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soil-media How to start right??

P

PepperCaper

Hello all. I am new to the community and to pepper growing in general. I live in Colorado and the native soil in my yard consists of a lot of clay. I want to start building up some humus soil but curious what would be some good recommendations to get me started on the right foot so I have a good amount for next year? I do have a 32 gallon trash can that I drilled some holes in and have started throwing kitchen scrapes and stuff in so that can start breaking down but wanted to see what you all would recommend to set myself up for success next year? Would it be beneficial to plan to just reach out to a local landscaping company near me to get a truck load of soil dropped off to start with and amend from their or keep doing what I am doing with the kitchen scrapes and such? Also, I live in a neighborhood where our houses are pretty close together so I do have to be careful on how I set things up so I am not offending the neighbors or getting HOA called on me because my compost stinks. LOL!! Any suggestions welcomed with open arms!! :)
 
Hey @PepperCaper , it's a good thing that you did some rudimentary analysis of your soil and identified it as not being ideal. I've never had to amend rocky, clayey or otherwise difficult soil so I can't speak from experience if that's the road you want to take, but here are some tips/ideas to start you off on the right foot:

Regarding your approach to growing, keep in mind that you have choices. You can choose to grow in that soil after amending, you can build reasonably deep raised beds and add soil that you've purchased, or you can choose to grow in containers (or you can choose to try all three just to see what happens). Personally, if you do decide to go the in-ground route, I'd still take one or two peppers that you really want a harvest of that year and grow them in decent sized grow bags and treat the in-ground as an experiment for the first year or two.

I don't believe that simply amending clay with homemade compost is a good route to take. A primary issue with clayey soil is drainage, so your amendments should include sand and larger particle matter that would improve drainage. Compost also retains moisture. So when considering soil amendments, do some good research and see what would work best for what you have.

That being said, you're definitely doing a good thing with making your own compost. Kitchen scraps are great, but they're nitrogen heavy and contain a lot of greens. A really good, healthy compost idea is to take your fallen leaves in the autumn and mix them with fresh grass clippings, and compost them. Remember to add water and turn the compost from time to time. It's a great compost, doesn't smell, and doesn't cost anything. Not advising against using kitchen scraps, but simple leaf-grass clippings compost is really dynamite. Don't throw away what you've already started, just do some adjusting along the way by adding some browns if you need, and then pick up the leaf-grass idea in the fall.

Last, if you do decide to order topsoil, please have it tested for contaminants and heavy metals before acquiring it. About 10 years ago I had a nightmare in the form of what was supposed to be healthy organic topsoil that ended up being full of lead.
 
NJChilehead said:
Hey @PepperCaper , it's a good thing that you did some rudimentary analysis of your soil and identified it as not being ideal. I've never had to amend rocky, clayey or otherwise difficult soil so I can't speak from experience if that's the road you want to take, but here are some tips/ideas to start you off on the right foot:

Regarding your approach to growing, keep in mind that you have choices. You can choose to grow in that soil after amending, you can build reasonably deep raised beds and add soil that you've purchased, or you can choose to grow in containers (or you can choose to try all three just to see what happens). Personally, if you do decide to go the in-ground route, I'd still take one or two peppers that you really want a harvest of that year and grow them in decent sized grow bags and treat the in-ground as an experiment for the first year or two.

I don't believe that simply amending clay with homemade compost is a good route to take. A primary issue with clayey soil is drainage, so your amendments should include sand and larger particle matter that would improve drainage. Compost also retains moisture. So when considering soil amendments, do some good research and see what would work best for what you have.

That being said, you're definitely doing a good thing with making your own compost. Kitchen scraps are great, but they're nitrogen heavy and contain a lot of greens. A really good, healthy compost idea is to take your fallen leaves in the autumn and mix them with fresh grass clippings, and compost them. Remember to add water and turn the compost from time to time. It's a great compost, doesn't smell, and doesn't cost anything. Not advising against using kitchen scraps, but simple leaf-grass clippings compost is really dynamite. Don't throw away what you've already started, just do some adjusting along the way by adding some browns if you need, and then pick up the leaf-grass idea in the fall.

Last, if you do decide to order topsoil, please have it tested for contaminants and heavy metals before acquiring it. About 10 years ago I had a nightmare in the form of what was supposed to be healthy organic topsoil that ended up being full of lead.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the response and I should have also mentioned that I do intend of try the 3 growing methods that you have mentioned but did want to try and turn some parts of my backyard into a garden area and build some fencing and such around it. It sounds like that might be the ideal solution long term and just enclose the area(s) I would like to have gardens and then just add layers on top of the clay deep enough that I would be able to provide whatever I am growing with healthy soil before any roots may reach the clay?

And for my current compost bin I have added some tree clippings, one bag full of grass clippings, some leaves I already had still around my yard and I have also taken some of the leaves from my plants growing this year that either got a little sun scalded or otherwise damaged (ensuring it wasn't due to infestation of any kind) or that I pruned off of some of my larger plants like my pumpkins and squash that are getting a bit unruly. Another thing I had seen people do and/or recommend for browns is just left over cardboard or brown packing paper that you get when receiving shipments. Any harm adding some of that to the compost as well assuming it doesn't have any dye's or plastic coatings or anything on them?
 
