If you can, you might have better results by digging a continuous trench - start with a hole, fill that with stuff, cover it with a shovel full from the next hole, etc. That way the critters won't just eat the stuff, and you'll likely get more benefit from the garbage.

Although I do often just fling the coffee grounds out into the flower beds.....

Seems like running the scraps through a blender would help.

That's called sheet composting and has been practiced for ages. If you can set aside a section of the garden each year to dispose of your household and garden compostables, it will definitely enrich the soil in that section. Then the next year, move over to another section. That's what we did on the farm vegetable garden when I was young. And one of my chores was to dump the trimmings on the "fallow" section.

Brings back happy memories.

Sandy

I think our youngest child was about 8 when we "composted" by digging in each day's accumulation of kitchen veggie scraps between the plants. Often the kids would do it as they thot it was fun. We just left a shovel in the garden and when anyone dug in the compostables they just moved the shovel over to the next space so the next person would know where to bury. Worked great. At the time I was too busy to even *think* about composting any other way but have done it since as well as my compost bins as it works very well to feed the worms and enrich the soil.

You could do that. Composting would be better because what goes into the compost mix results in a better end product, but you could sheet compost and still get some benefit just as Ma Nature does in the forest.

kimmsr wrote: "Composting would be better because what goes into the compost mix results in a better end product"

Please explain this. I don't believe it's true. How can something from a compost bin be any different from what is just tossed into the garden? It's the exact same stuff. Sure, something in a bin will likely break down faster, but that doesn't really matter to me since it breaks down just fine in the garden.

Robert

From
Loss of Soil Organic Matter and Its Restoration
By William A. Albrecht
Professor of Soils
University of Missouri

Attempting to hoard as much organic matter as possible in the soil, like a miser hoarding gold, is not the correct answer. Organic matter functions mainly as it is decayed and destroyed. Its value lies in its dynamic nature. A soil is more productive as more organic matter is regularly destroyed and its simpler constituents made usable during the growing season. Its mere presence in the soil is of value during certain stages of decay, when it influences soil structure and water relations and when it functions in holding plant food in readily available form much more effectively than does any mineral fraction of the soil. The objective should be to have a steady supply of organic matter undergoing these processes for the benefit of the growing crop.

I think the point kimmmsr is making is that the soil food web can only make use of it so much at a time. A compost pile quickly breaks it down and gets it to a more usable point that can be quickly used to ammend the soil.

Well if you believe half of what is said about roses, people regularly throw banana peels on the soil at the base of the plant or dig it in just under.
So this business of throwing kitchen scraps into a garden is not much different is it.

Its a bad practice if you believe the scraps are stealing nitrogen and oxygen from the surrounding soil that the plants would like to have available.

If one doesn't wish to develop a compost bin, then free an area where such scraps and clippings + can be tossed onto the ground. A tarpaulin thrown over it will protect it from excess rainfall and soon enough you'll have what is better for the garden.

I wonder how many who think this is not a good idea have ever done it. When we buried 2-4 quarts of vegetable matter/coffee grounds daily in the garden in different places that material was quickly broken down and almost not distinguishable within a few weeks, except for the onion peelings. I think in a garden which is regularly watered the earthworms and other organisms in the soil find it a banquet and do the job nature intends. It may, in fact, be a faster way to decompose this type of material during warm weather months in the north and certainly much easier than tending a hot compost pile.

yep, we do, all rottabe scraps go in the garden at our place, we tuck it under the mulch daily.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I like to compost stuff.

If I lived out in the country the easy pitch method might be OK. I KNOW one of my four immediate neighbors would not let me get away with it. We don't have any racoons in the area, but there are coyotes and foxes.

My Mom started composting because of my sister years ago. She tells the story about a year before composting, she burried fall leaves in the vegetable garden. The next planting season, she had the best ever vegetables. Her words, not mine. And, my Mom is not someone that would exagerate.

Cathy

Here is a link that might be useful: My site

Hmm sounds like to much work to me to bury them in the garden(: I just drop mine in the worm box or maybe one of those tumbers would work so you could just give it a whirl now and again

I often just drop stuff in. It'll get mixed up sooner or later.

