This past weekend, we hauled about 30 pds of straw and sheep/cow manure out of the barn and up into a spot in the garden and it got added to the coming year’s compost pile (which just happens to be along side where all the summer and winter sqaush patches will be) the compost piles will run along the side, and the plants can and will as proven in years past, send roots over 20 plus feet into the soil under that compost pile and take advantage of the run off of the piles and then I won’t be be required to worry about those heavy feeders.. Depending on the size of the sqaush patch, I might dump a couple loads of rabbit manure on the other side to help feed it, it won’t be hot in the same way as the cow/sheep/duck/chicken’s will be..
Compost on the farm is such a amazing tool, a never ending product that the critters produce daily for us, that the tree’s give up leaves, the farm itself gives us extra bits here and there in terms of green carbon, all the weeds are throw over the fence for the four footed to have a snack but not everything that that the farm produces can be used in composts that you want to grow your own food in.. that is where growing soil and land comes into.. I have a area of the farm that is a low, its a good size area, we have been placing non-garden compost down there for years now and we have maybe 1/8th of it at the height I want that I “hope” will compost down to the point of being able to be leveled and coming on line as pasture.
I have a number of gardens, the main, the nursey, and the front, and my garden’s don’t look neat and tidy, they are not pretty like in pictures, and you don’t see much if any soil in my gardens once’s it planted out.. you will see plants and then ground covers.. some of the things I have tried including covered walkways inbetween that get mowed, with 3 foot beds, plants in the middle, six to eight inches straw mulch on the outside, pull any weeds in and around the plants themselves.
For major heat loving plants, I like my metal siding, the sheets are ten feet by four, and I lay them down first to heat the soil, then pull a row back, dig in my compost, and plant my sqaush, leave the metal siding down, you can walk on it, pull the weeds inbetween and the heat is crazy, also this is a great way to take raw land and next year, in the spring when you take off the metal sheets, you have killed all the plants underneither and you can just turn your soil, add your compost and have maybe 10 percent of the work to start that soil as you would if you started with thick sod..
Do you ever use your pig or pigs to help dig your garden area, or how about turn your compost piles for you? This is a very clever way to garden for some things, just let your piggy dig up the area one year and then the next year plant out sqaushes (summer/winter) turnips/beets or potato’s in that area and watch it amaze you at how well they will do.. or re-seed it into pasture, its a good way to turn local forage area into a tilled area to be frost seeded and grow out to be a much higher producing feed area for your livestock if done right.
So do you compost? If so, do you do it right by or in your garden itself? What kind of a garden keeper are you? How do you start your new garden area’s, and do you rotate your garden from in use to out of use or do you use the same spot, year after year?
Just another Day on the Farm 
I just have a small urban backyard, so my compost pile is small. It’s not a hot pile– it takes me a year, or even two, to get a good finished product. I generate just enough to fill all my pots– flowers, peppers and eggplants; then at the end of the summer it goes back onto the garden beds when I empty out the pots for the winter. But I can’t even imagine people who throw away their kitchen scraps.
Hello Xan
thanks for stopping by and for commenting about your own compost, if you want more compost for your own use, have you considered asking friends if they would be willing to let you have the leaves from their tree’s in the fall? It would increase the pile size for fall/winter but be down quite quickly by spring.
Good for you for being able to redo your plant pots dirt yearly with your own compost, can’t even imagine what that would cost if you had to buy it each year..
We have a corner of our yard devoted to compost. It is right behind the raspberry and blackberry bushes.
As one of the first homes built in the neighborhood, we have many oak and maple trees that are extremely old, and they drop a lot of leaves. So many, that raking is a several day project for the entire yard, and we collect the leaves on a full size tarp, and drag it to the compost pile.
It is a lot of work, but boy do I see a difference in the nearby berry bushes.
I hope to have a garden of our own this year, but with all of the trees, finding enough sunlight in the yard may be a problem.