Category: Making garden beds from scratch

How did the compost bed, we partially rotary tilled and planted potatoes in, do?

Why are there runner ducks between the potatoes and what else was planted and was there anything at all to harvest?

This is about the compost bed in garden 3. If you would like to know how we made the compost bed, you can check following links.

Turning hey and straw into compost garden beds for our self sufficient living

Why are my compost beds not breaking down?

Tilling my experimental compost bed with a rotary tiller to plant potatoes

Well, after a while the first potato plants stuck up there heads (potatoes usually always grow). On some parts of the compost bed the potatoes grew better on some parts they did not thrive very well, but this was on both the rotary tilled and not rotary tilled part of the compost bed the same.

Potato plants in a tilled compost bed where not all potato plants are thriving
Potato plants in tilled compost bed
Potato plants in a no-tilled compost bed where not all potato plants are thriving
Potato plants in no-tilled compost bed

As spring progressed I planted some corn (a popcorn variety), 2 pumpkins and some amaranth in between the 2 rows of potatoes. In the spring, when all the plants are still so small, I always think “o, there is enough space. I can plant some more”. Well the potatoes hat been more then enough, but it was interested to see how the other crops did.

The pumpkins for instance, I planted one in the tilled part and one in the not tilled part. At least these plants gave me a good noticeable difference. The pumpkin in the not tilled bed did not thrive and eventually died. The pumpkin in the tilled bed did not thrive very well, but somehow lived and grew a little.

Pumpkin planted in between potato plants not thriving in a no-tilled compost bed
Pumpkin planted in between potato plants not thriving in a no-tilled compost bed
Pumpkin plant flowering in a tilled compost bed
Pumpkin plant flowering in a tilled compost bed

It was at this point we started to realize that we made a big mistake while building this compost bed. The compost bed is made out of straw, hay and sawdust. Straw and hay are “empty”. There is not much energy in this material, since the plant directed all of the energy into the seeds. So the soil developing from these components can never have much nitrogen. We need to at manure. The component we simply did not have until this spring when we got ourselves some chickens. After cleaning the chicken coop I simply divide the manure around the pumpkin plant, the one in the tilled part that still lived. Well, it helped, but the pumpkin still did not really thrive. I imagine, the soil just wasn’t really ready to use quite yet.

4 dwarf chickens on a pasture in front of a fence

As the season progressed the potato plants mostly did well and grew nice and big as did the weeds. I found an occasional cornflower.

Cornflowers in the potato bed
Cornflowers

The thistles are well spread out, luckily mostly around the edges of the compost bed and the bindweed is just taking over the complete compost bed. It literally is everywhere. The flowers are beautiful and the insects love them. I simply let go of the thought of weeding. I would not know where to start and I just do not have the time.

Bindweed all over the potato bed
Bindweed all over the potato bed

Then we got some runner ducks and put them on the pasture which includes this compost bed. The runner ducks are small enough, eat slugs and find hiding underneath the potato plants and the thistles (we have the type of thistle with big broad leaves). They where no problem at all, but then came the geese and destroyed the potato plants. I am glad the potatoes where already blooming at this point, so there would not be much growth anymore anyway. We started to harvest some potatoes here and there, because I wanted to compare both sides of the compost bed. At the tilled side we got a lot of smaller potatoes from one plant and on the not tilled side we got a few big potatoes from one plant.

Cleared potatoes in a tilled compost bed
Cleared potatoes in a tilled compost bed
Cleared potatoes in a no-tilled compost bed
Cleared potatoes in a no-tilled compost bed
Red & yellow potatoes each colour on a plate sitting on grass
Red potatoes from tilled compost bed, yellow potatoes from no-tilled compost bed

Obviously the potatoes are different varieties, so I do not think we can really conclude anything out of this experiment. What I noticed is that the soil in the tilled part was much more broken down, darker, nicer and looser than the soil in the not tilled part, which was to be expected. The potatoes in the tilled part grew in and underneath the compost layer we had build up. The potatoes in the not tilled part grew underneath the compost layer we had build up. So this was like growing potatoes under mulch, but that I had a hard time digging the potatoes up from underneath the compacted compost layer.

All in all I had a nice potato harvest with nice big potatoes and a lot of small potatoes that will be saved as seed potatoes for next year.

As far as the corn went, just a little higher as the potato plants, bearably surviving. The geese then overran them.

A few corn plants in between potato plants
A few corn plants in between potato plants

After I harvested all of the potatoes I dough out the one surviving pumpkin and planted it in another garden bed. The pumpkin liked it much better here. After a short time of setting it was thriving and it even set on some fruit. We will see if it ripens on time before the frost comes.

Pumpkin plant in a set no-dig bed with a pumpkin forming
Pumpkin plant in a set no-dig bed with a pumpkin forming

After the compost bed was cleared of all edibles and plants I wanted to keep my husband brought out a manure spreader full of fresh cow manure from our farming friend. This gave a thick layer of manure over the entire compost bed, which we then tilled in with our rotary tiller. I am not sure yet what I will plant in here next year, but there will be more then enough nitrogen in this compost bed next season.

Compost bed, black in colour from freshly spread cow manure
Compost bed, black in colour from freshly spread cow manure

As a finishing touch I sowed a mix of green manure and covered the entire compost bed with straw. Only I waited to long after tilling the compost bed with doing so. The compost bed was full of weeds again already. O well, we will rotary till this bed in spring before we want to use it again. I will probably never get rid of the weeds here, but that’s fine. Weeds aren’t necessarily bad.

