328 Q&A Add Fertilizer to Compost Pile? Can Later Ripening Peach Trees Survive Peach Leaf Curl?

Show Transcript

328 TRANSCRIPT Q&A Compost vs Fertilzer. Late peaches vs Peach Leaf Curl

Farmer Fred

Welcome back to the Tuesday edition of the Garden Basics with Farmer fred podcast. Unlike the Friday edition, we’re dedicating the Tuesday podcast to answering your garden questions. Stay tuned to find out how you can get your garden question in to the program. C’mon lets do this.

Q&A - IS IT OK TO ADD FERTILIZER TO A COMPOST PILE?

Beth from the Pacific Northwest

Hi, this is Beth,  I live in USDA zone eight in the Pacific Northwest, where it takes a really long time to make compost. And I'm wondering after listening to your show about nitrogen yesterday, which was great, if it would help to break down my compost pile which is also a worm pile, faster or better if I added some compost and bagged chicken manure to it.  I turn it regularly, and it's made up of food scraps, and then a lot of sawdust and chopped up leaves and stuff like that. Not a whole lot of wood, because I've read that the micro organisms need a little nitrogen to help them break down the nitrogen that's available in the compost. I hope that wasn't too confusing. Thanks.

Farmer Fred

We answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics Podcast. I'm at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center on a work day here in mid-April in the composting section with Master Gardener Susan Muckey, the compost queen, the queen of worms too, and vermicomposting. And we get a question from the Pacific Northwest from USDA Zone 8. Beth writes in; and, no, Beth, it wasn't confusing, but there's a lot of unanswered questions here. Let's talk, first of all Susan, about adding nitrogen fertilizer to a compost pile. Do you need to do that?

Susan Muckey

We never do. We try to add a little bit of carbon and nitrogen and we don't really worry too much about the proportions. The only time you would really worry about the proportions if you're a very serious hot composter and most people that have a life are cold composters and they just turn their compost pile when they can, when time allows.

Farmer Fred

I think of cold compost pile as the pile I have in the back 40.

Susan Muckey

Yes, that's what most people have because if you hot compost you don't plan on going on vacation anywhere because you have to keep an eye on the environment  and the thermometer. If you've never seen a compost thermometer, it's about two feet long and it goes up to about 180 degrees or 200 degrees. And that's what you stick in your pile and you keep an eye on it probably two or three times a day. Once it reaches 140, you have to, rain or shine, get out there and turn that compost pile because you don't want it to get too hot. You don't want it to keep going up because after 160, it's gonna kill all the microbes and microorganisms that help to break down the compost pile.

Farmer Fred

Would adding water help bring that temperature down?

Susan Muckey

Adding water? Maybe, maybe not. I would say turning it would help. Also adding more browns, carbons, would help. And if it's dry, then yes, definitely add some water.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, let's talk about the carbon, let’s get into the science a little bit of this. The carbon-nitrogen ratio for a compost pile, I've read that the ideal ratio is 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen. And others say just simply put in a layer of brown, topped with an equal layer of green, and put a layer of brown above that, and a layer of green above that, and you'll be fine.

Susan Muckey

Yes, and we just add a little bit of each. I mean, we're not going to be sitting out here measuring, and if you've ever weighed a pound of say, wet grass clippings and a pound of leaves. The bag that has the grass clippings is very tiny in volume. The bag of the leaves is huge.  And to start a hot compost pile, you need a pile of chopped up variety of things to fill up a three by three by three cube.

That's a huge amount of material. And that's what hot composters do.

Farmer Fred

That would be a cubic yard.

Susan Muckey

That is a cubic yard. And unless you have that much volume, you're not going to get the heat build up. So Beth says that she's putting into her compost pile food scraps. I guess that would be the greens.  And she's putting in sawdust. Now that's kind of...one of my colleagues who is a super super composter said sawdust is terrible because it's so fine and it would cause compaction and I would definitely not put sawdust in there in any way, shape, or form.

Farmer Fred

All right and that’s because that would eliminate part of the air that is so necessary.

Susan Muckey

That's exactly right.

Farmer Fred

We are standing next to a compost bin that has four signs in it. One sign says water, one sign says browns, one sign says greens, and the other sign says air. The four ingredients for a successful compost pile.

