Help Need a Macgyver of Organic soil

Go to a nursery supply store and get lava rock for aeration should be cheap. Get a bale of peat moss and mix it up with your chicken compost. Add your other stuff and you should end up with something decent.

 

My take on it is the chicken manure is not composted - or aged.

J

 

You need to compost the manure first, its wayyyy too hot in raw form. Had you started all this 2 months ago you'd be bangin'...start composting it now and it may be ready in time mid summer to top dress for flower...I'm in the same boat
 
Hard to really remedy much on $20 except to maybe grab a bale of peat, a bag of perlite, kelp meal and gypsum (and some crab / crustacean meal if you can afford it). 50% Peat, 25% aeration, 25% EWC. Mix the kelp and gypsum one cup of each per cu. ft of mix. 
 
I recommend gypsum as I'm pretty sure Ohio has a lot of clay natively...with this mix you might be able to combine it 1:1 with native and make it go a little further and add a richer nutrient profile...
 
Best of luck man

 

To be realistic, for $20 you can score a couple bags of Kellogs organic potting mix and a small bag of Espoma *tone* of your choice. That's it. The Espoma is close to $10 and the Kellogs is ~$5/bag.

Maybe a handfull or 2 of the chickeb poo at the bottom of the hole, but do NOT add it too the mix. Unless you want a painful lesson on why we compost it first.

Good luck!

Wet

 

To make this as simple as possible - like Kesey said, get that chic manure composting NOW. In the meantime put together some actual compost, aeration and at least kelp meal. Prepare the holes by mixing these items in 50/50 (1:1) with your native soil. If you can afford it get a bale of peat, too.

Mid summer once your chicken manure is composted then you can work it into the top 3"-4" with your fingers, leaving another 3"-4" on top to act as a mulch top dressing, watering it in well.

Full sun and big holes. Don't make little 1 gallon holes; I'd go at least 20 gallon sized. Full sun all day is important if you can.

Organic gardening really isn't "mcgyver" style gardening - it takes time and planning ahead. You still have plenty of time but your $20 isn't going to go very far. You're going to spend half of that in your gas tank picking up supplies.

J

 

It IS easy, as easy as anything in life could be, but "for best results", I guess, just like anything, it's (usually) best to plan ahead.

Now, you (very easily) *could* put together a very nice, high grade potting soil with the resources you have; my own potting soil is made from 95% materials from my land. I did top dress with some neem cake and kelp meal, and I'll ocassionally make a tea by soaking those items or maybe a fistful of chicken manure, but everything else is from my leaves, my kitchen, our horse and some Dynamic Accumulator plants growing on my property. The big, major difference here is that I've had TIME; whereas you have none... Lol - this potting soil has been breaking down for years now.

So this means that with no real time, you're going to have to purchase a few items but the twenny Bucks may not cut it. You might need to do the overtime thing for a few weeks.

Can you get some good compost? Can you ask The Chicken Lady if there's any way you could fill several contractor grade trash bags with some of her chicken poo that has broken down for several years now? It's almost a guarantee that she has a big pile of material that's been sitting much longer than everything else… good, quality compost will make or break your outdoor plants. You NEED this. Maybe some black clothing, a shovel and your local farmers compost heap? just kidding - but GET THE COMPOST.

You're going to need to buy yourself a bale of Pro Mix. Many gardeners will tell you it's cheaper to just buy a bale of Sphagnum Peat Moss but I'm trying to save you the trouble of having to buy both lime and aeration. Pro Mix or Sunshine Mix comes pre-limed and already has some perlite mixed in.

So now you've got compost and sphagnum peat (pro mix). This is a good "base" and you haven't spent much at all to get there. If you run down to your local Home Depot or hardware store chances are you can find yourself a 5 pound bag of kelp meal. Grab one of those and also grab a sack of chicken manure pellets. Look around and you will find these. You'll probably also want to pick up a 5 pound bag of blended organic fertilizer such as those made by Epsoma or Fertrell or Down to Earth. This is a whole bunch of different soil amendments mixed into one bag for convenience in a situation like you have.