A partially straw covered compost bed with weeds in the uncovered part
A partially straw covered compost bed with weeds

And we accidently grew a meal of peas in the tilled part. Peas from the chickenfeed we threw out. The pea plants partially did well and partially turned yellow. Some of the peas had worms in them, but the good once tasted well and the kid’s had a lot of fun peeling the peas.

Children picking pea pods
Children picking pea pods
Worm coming from a pea
Worm coming from a pea

Getting garden GOLD

We got 2 manure spreaders full with cow manure, coming direct out of the cowshed
The best thing ever when building garden beds from scratch

This is from the farmer we get our beef from and we are so happy with it. We got it direct out of the cowshed. As you can see on this picture the farmer is loading up the manure spreader.

Manure spreader being loaded with cow manure by a wheel loader, standing underneath the roof in frond of the cowshed

Back home my husband turned the manure of and made a nice big pile with the cow manure.

1st batch of cow manure being turned of the manure spreader in a big pile on an unused pasture
Second batch of cow manure being turned of the manure spreader in a big pile on an unused pasture

Obviously this is fresh and only for next years use. The temperature is at 140°C at the moment. Once this cools down we will load the manure up again and make a new pile, so air can get in again and the composting process will go on again.

Soil thermometer in fresh cow manure pointing at 140°C

We have been trying to compost hay and straw with not the success we where hoping for, since the material lacks the needed amount of nitrogen. Composting first uses a lot of nitrogen, which is released again after the process is done. In the fall we will already be using this manure on our compost beds to get them really going and have garden beds that are rich of nutrients for our plants next year.

A “thank you” to our donators.

2 cows standing in the sun eating hay

And the best thing is, there is more to come this winter.

Here is a link to our video about getting garden gold.

Tilling my experimental compost bed with a rotary tiller to plant potatoes

Tilling half of the compost bed to see if there will be a difference in potato harvest this fall

Finally we have finished the fence around garden 3, so the dogs can’t get in anymore, and it is potato planting time. I have been looking forward to finally starting to plant potatoes.

A little over 2 months ago we flail mowed over this experimental compost bed, hoping to improve the decomposing process. On top the result looked nice, but underneath the straw was untouched. At the time we did not have a rotary tiller, which we would have preferred to use, so we just let the compost bed be and see what happens with time.

Now, 2 months later, after doing some digging we found the compost bed looking quite ok, but obviously the material has not broken down completely. At least the rainwater could soak in and all of the material was wet and the decomposing process has progressed. There are a lot of earthworms in the compost bed, which is a good sign.

The compost bed is not finished decomposing yet and I hope it will be good enough for the potatoes to start in. Since I have way to little planting space for all of the potatoes it will have to do.

Rotary tilling a part of the compost bed

Recently we found a used rotary tiller for an acceptable price and where able to purchase this. Not quite curtain about the usability of the compost bed and I was worried that the rotary tiller would kill all of the earthworms, we decided to rotary till half of the compost bed and see if it will make a difference in harvest once the potatoes are done.

Tilling a compost bed with a rotary tiller

The rotary tiller we have purchased was modified by the previous owner, who had fixed the retaining board in a certain position. Normally the retaining board is hung up with some chains enabling the board to move up and down as needed. Using a rotary tiller for the fist time we just left that how it was. We tilled over half of the experimental compost bed twice and noticed that we need to do something about the rigid retaining board. Since the compost material is very moist the rigid retaining board pulled grooves in the material, which I closed by hand.

Compost bed has grooves after tilling with a rotary tiller

Starting half way the compost bed some material was thrown over back wards on the part of the compost bed we did not till. I shovelled that back and made the tilled part of the compost bed nice and evenly. The tilled part of the compost bed looked nice and fluffy and was much higher as the part we did not till. All of the different material was mixed together well (small parts, bigger parts, already decomposed material).

Now to planting potatoes

I only have a lot of small potatoes left in my storage and these are al sprouting. (Unfortunately I am buying potatoes for eating at the moment) This means I have more than enough seed potatoes and I did not buy any.

Sprouted potatoes

This does raise the question as to where on earth am I going to plant all of these potatoes? Well, I am starting in this experimental compost bed and just go from there.

In the part of the compost bed that we tilled, it was very easy to make a trench in the loose material.

Woman making a trench for planting seed potatoes with a hoe

On the other hand I very much regretted not to have tilled the entire bed while making a trench in the part that we have not tilled. This material was ratter compact and hard work to make the trench.

I made two trenches about 50-60 cm apart. The distance in the row could have been a bit more, but the compost bed is not wide enough for that.

2 trenches in a compost bed for planting seed potatoes

My son helped me and we planted the potatoes about 25-30 cm apart, paying attention to positioning the potato with the shoots pointing up. These shoots are going to be the leaves once grown out of the ground and need to be handled carefully. Some seed potatoes do not only have the shoots, but even already made some roots.

Last thing is closing the trench again. We planted different varieties and marked them with a number pack.

Experimental compost bed planted with seed potatoes and marking the different varieties with number packs

I only planted a fraction of the seed potatoes I have, so I am going to have to find some more solutions for all of these potatoes, but more to that in a different post.