Susan Muckey

And microorganisms. Which just come, I'm not sure where they come from, the sky or wherever, they break down in nature, but you need the microorganisms. She says she also adds chopped up leaves.

Farmer Fred

Now that gets a little confusing if that's a brown or a green. I guess it depends on the age of the leaf when you chopped it up.

Susan Muckey

That's right. If it's fallen from the tree and it's dead, it's considered a brown. If you picked it off the tree and it's alive, then it's green.

Farmer Fred

Give us some examples of green material and a short list of brown material that you would put in a compost pile.

Susan Muckey

I put all of my landscape material in there and I consider that kind of a combination because if I have, let’s say I'm trimming my fig tree, well that's gonna have the leaves and it's also gonna have the stem. And so I kind of consider that a bonus, it's double. So most of it is a landscape material. I have four worm bins and so all of my kitchen scraps go in my worm bins. I live in the country and I don't want to attract rodents or anything. However, one time I was turning my compost pile and a big bullfrog jumped out and he was probably overwintering himself in there.

Farmer Fred

Nice and warm.

Susan Muckey

It was. We were both equally scared out of our wits. So as far as the greens go, it's mainly my dead tomato plants that I take out when I'm breaking down my summer garden and wiinter garden, all the stuff goes in the compost that would be the greens. And just all the landscape trimmings as we're pruning. And then I constantly rake leaves. That's my source of brown. In fact, that's pretty much my only source of brown. I usually have about 15 bags of leaves that have fallen. And as a tree gets bigger, I get more and more leaves. As the trees grow, you get more and more. And so...

I always, as I'm adding greens to my pile, I have a bag of dried leaves next to my compost bin and I just add a layer. And so that kind of layers itself as we're going. And I don't really start turning it until I have a whole cubic yard, basically.

Farmer Fred

And as you mentioned, you have a soil thermometer and it's got a probe on it that's about 30, 36 inches long.

Susan Muckey

It's big, it's big, it's big. The size of your arm about. But that's all, like you mentioned, that would be a good indicator for when to turn it, when that temperature hits  140.  And also, it kind of makes you feel good because you think, oh good, it's working. Because what you want to see as you are turning your pile, you want to see, you want to feel a little bit of heat, and that's always a good sign. You want that white stuff that appears. I’m not a scientist but I know it's good and you probably know it.

Farmer Fred

Mycelium.

Susan Muckey

Mycelium, that's right. I was a music major in college so we didn't use words like that; we used other words.

Farmer Fred

Arpeggio or whatever.

Susan Muckey

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's exciting because then you know it's working, you've got a real healthy working compost pile. There's microbes involved. You have a good enough balance of materials that it's heating up and it's very exciting.

Farmer Fred

Compost is sort of like having a box of Cracker Jack. The prize is at the bottom. That's right. And so don't judge your compost pile by what you see on top. There may not be much activity there. You may see that pile of leaves, but if you were able to dump that or turn it to bring up the bottom, there could be some excellent, finely sifted looking compost there.

Susan Muckey

That's exactly right. And one of the reasons you turn a compost pile, well there's actually a couple of reasons, and one of them is to put air into your pile and that's the most important one. But also once the inside of the pile heats up you want to transfer the inside to the outside and the outside to the inside, and that's a really important reason to turn your pile. And that's why those cylinder composters don't really work very well. That and they don't have much air circulation to them. And a lot of times it's hard to judge the amount of water that's in there. They get very heavy, they tend to flop the whole mass. Oh sorry, I just hit the microphone accidentally. And that's kind of what happens and you get a big mess basically. Anaerobic decomposition.

Farmer Fred

One little thing you can have to make that chore easier turning the pile is to have two compost bins, maybe even three compost bins, side by side by side, so you can turn the first one into the second one and then the second one when you find that really beautiful compost at the bottom you can put that in the third bin.

Susan Muckey

Right, exactly. I guess that's how those three bin systems work.

I always wonder what do you do when you get to the last bin? Do you run around to the first one then? Well, you could. Yeah, I guess so.

Farmer Fred

Alright, so Beth, I think we've tackled your question. Don't add fertilizer to your compost bin, just add greens and browns. Because if you start adding a lot of nitrogen, you might actually heat up the pile too much and you don't want to do that. You might heat it up too much. And so, you know, at that point when it's heated too much, you're going to need to turn it and possibly add water. It's called physical labor and it's doable.

