Do sheep pellets make good worm food?

[SmokingWings]

Here's a trivia question: Why do you often see roses planted at the end of the rows of grapes?

Thank you for the question. It is thinking about these types of trivia that add to the enjoyment of 'gardening' as a hobby.

I know the answer but I cheated so I can't win the prize. Maybe next time.

 

[SmokingWings]

I didn't realize how much work went into making compost. Dalton's Organic compost is what I currently use but it doesn't say what ingredients it has in it so I don't know what the quality is like.

Probably way to hard to figure out the percentages of all the various materials that go into it. It is the end product that we call compost that is the ingredient in the bag.

Commercial compost piles have an optimum size so they say. It has to do with the heat generated during active decomposition and the surface area exposed to the air and the rains. Once the pile gets to a certain size a new pile is started.

In a commercial compost farm each pile can have different materials mixed in depending on the time of the season but when it is time to start filling bags they likely bull doze it all together and push it onto conveyor belts.

 

[Stunger]

Wood, whether chips, sawdust or chunks, brings a lot to the party.

Wood is the most abundant 'brown' to add to all the green that is available during the growing season. Adding only 'green' tends to produce a compost pile that easily becomes waterlogged and slow to dry out. Wood will absorb the water and slowly dry out as it releases water back to the other materials during dry periods. As the wood gets moist it will decompose a bit faster.

Wood does not mat down like 'green' ingredients usually do so it helps by adding air pockets which can provide the oxygen needed by the micro-organisms. These air pockets get rebuilt and the air exchanged every time a compost pile is turned over and remixed. Pieces of wood, as it decomposes, develops air pockets inside the piece. Once this starts it attracts and holds micro-organisms. These organisms can repopulate a compost pile that has dried out within hours of the pile getting wet again.

Wood does need more nitrogen to feed the micro-organisms but once they are done with those sticks, chunks and sawdust it is all returned many times over. Plus the very small pieces that might take several more months or years to break down because of the density of their carbon help maintain the tilth or fluff of the soil.

Peat Moss is made up of centuries of what is left over of all the 'wood' that piled up in the peat bogs. Some of those small pieces that we find in our bales of Peat Moss were larger when they originally fell to the ground. We tend to call it inert and not of nutritional value but that would change under the right conditions.


The same can be said of sheep manure, bat guano, Kelp meal and all the other components we use in either our 'organic' or 'natural' soils or growing media. It is what comes from each of the components that makes any and all of them great for growing cannabis.

A couple of observations about wood. Wood sitting at the bottom of a lake can take centuries to decompose. A piece of wood buried under the soil can take just as long. A piece of wood, like a standing dead tree or a pole decomposes the fastest in the area touching the soil.

You make some great detail about wood for compost. I have saved and put aside rotting wood that I will use in the veg garden and which I would have no problem adding bits of to a cannabis grow, but my concerns with wood is with the commercially sold compost/soil products. Where I live, most/all bagged soil/compost does not in my opinion adequately list the ingredients or the percentage of ingredients contained. Whereas, I have seen pics of baggage from other countries that listed it in fantastic detail. I feel most of what is sold locally to me in the big stores, is pretty crap to be honest, and some of the stuff I've seen appears to be mostly wood chips that look far too 'uncomposted'. You make some good and great points, I'm just a bit biased from what is available commercially in my area!

 

[SmokingWings]

I'm just a bit biased from what is available commercially in my area!

I understand 'cause I get that way myself.

Several years ago I bought one of those bags of compost (with an unfamiliar name) from a big box home improvement store. Mostly because I was curious to see what was in there. I saw the occasional clump of packed soil, some clumps of clay, and big and small sticks and pieces of wood.

There were some small pieces of twisted up Plastic which told me that the stuff probably came from a commercial operation rather than smaller artisan or craft composting business. We will run into some serious problems eventually if we do not do something about the amounts of micro-plastics that is accumulating in our waters and soils but that is a conversation for another time.

