Most 'economical' method of building up soil?
 

Gardening folks use many organic materials to create nutrient rich soil - manure, compost, leaves, grass clippings, food waste, wood chips, newspaper/cardboard, straw, hay, coffee grinds, etc.

In our area, manure and compost are about $700-1000 per 20 cu.yd. truck load. We do not have chickens yet. Once we get them, I will be happy to have the free chicken manure!

Wood chips are free. Leaves are free, but we do not have them here, as we are in conifer forest.

Coffee grounds are free, and this is a great nitrogen source.

1st cut hay (18"x14"x36" bale) is $5-6/bale. 2nd and 3rd cuts are up to $12/bale. These are grass. Can have herbicide residue, unless certified organic (which is very expensive). Alfalfa hay is much more expensive and not easily available here.
Straw bale (same size) is $9-11/bale
Plus delivery $. ($12-25 in fuel cost for ~20 bales if we pick up ourselves, depending on how far we need to go)

I keep asking myself what is the most economical way of adding lots of organic matter into the soil.

Wood chips are great, but take a very long time (2-5 years) to break down, creating very rich soil.

Manure and compost turn into fine dust after short summer months. Need to be reapplied every year.

Coffee grinds are great, but so labour-intensive to spread around (well manure is also labour-intensive, especially when wet). Coffee grinds disappear in 1-2 months, very quickly.

My question for everybody is - what is YOUR most economical way of building up organic soil?

Please share.

Cheers,
Tatiana

Your local coffee shop is usually completely willing to save grounds for free - I give them 5 pound buckets with lids, and pick them up daily, swapping out a clean one for the full one. If you ask them for grounds, don't annoy them by not picking up regularly. No shop likes buckets of old grounds sitting around. I usually collect more than 1500 pounds over a few weeks that way.

We get our coffee grinds directly from the Starbucks garbage bins. This way they do not need to collect them for us (they usually forget), and we pick them up any time Stan drives by, so no commitment is needed on our part. If he does not pick them up then the garbage guys will take them away.

Tatiana

Oops, forgot to mention that we can usually get the 'old' or spoiled hay bales for $2-3 / bale + $12-20 for delivery (gas).

Find somebody with a horse. Offer to clean their stall and pen periodacally. Seriously, horses make a ton of good poo, usually have wood shavings mixed in and they also waste a ton of hay because they trample it into their poo.
You will need a pickup and/or trailer for most good sources of organics for a garden your size.
Try growing mushrooms. They are supposed to break things down quickly and there is a variety of oyster mushroom that will live on conifer.

DH gets horse manure and bedding from a neighbor, rakes/shreds leaves from our property, we use our grass clippings, fruit & veggie waste, our neighbor farms and gives us spoiled hay bales, another neighbor has chickens and we get that manure, too. We mix it up and compost it and use it the following year.

[QUOTE=Tania;428471]My question for everybody is - what is YOUR most economical way of building up organic soil?[/QUOTE]

For me it's weeds and crop residues that get tilled back into the soil.

I agree with Tracydr. Find horse manure. I have chickens, but their manure does not add an enormous amount of organic material. It is really heavy if you aren't able to spread it across the garden. It creates big wet spots if you just dump it in a pile on the garden and it is nearly impossible to till in in the first year. I just dumped it in piles one Winter instead of spreading it. It was terribly wet in that spot that Summer. We weren't able to till it in until the Fall. I don't even "see" it in the garden this year. Now, where we spread the horse manure across the corn field we raise sweet corn in, the soil is much better this year than it was last year. We can pull the weeds very easily. We were able to get the manure for free and my son bartered with the neighbor for his manure spreader and tractor to move it. So, we didn't have much in the cost to do it, but there wasn't any other option for us, either as the other options are cost prohibitive to us, too. (This is a 1/2 acre field)

You could plant some "green manure" in your garden and til it under in the Spring. I buy a mixed bag of seeds for a cover crop for the winter specifically for this.

We dump grass clippings and shredded leaves in the Fall.

any bakeries in your area that you can get egg shell from? I have picked them up by the garbage bag full from there and dumped them right in the garden.

get a bunch of fish cleanings and bury them, you can also mix with sawdust or wood chips to make good compost

My family chides me for burying the chicken and turkey bones in the garden (Not attractive to the dogs, rats, and coons if buried). And they don't understand why I put peelings in the garden instead on throwing them away. My response is always the same, "I don't throw away my wealth."

Horse manure from the local stable is the best I can do.

I was actually looking at dump trucks today on craigslist. I can spend $2,000 and buy one that looks like it's from the old tv show [I]Sanford & Son[/I]. I think a $2,000 dump truck would run for about an hour before breaking down. But one less than 20 years old costs about $35,000.

A hand-operated roller bed for a standard pickup seems like a good idea. It's a conveyor belt that you crank to slowly dump the load. I saw a used one for $100.

[QUOTE=kath;428510]DH gets horse manure and bedding from a neighbor, rakes/shreds leaves from our property, we use our grass clippings, fruit & veggie waste, our neighbor farms and gives us spoiled hay bales, another neighbor has chickens and we get that manure, too. We mix it up and compost it and use it the following year.[/QUOTE]

Kath,

You've got such great neighbours! :)
I bet your soil is very lovely.

Tatiana

[QUOTE=joseph;428512]For me it's weeds and crop residues that get tilled back into the soil.[/QUOTE]

It must be good to have weeds! :)

We barely get any weeds. But my neighbour was nice enough to bring me 2 large garbage bags of their weeds.

Our garden is no till.

Carolyn,

Great idea about egg shells. I will look around.

[QUOTE=rags57078;428515]get a bunch of fish cleanings and bury them, you can also mix with sawdust or wood chips to make good compost[/QUOTE]

Where do you get fish cleanings from?