

 

What kind of spinach do you plant? 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pulled out one lassan (to test). Was crap. Didn't even form a bulb.... 6 months and the mf still ain't done! lol

 

Harvested my worm farm, got a good bit of worm castings...oh yeah!!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, so have everything down this year i the garden. Onions, methi methe, dhannia, poodna.

New ones I have tried this year are beetroot, and 3 different types of salad. I have put all the salads in a big box, and they are sprouting nicely. Some onions are just pushing through and the methe are as well.

I have planted 8 cherry seeds. They have sprouted and seem to be growing ok-ish (after a major mis-hap). I collected about 10 seeds and put them in a sealed bag with a little water in, around autumn last year. I had totally forgot about them and when i found them about 3 weeks ago, 8 seeds had started to sprout. Hope they survive. But I will be trying this every year now.

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I planted out a couple of pea plants. I've got a bunch of spinach growing (3 varieties, of which two have sprouted so far). Swiss chard. Some purple broccoli bootay have been planted out (but they are headaches to care for).

Runner bean bootay I planted out seem to have been damaged a bit from cold weather, let's see if they recover. 

Got french beans bootay going on too, they seem to be doing well indoors, will plant out soon if weather holds out. (One I planted out a few weeks ago died)

Haven't planted any tomato bootay out yet as seems too windy. 

Also, I notice that perpetual spinach seems to grow REALLY well in pots indoors (by a window). So I think I'll try doing this over winter and autumn too.  Be nice to have that to throw in a turka all year round. 

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Good stuff Dally. I struggled a little to get the garden soil texture good enough for planting this year because it's been raining a lot. I should really have done something in November last year after harvesting the fassal but will definitely try this year.

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1 hour ago, chatanga1 said:

Good stuff Dally. I struggled a little to get the garden soil texture good enough for planting this year because it's been raining a lot. I should really have done something in November last year after harvesting the fassal but will definitely try this year.

I'm disappointed with the relatively small amount of compost I made. It really does shrink down. 

How do you normally improve the texture of your soil?

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keep in mind that just as the human body would only be a fraction of what is now, without water, once the composting materials began to break down, they lose their moisture and mass. All you are left with is the dry cells. I usually have my compost bin filled up by the time I seal in November, but come April it's only a 1/3 of the size it was in November. Having said that it is enough to get all the gardening area covered.

To improve soil texture you need to dig and turn the soil so it is soft and loamy, meaning almost sand like. If you can push the fork in and and pull it up, with all the soil running down through the prongs it is good. When you push the seeds in they should go in effortlessly into the soil. This will enable the seeds to bed in well. If the soil is wet it clumps together and this is not good for planting. When it rains the soil will clump together around the seed and that is fine. If after planting there is no rain within 5 days, I will water the garden.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...
21 hours ago, tva prasad said:

We have oranges, lemons, spinach, potatoes (turned out prety good), muli, dhaniya, used to have tulsi (I miss it now) , padina, saron and a bunch of other stuff my parents and grandparents take all care I m too lazy.

Oranges? Which country are you in?

This year, pears have been disappointing. Apple tree has gone, it again produced very poor rotten apples. Had very good beetroot, dhania, padina, haalon, and spinach. Onions started off well, but then petered out. I know why and won't make the mistake of not planting them deep wnough next year.

Have tidied up the garden in preparation for winter and planted lassan throughout.

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  • 11 months later...
On 03/05/2016 at 9:56 AM, chatanga1 said:

I have planted 8 cherry seeds. They have sprouted and seem to be growing ok-ish (after a major mis-hap). I collected about 10 seeds and put them in a sealed bag with a little water in, around autumn last year. I had totally forgot about them and when i found them about 3 weeks ago, 8 seeds had started to sprout. Hope they survive. But I will be trying this every year now.

 

Anyone else been busy in the garden this year?

I have but unfortunately the souls in the cherry seedlings wanted a new jooni and they all left me.

 

On 28/07/2016 at 3:54 PM, chatanga1 said:

 Disappointed with pear tree though. Most of the pear-lings have fallen off because of wind. Next year  am thinking of wrapping the tree with a blanket whenever there are windy days.

 

You live and learn. This year I had already got a blanket to wrap around the pear if we  had any strong windy weather. We did indeed and I had to put it on the tree a couple of times, but it did the trick and this year we had lots more pears than last year. Although that wouldn't be difficult in itself as last year onyl 3 survived! I will be using this blanket a lot earlier next year as many pearling still did fall off.

Otherwise had really good onions, methi, dhania and kadhoos this year.

 

Have put down some lassan and they have started to come through very nicely.

 

Saw this on FB and am thinking of trying something similiar next year:

 

 

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  • 2 years later...

Gardening has been a bit of a washout for me this year. Having caught the damned corona virus in the months where I would have been doing the garden means that I have missed the proverbial bus. Will just be concentrating on my fruit trees this year. But it will give me an opportunity to clear the soil of weeds etc more thoroughly this year.

I have been informed that giving the garden a rest from planting/growing every few years is also very beneficial for it.

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