After you mix up your compost and pro mix I would add, for each cubic foot of "base", (A cubic foot is around 7 1/2 gallons) a cupful of kelp meal, 2 cups of chicken manure pellets and one cup of the blended organic fertilizer. Mix it all up real good and then moisten it thoroughly, and then set it aside somewhere, maybe in a big tote, wheelbarrow, trash pail etc.

You'll want to let this set for a couple of weeks before you use it so that the fertilizers that you added have a chance to start breaking down.

After you dig your hole you could mix some of this in with your native soil, providing the native soil is it least fairly decent. At the very least you're going to want three of 4 gallons of good soil around each plant, and then you could have native soil mix it in with your good soil around that. Big holes with a lot of soil will equal big plants and small holes with a small amount of good soil will equal small plants.

You know this might cost $40 or even $50 - i'm not sure offhand but I think it's the cheapest way that you've got to go and still have a good harvest this fall.

Good luck dude.
J

 

you don't need a compost innoculant.  with chicken manure add a TON of carbon and mix well. . . also consider adding the best topsoil you have onhand.  Use high SOM (soil organic matter) and not chunky clay.  get some fine mesh ag lime/limestone (200 mesh) to keep pH in check.  add gypsum for calcium and loosening/aeration.  pearlite for the aeration.  if you are going to add something for P (chx poop is already high in P) do it when forming a compost pile.
 
You can make good compost in two weeks if your carbon:nitrogen ratio is good.  30-40% N to 60-70% C - do not use woodchips for quick compost.  find rotted manure, newspapers, whatever.  growing in straight compost is a recipe for nutrient imbalances and micronutrient issues, fyi.  fish/kelp will help.
 
if you're near lake erie, you likely have access to morgan compost/dairy doo and their potting mixes.  I'm doing an experiment with their 101-201-301 products right now.  Stuff is 10$ a bag, pH balanced and 301 has added micronutrients and humates ++ 
 
you can make good compost in two weeks.  you can likely find how to's on attra.org and rodale. just put that stuff on LIGHT, even if you have to repeat weekly, just so that you don't burn your plants!!!
 
most of the grow supplies at lowes are absolute junk.  how about 'sh!t' labeled topsoil that is municipal sewage sludge?!  Cow manure isn't a problem to my knowledge, but many people are wary of chicken (very hot) and horse (full of weed seeds).
 
if you're on clay with a high water table/poor drainage (ponding after heavy rain) plant in raised beds or mounds, not in holes.

 

"You can make good compost in 2 weeks"

I've been working at this a long time and have yet to see this. At 2 weeks my heaps are barely cooling down let alone providing me with mature, finished compost that is safe to use on a garden and especially not in a garden.

I'd like to see it though.

J

 

I agree Jerry. I compost in a bin that is black and gets pretty warm at times and I can't make it that fast. Maybe 4-5 weeks with enough nitrogen in it to get it hot.

 

I know. While there's no doubt that OP should be getting his chicken manure composting now, I'd have to bet that it would be at least the end of July before he could start to use it even as a top dressing and ID still be nervous at that point about adding it directly into a soil mix.

To be completely honest, and I'm sure that I go the extra mile but when I build a compost heap it's usually the following year before I'd use it and even longer (much longer) if I used leaves as a Carbon source.

I know the big compost companies like Coast of Maine etc make compost in much less time by turning it with specific equipment every few days, monitoring temperature and using specific "recipes" but in my own backyard it takes me much longer.

And that's fine.

J

 

Kelloggs Garden Products.
 
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Sewage_sludge_products
 
Thanks. But no thanks. Ditto on the Espoma. Ditto again on dolomite lime. Nevermind.

 

 
I just checked out your link on the Kellogs products being made from LA CA sewage sludge. Pretty gross - good call!
 
j