Composting?

[borg]

I know that this is a cooking forum, but noticed several about gardening,, so.
Does Live oak leaves make good compost? I have 7 BIG live oaks that drop their leaves sometimes twice a year, so have an abundance of leaves. What say?

[DerekP Houston]

I have 3 giant live oaks in my front yard, i compost their leaves. i mix it with lots of stuff I steal from neighbors though. It will break down eventually, faster if you run over it with a lawnmower to pick it up like I do. Anything organic is compostable eventually, just varies on how long it will take. If nothing else it makes excellent mulch for vegetable gardens as is, just not pretty.

[Hickory]

Oak leaves have a lot of tanic acid, to 'sweeten' it up add some lime to the leaves this will help break them down too.

[borg]

Would Oak ash work?
I have run the lawn mower over it, Twice, and it is almost powder. I can't get any other organic,,, except horse manure, which I will be picking up a truck load tomorrow.

[rancher1913]

make sure the manure you get is not tainted with herbicide, some pastures and hay fields are being sprayed with a long acting herbicide (think really long lasting roundup) and it passes through the animal and stays in the manure, 100% legal and works good to control weeds but bad news for gardeners that use it. milestone is one brand but there are several out there.

[pcolapaddler]

I'm certainly no expert, but I too have a good crop of oak leaves each year and I have done some composting. I think oak leaves will make good compost. As others have said, by themselves, they will decompose a bit slowly. The addition of some other vegetable matter would probably hasten the process. Shredding them with a mower, etc will not only reduce their volume but should speed up the process as well.

One additional ingredient that may help would be the introduction of worms. They will probably thrive more if they have something to eat other than oak leaves -- kitchen vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags and such. The shredded leaves could act as a bedding material while the other material serves as food. I haven't tried a lot of leaves with worms, but I can't think it would hurt -- other than the worms leaving for 'greener' pastures.

[smokeywolf]

You want carbon, nitrogen and calcium; no seeds, no citrus.

I didn't know about the horse manure and the possibility of introducing herbicides.

[borg]

Well, I picked up the load of horse, I noticed when we were loading , it had a very SLIGHT smell of ammonia. Is that going to be a problem composting? Do you think a ratio of 3 horse and 1 chopped leaves will be alright? ( no herbicide on the horse, grown in house)

[Hickory]

The ammonia is from the horse urine, good stuff, mostly nitrogen.

[DougGuy]

We composted oak leaves from Willow Oak, it takes a cpl yrs piled up in the corner of the yard to break down but once it does, oh man it makes good compost. Lots of worms and it has that "earth" smell about it. I don't mix anything with ours I just dig it in as needed to the beds.

[Hickory]

I have a book for you. But you need to have access to Amazon and their books.
You can get a free app at Amazon's web site and look up this book. Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring, Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow Them. By Anonymous.

This book is free, if you have a Kindle the process is easier. Even though the book is over 100 years old, the information is timeless.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fi...ef=sv_kstore_5

[Half Dog]

The ammonia is from the horse urine, good stuff, mostly nitrogen.

WOW. This brought back memories of mucking horse stalls.

Oak leaves take time to decompose but in the mean-time, it helps to keep the soil from compacting. It helps with the black dirt in my area but according to my MaMa, this black dirt is great for growing cotton.

[borg]

Thanks for the link, will DL tonight. Still need to know ratio I should mix, I have 3 X horse than I do leaves after being mowed.

[Hickory]

Here's another book you may like at Amazon books & it's free.
Organic Gardener's Composting. By Steve Soloman

[Hickory]

Thanks for the link, will DL tonight. Still need to know ratio I should mix, I have 3 X horse than I do leaves after being mowed.

This is from the first book I mentioned,
American market gardeners deem it entirely safe to use fifty to seventy-five tons of barnyard manure to the acre of ground in their intensive cultural operations. American farmers seldom apply more than ten or fifteen tons of such manure to the acre in the open field.

[borg]

Thanks again. What about using oak ash for "sweetner" and how much?

[Hickory]

Thanks again. What about using oak ash for "sweetner" and how much?

It's in the books.

[rancher1913]

This is from the first book I mentioned,
American market gardeners deem it entirely safe to use fifty to seventy-five tons of barnyard manure to the acre of ground in their intensive cultural operations. American farmers seldom apply more than ten or fifteen tons of such manure to the acre in the open field.

one year we had extra and I put 300 tons on 5 acres, plowed it under, we had a great garden that year. I know the tons because I had to weigh the truck and keep records for the dairy I got it from.

[borg]

To let ya'll know, the compost is ready according to the x-pert at Red Barn, The reason it broke down so fast was, most of the plant material was leaf mold under a thin cover of leaves. Had to start another pile twice the size of the first. If I can mow the mold twice a month, I will be able to cover my whole 3/4 acre with 6" by next Dec. LOL
The 'post is a magnet for all the worms in the 'hood, didn't have to buy any.

[johnson1942]

when you make compost here is a simple secret to break it down well into organic material no matter what is is to use on your garden. from a good hardware store get the septic tank bacteria and put a bottle of that mixed into your compost and it will break it down in short order into good compost. mix epsonsalts(magsulfate) with the compost and a little born from the farm fertilizer store. then you got the real deal compost. any time you can get a buy on alaska fish fertilizer mix that in also. nothing better than the above.