thats where my problem is. i originally planted my berries in the clay with little amendment so the roots have a hard time breathing and getting drainage. thats why i was tilling in between the rows to give the roots some airy soil to grow into. I’ve learned my lesson and now plant in raised beds or mound the compost with homemade soil so the plant isn’t planted directly in the clay. helps them get established quicker and they don’t retain water like if planted directly into the clay. trust me i don’t like to use that tiller if i don’t have to! not only do i have clay but lots of fist sized rocks which I’ve managed to remove over the last 5 years of tilling. 
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i have a source of horse manure up the street. i wait till the rain has leached the pile some then only take the manure off the top . so far no issues.
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Once you get things working for you it’s easier. These 10 gallons of fruit peals, cores, culls etc. and kitchen scraps all go back to the trees one tree at a time. You would shocked at the difference these scraps will make! I like to then add a little manure and top dress with several inches of 5 year old wood chips! These trees are going to have every nutrient we can imagine.
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great idea. basically composting around your trees. a lot easier than having to turn and manage a compost pile.
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Be careful you don’t end up with excessive vegetative vigor. It can catch up to you.
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Alan,
I’ve experienced that with some of my 20+ year old trees. Fortunately now I have way more trees than compost so I won’t get back around to these for 7 years at least once this dressing goes on. I actually lost a crop of fruit on my grapes over fertilizing and greatly reduced some pome fruit crops the same way.
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It is a delicate choreography. I’m still trying to master the steps and tripping over my feet. So much easier if you live in a climate where you can control vigor just by staying away from the spigot. You want long lived, moderately vigorous trees with plenty of healthy leaves to nourish fruit but not too much more than that.
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An interesting idea Clark.
I am guessing that the fruit waste does not include any disease or insects, which might re-infect the trees.
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That’s correct Steve nothing like that. I prefer to use pear scraps on something other than pears like peaches and peaches on apples so on and so forth.i like to plant the same way with stone fruits mixed with pomes and other misc fruit. I have many planted the other way all together because I made a lot of mistakes to figure that kind of stuff out.
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i think as long as you don’t over do it it would work well. everything in moderation. i screwed up my raspberry patch by over fert. with organic fertilizer last season by accident. they still haven’t fully recovered .dang clay soil doesn’t let any of it leach out of the root zone. rotted many of the canes off at the soil line. 
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i do the same. before i had comfrey i used to go into the old field next door and cut down grass to mulch around my trees and bushes. worked good and was free!
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Thank you all for your feedback.
Whereas, I haven’t been able to find an organic mushroom grower in my area, and, whereas, the local lawn and compost center insists they don’t know where theirs comes from so I can check it out, and,
whereas, they don’t even think it is a problem worth looking into, and,
whereas, I need more compost than I have generated to do a ‘no dig’, ‘no weed’ garden, and,
whereas toxic compost will ruin my soil for at least 2 years, my best option is to test what I got/get with sensitive plants. Here are my results flanked by grandkid art. So far so good…
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If those horses were fed hay sprayed with the persistent herbicides listed at the top of this post you may be surprised by poorly growing plants and what you attribute to the manure being too hot may actually be an herbicide.
A gardener friend told me that his wife saw a neat idea about growing tomatoes in straw bales. They are pretty savvy gardeners, BTW. Every tomato plant died. They couldn’t figure out what the problem was and said that ‘killer compost’ would describe what they saw because all the leaves went gnarled.
Nice Clark. This is called ‘chop and drop’ and I can do that some, but for me it won’t provide the ingredients for the media I use to grow seeds in and pot plants in.
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With that many “whereas” is a single sentence, I’d say an alternative career in law might be in the cards
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we are in a very rural area. hay fields aren’t sprayed with herbicide around here. they bail the weeds with the hay. i also asked the horse s owner if he gave any treatments this summer that might affect the manure. said he didn’t. he cuts his own hay from a few fields near his pasture. i think I’m safe. besides i usually leave the manure in a flattened pile for 6 mo. to let it leach some so its partially composted when i place it around plants.
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Sounds like you have the ideal situation. 
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thankful to have farmers and people up here that still do things the old way instead of spraying chemicals on everything.
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Hi JustAnne - perhaps you could find a local park or cemetery, get chummy with the maintenance guy and find out when they mow grass and rake leaves? Make an arrangement to stop by those days and load your vehicle up with the clippings / leaves? Maybe they would let you gather leaves on your own. If they don’t know about herbicide spray a quick look at the grass might tell you if it’s safe. If the grass has abundant clover / plantains / dandelions etc it’s probably safe.
You could gather a year’s worth of compost material in a morning.
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Good idea, but in my area EVERYBODY has leaves and grass clippings so I only have to go as far as the neighborhood, LOL. And that I have done, and have never heard of a problem with composting those things - nor experienced a problem because if someone used glycophosphate, it’s inactive by the time compost is done. Not so with new persistent herbicides - it may be 3 years or longer.
When I became aware of toxic compost I was so surprised and wanted to warn folks and get ideas of options. Basically it comes down to “Trust but verify.”
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