While I know that the die hard organic person will not be happy that I use PCV pipe in my pits, take heart in the fact that’s because a huge pile of all different sizes came with the farm and I am still eight years later finding ways to use them all.
So while I read a mention here or there in a few different books, it was the The complete Compost Gardening Guide, published by storey and available though thomas Allen and Son’s here in canada that went into wonderful detail on this, Chapter six..
I took the idea of a what they call the honey pot and pretty pits of plenty and made a big old underground compost pits, now what goes in these make a big diffence on where they are going, as an example, I am more then willing to use my own farm raised critter leftover butcher bits as a way to add higher protein, blood, and bones (which would be like buying, blood meal, bone meal and or dog or cat food per the recommendation from the book) but not in my main garden area.
Instead I make those pits to line up within root range of fruit bearing bushes/trees, these are created to be long term pits, dug deep, layered well and covered and re-seeded over top, no air, water pipes in these, they are made to feed the plants for a number of years to come.
But the ones I want to talk about are the garden friendly honey pots that are dug deep and three-fourth filled, then covered in dirt with a air/water pipe, that are done as a one year combo feeder/compost pit, with a circle of plants planted out around it, in this hot dry summer, these pits have worked very well, if you water the pit itself, you lose little to none of the water to the effects of evaporation, but the plants take it all up by their roots, the extra feeding helps the plants that are struggling and best of all, but the end of the year, you can just turn it over, and forget about it, no stirring, no haulijng from here to there, no working it in and spreading it etc, just leave it and go.. you can just plant over it in the next season, but be aware that as it composts down, you might need to add a bit on top as it will sink down. Good idea to make your map for the garden, so that you can keep track of them from year to year so you know where to put them.
If you are on the edge of maybe doing one of these, give a tomato circle a try, make your pit, makes sure you have lots of crushed egg shell in the mix, and water deeply once a week, and plant four plants around it, I think the results will knock your socks off!
I did a trench pit along side a potato growing area this year and the crop has been outstanding, equal to any other year and I am sure that this had something to do with it, as we did no extra watering in this dry hot weather, but we did also heavily mulch on top as well, my main critter manure was rabbit, with lots of bedding mix from Girl, not that much manure but lots of straw bedding/urine, mixed out with yard greens, with lots of nettles added in.
Just another Day on the Farm 