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Vegetable Gardening

What can I plant in a pile of leaf compost or sandy loam?

14 years ago

In my back yard, I have a pile of leaf compost that's about 3 feet tall at the highest and 10-15 foot spread. I also have a pile of sandy loam that's a little smaller. At this time, I'm not planning on spreading either or using it anywhere else until next fall.

So I was thinking that maybe I could plant some melons or pumpkins or something in them and get some use out of it before fall. Will watermelon, muskmelon or pumpkin grow in pure compost? (they always seem to do fine in my compost heap, haha)

What will do well in sandy loam? Sweet potatoes?

I want something that rambles a bit and covers the hills without me needing to mow them.

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Comments (9)

petzold6596
14 years ago
Just about anything except alkaline soil plants most found in the Southwest.
iam3killerbs
14 years ago
Sounds like a great place to put the rambly sort of long-vined watermelon and winter squash that take up so much space in the regular garden.
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I had a wonderful raised bed several years ago that I filled with finished compost, or rather, nearly finished compost. It really was great stuff. I planted a couple of English roses and they grew like wildfire and you never saw such huge blooms. They were so heavy that the rose bushes couldn't support their wieght and they drooped over to the ground. I also planted cosmos seed that I had saved from a flower bed in back. The plants in back had been 28" tall but the ones in the compost reached up to the rain gutters on the house and completely blocked the sun from our picture window. The biggest surprise that we got from the compost was that there were some uncomposted cucumber seeds in it that germinated and grew into the most delicious gigantic cukes we ever tasted. Course when I found the first one, it was a complete surprise because I didn't know they were in there. SO there I was, pulling some weeds out of the planter, and I put my hand on a huge, cool green mass and I jumped about three feet in the air. When I figured out what it was I went looking in the masses of growth and found 27 cukes the smallest of which was about 15" long, and 6" circumference. You can certainly use 100% compost, but just don't expect everything to be... 'normal.' Mwahahahaha!!!!!! Cheryl
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I would not want dirt in my compost pile, or very little of it at least. You did not say what type "dirt", sandy or clay etc. That could make a difference, too much of one kind might cut off most oxygen and slow down your composting efforts. If you feel that you really need to add it, I would do it sparingly and mixed well with the other ingredients, rather than a layer, if it were me. Oh, you can just bury stuff in the ground and it will rot, but that is not what I think of as composting. I do not know if it would be practical where you live, but another possibility might be to spread it out and make a big pad for your composting area which would catch the leaching from the compost and one day be really good stuff to spread on your garden as an amendment, I think. Leave the bottom out of any bin that you build. That should make a well drained area to compost on and eliminate any problems with water logging. Just my thoughts. Bill P.
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I hate to spoil the fun, really I do, but there is a very good reason not to use volunteer seedlings. They can carry or encourage diseases, specifically viruses, that have no effective controls. I have personal experience with this and went for years without being able to grow any type of squash because I had a virus in my soil. All I could do is wait and hope it went away. Eventually, I established a new bed and have been careful not to transfer soil from the contaminated beds into it and I have my zucchini and pumpkins once again. Most likely the virus came from a volunteer seedling that I let grow in the bed that then became contaminated. But don't take my word for it ... For tomatoes: "Destruction of volunteer plants is an important practice in the control of several diseases, because it prevents large populations of pathogens from surviving from one cop to another. Crop rotation also works to prevent crop to crop survival of specific tomato pathogens." https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh056 And for the squash family: "Destroy volunteer cucurbit plants. These can harbor cucurbit disease organisms." http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/hortcrop/pp656w.htm
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I looked it up: Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church. 9800 SE 92nd Avenue, Happy Valley, OR 97086
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dgkritch
14 years ago
I planted a little Sungold tomato in my 3' high by 5' diameter pile last year and the darned thing ended up about 10 feet across!! It LOVED it there.

Of course, this year I have volunteer tomatoes popping up everywhere!! Oh well. Easily pulled or moved!

Deanna
toogreen
14 years ago
Sure, you could plant lots of stuff in there.
For the nutrients, drainage, etc. then tomatoes and pumpkins make sense. Spread it out just a little and double your fun.
If you are looking to make your life easy, then potatoes or sweet potatoes would grow, and you would not have the digging problems.
I guess you are looking to optimize, but there are many things you COULD do that would give you good results. If nothing else, plant a cover on them and turn it under when you move the pile. It will protect the pile from the sun and elements and give it a little more when you use the pile contents.
mudflapper
14 years ago
JMHO, but I believe the question should be, what CAN'T you plant!
toogreen
14 years ago
OK. Mudflapper poses an interesting challenge. Here is what I would NOT plant in leaf compost that is due to be moved in, say, six months.

Lettuce. Broccoli. Cauliflower. Brussels sprouts. Carrots. Jerusalem Artichokes. Asparagus. Rhubarb.

Um. Anything else is good? Probably. What am I missing? It is difficult to know which is optimal, but there is no reason to leave it fallow. I would even do strawberries because you could transplant those with no problem.
kterlep
14 years ago
Had a birdhouse gourd volunteer grow on the north side of a shed in a pile of the previous year's garden debris under a black walnut tree.

Determined little bugger.
mscratch
14 years ago
I would go for sweet potatoes because those are what I am craving..lol.. they are a bit difficult to grow here in my area (Northern Maine) and finding the correct soil without trucking it in is difficult, even varities for Northern gardens are a bit tricky due to location and weather, so definitely sweet potatoes is what I would choose this year..lol..
gamebird
Original Author
14 years ago
Hahaha! Well, thanks all! I had thought that some vegetables couldn't take pure compost. As soon as it stops raining, I'll get right on putting some stuff out there. I've already warned my son that one of his "play mountains" would be closed for business pretty soon. He'll still have the mulch to dig in, until I get done putting that around the trees (and then I'll likely get more, so he'll have that to play in next).

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