I reccommend putting in the effort to do a "correct" compost pile. The stink of your pile is a red flag it is atvleast anarobic and needs more "browns". You can consider buying in browns to correct ratios - one good source is sawdust pellets often sold as chicken bedding etc at feed stores.

But also sounds like your current pile is something you are just incrementally adding material to without real management. This will work in the long term (like 1 or multiple years depending on your conditions) or as worm bin (you must maintain moisture consistently and ensure composting worm population inoculation). But by default it wont reliably produce high quality compost in time for next season, youll have a ton of material in various levels of completion and things will move very slow.

If you want to do standard compost "right" you need to source a large volume of inputs in the right ratios of brown/green all at the same time on day 1, then turn the pile regularly for a month or so.

What works for me is to maintain a worm bin that gets consistent incrimental feedings over time (small amounts of yard waste, kitchen scraps) then separately to save up excess materials over time where they wont break down too much till i have enough to build a real pile (usually in fall whenver i have lots of leaves to use) then wet and combine everything youve been saving up and remember to turn it a couplectimes a week till its ready.

If i were you id consider buying red wigglers and converting your trash bin compost into a worm bin which should help with the stink and speed up the process. Youll still need to fix the anarobic issue first.

Then try to build a properly managed compost pile later in the year when you have lots of material all at once.
 
Flamecycle said:
I reccommend putting in the effort to do a "correct" compost pile. The stink of your pile is a red flag it is atvleast anarobic and needs more "browns". You can consider buying in browns to correct ratios - one good source is sawdust pellets often sold as chicken bedding etc at feed stores.

But also sounds like your current pile is something you are just incrementally adding material to without real management. This will work in the long term (like 1 or multiple years depending on your conditions) or as worm bin (you must maintain moisture consistently and ensure composting worm population inoculation). But by default it wont reliably produce high quality compost in time for next season, youll have a ton of material in various levels of completion and things will move very slow.

If you want to do standard compost "right" you need to source a large volume of inputs in the right ratios of brown/green all at the same time on day 1, then turn the pile regularly for a month or so.

What works for me is to maintain a worm bin that gets consistent incrimental feedings over time (small amounts of yard waste, kitchen scraps) then separately to save up excess materials over time where they wont break down too much till i have enough to build a real pile (usually in fall whenver i have lots of leaves to use) then wet and combine everything youve been saving up and remember to turn it a couplectimes a week till its ready.

If i were you id consider buying red wigglers and converting your trash bin compost into a worm bin which should help with the stink and speed up the process. Youll still need to fix the anarobic issue first.

Then try to build a properly managed compost pile later in the year when you have lots of material all at once.
Click to expand...
I am sorry all. I definitely tried to manage my post but there are so many additional details that I didn't clearly articulate which is on me but I was trying to be detailed but not write a novel. For the compost bin I have setup... I am not going crazy and between me and my family we are incrementally putting in kitchen scraps like fruits, veggies and egg shells as well as I am putting in browns like cardboard, leaves etc... I do take the lid off and give it a little bit of water from time to time and currently it doesn't stink.. I just meant in my earlier post that I don't want to do things the "wrong" way and have it start to stink and my neighbors complain. Right now it basically smells like dirt other than I did put a few pine clippings in but told my wife not to put too much in as I thought I read it would make the compost too acidic. So it is basically like a lightly pine smelling dirt. No decomposing odor at this time.
 
Hah no thats my bad, think i misread that part about your hoa. If its working and things seem to be breaking down and smelling good your doing ok. But ive personally never had a very successful compost that was done incrimentally like that without worms. I think youll find by next season you still have lots of un-broken down material.
 
I hate to be "that guy" but I am going to throw some advice in here that goes a little against what has already been said. I advise against thinking of composting in terms of "brown" and "green". Composting is the process of bacteria breaking down cellulose. When you talk of things like paper, tree clippings and cardboard you are talking about lignin from wood. Bacteria does not break down lignin, funghi break down lignin and it is a process which takes a long time. Correctly done, your compost bin should go from waste to fine ready compost within three months, half that if you have enough. Technically, if you can't gather enough scraps to fill a 1m cubed space for composting you can't generate the heat but I have seen styrofoam/insulated compost bins do it.

My advice to you is:
a) Don't buy in topsoil, you want municipal compost, more topsoil is only going to be more of what you already have at best.
b) Double dig your ground, maybe with rough sand and make sure it has a gradual fall as clay can let water stand. plus anything else you can do for drainage. Depending on the area, you may also want to dig a trench immediatly around your growing area.
c) Bury all your scraps and wood chippings too. No smell and the worm activity will help break up your clay. You need to go down at least one spit. Try it in trenches as you do with double digging.

I have grown like this in soil that was near pottery clay. Growing in clay soil can be a little extra effort but still productive.
 
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