Killer Compost. Please Advise

everything mushrooms, mushroom mountain and field and forest are all great! wood blewits grow on wood also but take more time to establish. i grow both. never know what will come up where.

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that works too just make sure you bury it plenty deep or you’ll have critters digging in there. i bury junk fish i catch from a local lake into hardwood sawdust i get free from a firewood business. makes beautiful rich soil. sawdust is finer so it breaks down faster than bigger chips. :wink:

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Fish Emulsions is very expensive and that is cheaper. Some of the cheaper methods take a strong stomach. We know as an example Asian carp are an invasive and must be removed so thankfully your helping to eradicate these species causing so much damage. They have been responsible for many boating injuries and decrease in native habitat.

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don’t think shiitakes will grow on chips but wood blewits and elm oysters will. i have 5 beds going under my big spruces. some i let fruit, some i use to grow the mycelium and transfer to my hardwood mulch under my trees and bushes. been doing this for 4 yrs. and have mushrooms coming up everywhere. helps break down the mulch quicker. spawn needs bare ground contact or it won’t take. i mix my chips , mycelium and water in a wheel barrow then dump on bare soil in the beds. i then try and turn some of the soil into the chips.put down a 3in. layer of straw to keep chips from drying out. water when you water your garden. takes about 6 months for wine caps to fruit. 4 mo. for elms, and a yr. for blewits.

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we have yellow perch that is invasive up here. they outcompete the native trout and salmon. i can catch 100 or so in a morning on a local lake. i throw them in a cooler and layer them in the sawdust. in 2 weeks i turn the pile and everything has already broken down. in 3-4 mo. its almost completely broken down. i wait 6 mo. to completely cycle. this is using sawdust not chips. i make fish emulsion by putting in a doz. fish ,a few gal. water , shovel of finished compost and a cup molasses in a 20 gal. tote . cover and place in a sunny spot where the smell won’t bother anyone. stirring occasionally will help it break down quicker but regardless , in a few months it will turn into a dark liquid. i leave mine until even the bones are gone. you get several gal. of emulsion. it does stink more than the store bought but its alive unlike the sterilized emulsion you get from the store. after a mo. of cooking i add another cup of molasses to keep the microbes breaking stuff down.

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@moose71 & @JustAnne4 ,
Why not start a great thread on growing mushrooms with pictures and methods?I love morels and have hunted them many times through the years but I love the idea of growing mushrooms throughout my property. Here is a previous thread I started on fungi but not specifically edible mushrooms Fungi Friend or Foe?

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One last thing I see we all overlooked mentioning but that we all know about compost and that is the piles get really hot when you have a lot of fresh green leaves which cause the pile to catch fire! I know biochar lol! I’ve had them catch fire in July and that’s not the time for fires in tall dry grasslands like Kansas! Ive seen barns burn when amateur farmers put their hay up a little to green. Killer compost is very real but because those grass clipping can’t go on a garden directly it creates a fire hazard.

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I’m sure the plants love it, but hurk!

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haha ! yeah the homemade emulsion isn’t for the weak stomached but the compost w/ fish doesn’t smell at all. yes the pile can get hot but if you keep it spread out to no more than 3ft. thick I’ve read you won’t have a problem and so far i haven’t. . keeping it moist but not soaking also keeps the heat in control. i usually start composting in early spring so still cool out when the compost is cooking. can see steam coming out of it in the morning. not bad idea to keep the pile away from buildings or trees just in case.

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Thanks Clark. Haha all composting is local. Because of our abundant rainfall, the compost pile is almost always wet.

Ummm. Because I’m a whimp and can’t even concept that, let alone be mulching with that. I guess composting is more than local; it can involve other personal issues, LOL.

Whew. I’m not alone, LOL.

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seen a local farmer bury a whole cow that died of pneumonia in a big pile of wood chips and old straw/ manure. by the next fall , about 18 mo. later, the pile was beautiful black soil compost! only the skull/ big bones were found. smaller bones had disintegrated! he never turned the pile the whole time either! buried it with his tractor.

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Or you can use pee from a healthy person :slight_smile:

It is rich in nitrogen, relatively clean and free.

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works great to break down stuff in the compost pile too. :wink:

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Please, please don’t go there again. Find the earlier thread on this subject!

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go where? mans been using urine as a fertilizer for eons. I’m just suggesting its use as a compost amendment. i don’t use it directly on plants. better for the planet than sending it to the waste water treatment facility where it costs the taxpayers to clean it out of the water just to release it back in the watershed. farmers around here use sewage sludge to fertilize their crops instead of chemical ferts. after the nasties are removed its no different than using chicken or cow manure.

I think that Phil is trying to short circuit a rehash of the urine thread, and, maybe because it is kinda off topic. That topic is searchable. :blush:

how is it off topic? we are talking about compost and i said i use it as a amendment. no biggie. not something I’m going to dwell on.

Applied some of my best compost on my prime ark blackberries today. I did not have spare cow manure so this was as good as I can do for now.

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Nice. Looks like lotsa mycelia goin’ on. :blush: Have you brought in mushroom spawn for food, or is this random local mushroom mycelia?

Making your own compost, or knowing your sources (and their scrupples regarding long lasting poisons) is ideal.
When you are establishing a bed or creating new beds the need is the greatest for lots of soil feeding compost. Then you get to a tipping point where you can maintain soil fertility with your own garden waste.

Wait. Upon closer inspection that white might be snow (we haven’t had any yet). I assumed you had lots of fungal breakdown going on, but it’s hard to tell.

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Anne,
These are all wild fungi. The fungi are everywhere in the pile and this compost really makes plants grow!

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