Volunteer Tomatoes and "Premature Compostation"

[gil1]

I came up about a ton short of compost this year and figured I'd dig into my stash that wasn't quite composted yet. The results are that I now have thousands of tiny volunteer tomatoes to weed out because the soil wasn't fully "cooked."

You can see the size of my regular tomato plant in the background compared to the little ones. Never again will I practice "premature compostation."

 

[Hawk]

One cannot express how important safe gardening is to the health of the plants.

 

[gil1]

One cannot express how important safe gardening is to the health of the plants.

:grin:

 

[WestTn Huntin man]

We compost quite a bit at our house. Just wondering how you get Tons of compost Gil. The only way I can get that much is by going to the stockyard and buying a truckload.

 

[LA man]

I did the same thing last year, except I left them growing. Big mistake, the hardly produced and took up a lot of space

 

[gil1]

I did the same thing last year, except I left them growing. Big mistake, the hardly produced and took up a lot of space

It's actually work. I have seven compost bins, and I need them all. I rotate them around since I plant three seasons, spring and fall cool season veggies and the regular summer veggie season. I "harvest" or pick up about 200 leaf bags and about 60 grass garbage bags, and I have to make sure none of those yards is treated with anything that's not organic.

I layer all these in throughout the year, water them a bunch, and add my own kitchen scraps, too. I add some of my fireplace ashes and get several hundred pounds of coffee grounds from Starbucks.

I turn the piles ever 15 days religiously. I wasn't realizing how much work it is until I wrote it out, but it's definitely worth it. :grin:

 

[WestTn Huntin man]

When I lived in Nashville and did a 90 X 90 garden I did more or less the same thing.It was a project of Davidson County Master Gardeners so I had some help.