If I have a large amount, or something that will sprout (pumokins), I usually bury it deep

Sir Albert Howard observed at Indore that those that applied compost to their fields had better crops with higher yields that did people that simply applied manure their fields. Something happens in a compost pile that we do not yet understand to make a better product than simply putting the same stuff in the soil will. I have put all the same stuff in my soil that would go into my compost bins and while yields are better that way they do not compare with soils that had compost added.

One explanation could be as simple as mixing.

Take for example baking a cake. If I take all the ingredients, throw them into a pan and chuck in the oven I probably won't get a very good cake. If I stir and mix all the ingredients before I bake them, I should get a different result. Same ingredients, the only difference is one was well mixed before cooking.

One of my favorite sayings, "Laziness breeds efficiency", I should get that tattoed on my butt!

Lloyd

Not having really used a compost bin in my life, I am not in a position to say anything against it, but the everyday household scraps are so less in quantity that I usually just collect them in a box that I keep on the counter and toss it in a different flower bed section whenever it gets full. If I know I have egg shells in the box or a banana peel, I make sure to toss it by one of the rose plants. Not a very pretty sight, but then, its winter, who looks at my flower beds anyways? Now that the snow has melted and I am getting back to pottering around my yard, I keep a garden tool in my hand and mix the scraps into the surrounding soil as I walk past those sections.
Happy composting!!

"I have put all the same stuff in my soil that would go into my compost bins and while yields are better that way they do not compare with soils that had compost added."

Kimmsr, how did you evaluate this claim?

"Laziness breeds efficiency"

Good tattoo, don't bother posting a pic! but the theory makes sense to me. I wish the entire world would compost and I know they won't if it's difficult so lazy is better IMO for composting. I'm not convinced that building a "proper" compost pile will produce a better product than burying the scraps and letting the worms turn it and ingest it. Wonder if anyone has actually done a valid study on this, or if it would even be possible.

"Kimmsr, how did you evaluate this claim?"
The same way many others here have evaluated what they report, visually, what I have seen, observed. Mostly necause, like many others here, I do not have a laboratory to do many tests and the protocals for doing some tests do not exist, and it is too expensive for me to pay a lab that might be able to determine the results, if they knew how to do those tests.

Kimmsr, so you subjectively evaluated that finished compost worked better than sheet composting but how about the other influences on the garden that might have been different on subsequent years such as the weather? Your see, I cannot believe that there is some magic in making compost in a pile over making it in the soil. In fact if earthworms are present what is created in the soil in sheet compost or burying is worm castings which are known to be nutritious for the soil. It's also much easier for some of us. And we all know that people are more likely to do what's easier than what is difficult especially when they are very busy with other things.

I'm not questioning your expertise so much as questioning why you are not encouraging this poster to do what she can to improve her soil. She has already said she doesn't want to make a proper compost pile.

jgourlay, I hope you will enjoy "feeding" the worms in your garden and encouraging your 8 year old to be a "sheet composting" gardener! Maybe get him his own little shovel and he'll bury them a bit. :-)

jgourlay - I'd suggest just starting w/what your happy/comfortable doing. The bottom line is, it'll help - whether the help is of the ideal type and quantity could be debated (and has been) for years.

So, do the style you enjoy.

Sometimes, I'm tempted to do what your idea is, but the bears, deer, raccoons & rabbits would visit us even more than they already do!

All the Best,
Theresa

Here is a link that might be useful: 201+ Compost ingredients

One advantage of a compost pile versus sheet composting is realized by the heat generation and turning of the compost pile. It forces the seeds of volunteers and hitch hikers to sprout and be turned back into compost.

Tossing a spoiled squash/tomato/cantaloupe/watermelon/etc. on the garden plot in the sheet composting fashion can result in unwanted volunteers that mimic your intentional plantings. Those volunteers, depending on the type of plant/seed can return for several years as you work them to the surface as you till the soil.

While some of these ideas may make sense *in theory*, what I have found in reality is that I've never had a volunteer grow from buried veggie scraps. I think the worms gobble it up so fast it's gone before anything can sprout. I have had lots of volunteers grow in my cold compost tho.

As far as animals digging things up it doesn't happen here. We have bear, deer, and rabbits (no raccoons) as well as many other animals and I've never had any dig in the soil to get buried compostables. Even my pet dogs or cats were never attracted to them. Twice in 12 years we had a bear rip our pallet compost bin apart.

I think this method is too easy for those who think it has to be more work to be valuable.