None of this bothered me. I just wanted to know what was in the bag. The price per bag was really cheap, like about $2 plus some pennies for tax.

I continue to go to a local gardening center down that road that caters to the people who want landscape designers to plan out their new patios or back yard shrub beds along the fence. The kind of place that charges more for just about everything they have but that is the type of customer they keep. I go to the place because of their large side lot that is covered with loading bays filled with different soils, composts, sands, stones, wood chips of every conceivable size and color and so on.

Tell the person behind the counter up front that I want a 'yard' of compost. Back my truck up to the right pile and some guy riding an end-loader dumps an acceptable amount in the back. At home I spread some over selected shrub or garden beds. The rest goes into large plastic pots to finish 'cooking' so it will be ready each time I put together some sort of soil mix.

 

[greenjeans]

I can't see sawdust as being a great cannabis growing component,

Supposedly it is good to add to the compost worm bin but you have to watch that it doesn't dry things out too much. I haven't been doing it much because around my messy shop I never know what is in it. But Lately I will use the shop vac to clean up around my lathe and add that to the bin that is being prepped as bedding. I have just finished my new Trommel style sifter and am anxious to give it a go - it is sooooo much quieter than the shaker style and I'm hoping much more effective. Pics to follow!!

 

[Rolling Green]

Have always had a compost pile for the garden ever since around 10 years old. When I moved out of my parents house and bought this house started a compost pile right next to the deck by the back door. Everything goes into the pile and have even thrown old socks and clothes in occasionally and they eventually disappear. The Tree of Heaven and other nuisance trees which spring up here and there get cut up into three or four inch long pieces tossed on the pile. Have never turned over a pile or watered it or any other additives and just let the worms, centipedes, millipedes, earwigs, sow bugs, do what they do best but it does take a long time. I find that birds tend to eat some of the egg shells from the pile and in the snow often see skunk, possum, and coon tracks that have picked what they wanted from the pile.

I originally got the idea to compost after reading an article in an Organic Gardening magazine as my parents previously just put all of the food scraps in the garbage. Quite a few of my friends and workmates have gardens but know of no one else that has a compost pile.

 

[Diatomacious]

Sheep pellets are a mix of sheep manure and sheep wool if you don't know, and I want to start building a good soil in my new grow area for next season (which is 8 months away) by attracting local worms to my grow spots.

So does sheep pellets make good worm food?

Sheep is the absolute best manure you can use. We use to put tons of sheep manure from the barn into the garden before planting in the spring. I have never seen it burn a plant once... they all seem to just love it as a food. Horse, cow, chicken will all burn plants if you use too much. You could probably grow in 50% sheep manure and the plants would love it (that's probably way more than you would need to use though). The extra wool shouldn't hurt anything either I would think.

 

[greenjeans]

As promised - here is my new Trommel Sifter!!! And I didn't have to go to town to buy anything!!! Now to pick out the most done bin to run thru it!!!

 

[Phytoplankton]

Something to do with attracting predatory insects?

Why do they plant roses at the end of rows of grapes?

The answer is: they plant roses at the ends of the rows because roses are like canaries in a mine. Grape vines are affected by several diseases and pests, root nematodes, glossy winged sharpshooters, leaf rust, etc. Roses are even MORE sensitive to the pests and diseases that affect grapes, so if the roses start to die they know they have a problem in the vineyard.

Kinda ingenious!

 

[Phillybonker]

Sheep is the absolute best manure you can use. We use to put tons of sheep manure from the barn into the garden before planting in the spring. I have never seen it burn a plant once... they all seem to just love it as a food. Horse, cow, chicken will all burn plants if you use too much. You could probably grow in 50% sheep manure and the plants would love it (that's probably way more than you would need to use though). The extra wool shouldn't hurt anything either I would think.

Yeah I only really wanted to use the sheep pellets for worm food and I was worried that once I add my other amendments later on it might burn the plants. So that is good to know it shouldn't burn plants.