Susan Muckey

Yeah, it keeps you young. Yeah.

Farmer Fred

Yes. Susan Muckey is a Sacramento County Master Gardener. You can usually find her here in the compost and vermicomposting section of the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center on open work days like today, here in mid -April. Susan, thanks for your good advice.

Susan Muckey

You're welcome. Thanks for asking me.

WANT TO ASK US A QUESTION?

Farmer Fred

Want to leave us a question? You’ll find a link at gardenbasics.net. Also, when you click on any episode at gardenbasics.net, you’ll find a link to Speakpipe in the show notes, where you can leave us an audio question without a making a phone call. Or, go to speakpipe directly: speakpipe.com/gardenbasics. You want to call or text us? We have that number posted at gardenbasics.net. it’s 916-292-8964, 916-292-8964. Email? Sure! Send it, along with your pictures to fred at farmerfred.com. Or again, go to gardenbasics.net and get that link. And if you send us a question, be sure to tell us where you’re gardening, because all gardening is local. Find it all at gardenbasics.net.

Q&A - ARE LATE FRUITING PEACH TREES BETTER ABLE TO THWART PEACH LEAF CURL DISEASE?

Farmer Fred

We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics Podcast. This question is from San Luis Obispo, California, a beautiful coastal city in central California.

Peg writes in and says, “I really learn a lot in listening to you. This recent broadcast you had on Peach Leaf Curl touched a really sad episode in my home orchard. I had been getting the best peaches until last year when Peach Leaf Curl actually killed the tree. I did the preventative strategies like picking up prior infected leaves and I had sprayed the tree, though unfortunately only once, but the infestation was way too intrusive for the tree to survive. And this is the second time this has happened. My strategy now is to look for fruit trees that produce later on in the summer. Can you give me some suggestions?”

Well, Peg, that's a tough question. So we turn it over to Master Gardener and orchard specialist, Quentyn Young. Quentyn, what do you think of the strategies of using late ripening peaches as a deterrent for peach leaf curl?

Quentyn Young

I think that is a good option, especially if they're leafing out late. One of our earliest ones, Eva’s Pride, which starts blooming sometimes in February, got hit really bad every year with peach leaf curl and we ended up taking it out. Especially when you get hit year after year, it just reduces the vigor of the tree. We've talked in the past about strategies for dealing with it at this stage of the year. You can't spray, it's too late to spray, but you can fertilize the tree to give it a boost.

Farmer Fred

You can cover up the underneath of  the tree with fresh mulch, in order to keep those spores from bouncing back up. And of course, clean up too, cleaning up the fallen leaves. But it doesn't make sense to be removing any of the affected leaves now, wait till they fall on the ground.

Quentyn Young

Yeah, and then the person had mentioned in the letter that she had sprayed. So I'm always curious, what did you spray with, and when? That most important one is around Valentine's Day, President's Day. The problem this year is it was raining.

And you can see when you just start having that bud break, when it just starts showing color, that's the most important spray date. But again, if it's raining, you can't do anything about it and those fungal spores will get in there.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, we like to call that stage the popcorn stage of bud development, where it's just showing a bit of white. And you're right, you need about six dry days afterwards, maybe sunny, windy weather, to mitigate the spread of peach leaf curl after you've sprayed.

You could try some late ripening varieties of peaches. I've grown Fairtime, and a couple of others. Oktoberfest you might want to try, which has, I think, as the name would imply, an October harvest. And Kahwea, have you ever grown a Kahwea?

Quentyn Young

No, but I saw that was one of Sunset's picks a couple years ago. I've always wanted to try it. I just haven't seen that one available at most nurseries yet.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, look for Kahwea, it's very popular. I know Dave Wilson Nursery grows it. It's one of their staff favorites to grow for taste. So Peg, give it a try. Take care of your existing trees and maybe spray a couple of times this coming fall and winter.

Quentyn Young

Yeah, let us know if you do end up picking a late ripening one if that actually works for you.

Farmer Fred

All right, Quentyn Young, Master Gardener, thanks for your help.

Quentyn Young

Thank you, Fred.

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday and it's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics. It's available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as transcripts of the podcast, visit our website, gardenbasics.net . And that's where you can find out about the free Garden Basics newsletter, “Beyond the Garden Basics”. And thank you so much for listening.