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RE: Recycled Window Greenhouse
Hey @nateonsteemit!
Huglekuktur is good when you bury basically logs in the soil, but when you mix wood chips with dirt that isn’t good. Tends to cause like a soil stomach ache, throws of the ph. I find it best to layer things like nature does it and not mix, one of the reasons the “lasagna style gardens” tend to work well also.
The idea is to plant into the soil, and use the wood chips, leaves and other organic matter as a mulch. And every time it rains or you water, it’s like watering with compost tea because the water runs through the decomposing mulch.
I see! The videos linked by @rawutah helped me understand better. That makes a lot of sense.
I'm going to be calling arborists in my area soon, as I'd love to have a giant mountain of wood chips. I've not had luck with chip drop in the two months that I've had my profile set up with them.
What besides chicken manure can I add to help all these leaves break down? I'll be saving a hundred cubic feel or so as dry material, but there will be literal tons left over that I would adore to have as a giant hot compost pile. I don't have enough chickens to poop enough to make a car-sized pile of leaves hot (Weird sentence...). Would I be able to use manure from my parents horses?
Yes you can use horse manure providing that they haven't been given worming medicine. This is important because the medicine sterilises the manure and may retard microbial metabolism and reproduction, which is the source of the heat in compost. Although chicken manure is "hot", that is, quite high in nitrogen (or heat in this case), so you may have enough manure if you mix it well. 20% chicken manure, 40% green material (not from legumes) and 40% carbon material (dried leaves, woodchip is great or shredded cardboard). Watered to 50% moisture and turned when the temperature gets to about 60ºC. When you stick your hand in the pile and you aren't able to hold it there, that's when you flip it. Perfect moisture is when one handful of mixed material yields one drop of liquid. Most importantly the pile should not smell bad.
For other sources of nitrogen, try to use any available legume green leaf material. These form most of the plant family Fabaceae. If you're a big coffee drinker another idea is to dry out and
save your spent coffee grounds.