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Buffalo,Minnesota

If I add some maple leaves this weekend, and get them tilled in, will they break down enough by the first week of May to help out the soil this year? Or am I better off doing it in the fall? Same question for manure I`m thinking of adding.

Dan

4/11/2003 10:13:38 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Hey Dan, Heres my take on it..Well composted material is always welcome in the spring. Adding Green manure may be to hot this time of year for the plants. I think if the leaves added now are well chopped up where they add some fluff to the garden for oxygen penetration they will do some good but may actually eat some of your nitrogen while they break down. If the manure is partially composted and had a month till planting I would say okay maybe stay away from the planting holes since it will take a month more to get off them to the manure anyway! Plenty of good guys here with a better understanding then me I'm sure you'll get more responses,...Grow Em Big!!! Chuck

4/12/2003 7:22:00 AM

Western Pa.

Maple leaves break down a lot quicker than others, like oak. Shredding them, or running them over with the mower also will speed things up. I think a lot of growers, myself included, have found that leaves added in the Fall didn't break down very well this year, due to the extreme cold weather we had. Adding some leaves now shouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't add a lot. I also add aged manure this time of year.

4/12/2003 8:58:23 AM

Topsfield, Ma.

I mulch my small patch (1200 sq ft) with shredded leave to keep the weeds down and retain the moisture and then till them in the fall. Has worked great for a few seasons !

4/12/2003 6:22:16 PM

Montoursville, PA

I feel I have entirely to much leaf material and partly composted compost coupled with lots of cold weather. Craig Lembke <cjlemb@webtv.net> sells Symbex. Without all the details it is a flash starter to help exactly what I am faced with. There are several. All would be helped with 4oz of feed molasses in a gallon of water to boost up the natural elements in your patches that will break down these half or incompletely digested parts of finished compost. One gallon of Symbex will treat an acre. Craig does not sell less than a gallon. Talk to Craig if you wish to get more data. This is a whole bunch better than the guys growing everything on a Coke, on Home Gardening Networks.

4/18/2003 12:24:38 PM

Walton N.y.

i use those agro k products as well symbex is simular to compost starter and works well i've got about 12 yards of 1/2 to3/4 composted leaves that i've added this spring and after adding the sybex you can smell the soil cooking

4/19/2003 4:35:14 PM

Montoursville, PA

Thank you Randy.......I think a lot of growers in the Northeast might better take a serious look a Symbex which Craig sells or an equal from some other source. I can't imagine that without some help the volume of will not tie up early needed growing nitrogen. To support the Symbex I am tossing in twenty pounds of Urea to the 1000 sq. feet patch and twenty pounds of 12% N. blood meal. Am working this in with my fifty pounds of gypsum. I've been into using gypsum for several years to work on my clay which is just about ten inches below my growing medium. I am very confident that my patch need to be jump started. That is right much Urea but I have a big problem looming if I can not get that leaf material working ahead of the plants needs. I can just about see the greens as pale lemon yellow from nitrogen starvation because it is trying to work on the leaf material. I feel I have thirty days for things to work and the nitrogen to work as well as leach down to a safe level by May 15 to May 20 when the roots are racing down, for the anchor, for the git up and grow period. Yep I believe that Symbex is really just what the doctor ordered for just this year's early challenge. Craig's personal experience with it in his vinyards gave me the confidnce to do this.

I will also note that my coach Tony agrees. He to and everyone else in this immediate area are wet, cold and not as ready as we would like to be in the middle of April.

One way or another I think many of us are stepping back and punting while adding a trick or two for this cold start.

4/19/2003 5:32:51 PM

Walton N.y.

i'm happy with the agro k products and like you say last fall was a bust for me getting ammendments in i barely got things tilled in when winter hit my winter rye never even germinated as i seeded it late and it got cold and nasty quick my soil is very sandy and with a bit of help organics break down very quickly

4/19/2003 8:30:55 PM