Fertilization Root Depth Question

15 years ago

Recently I put in a food digester, basically a 2 foot hole in the ground with a good covering, to throw kitchen scraps into.

It is placed next to one of my favorite fruit trees.

The idea is that it will help fertilize the tree while digesting the scraps.

Has anyone tried this?

And is 2 feet down, too deep for the tree to successfully utilize the nutrients generated?

This is my first time to this forum, hoping there are some resident experts here.

Thanks in advance

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Comments (9)

naturalstuff
15 years ago
Interesting idea. So it was a one time thing or do you keep the hole open to keep throwing the scraps in it?
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years ago
trees are very adept at finding sources of food ...

they will come to it .... sooner or later...

ken
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brandon7 TN_zone7
15 years ago
Seems to me that it would be better for the entire root zone (and the rest of your yard) if you built a composter and spread the compost out over the entire rootzone and in other locations where it might be useful.
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
15 years ago
I'm with brandon on this one. Sure some roots will go there, but the greater benefit is the whole root zone at the surface. 2 ft may or may not be too deep. Can't hurt.

Dan
emgardener
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the responses.

Regular composting is too much work for me, gave it up a long time ago. Throwing scraps in a hole is easy enough though.

If interested, the following discusses the food digester.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg0119033116401.html?13
brandon7 TN_zone7
15 years ago
If you say so, but I don't understand why throwing stuff in a compost tumbler would be any harder than throwing it in a hole. Beside, you have to dig the hole!
Embothrium
15 years ago
In general feeder roots concentrate near the surface, where the air is. Significant deep rooting tends to be a feature primarily of coarse or dry deep soils such as in semiarid areas, where finding water is most important. Desert trees may produce enormous, very deeply penetrating root networks.

In moist climates even tap-rooted trees don't have that much going on away from the pancake of roots in the uppermost soil. Blown down specimens often show the anchorage or tap roots to be partially necrotic in appearance, like bracken rootstocks may look.
big_deck
15 years ago
My most recent experience with this concept (yes, I did it too) is that I let kitchen scraps compost over the winter in a planting hole and poured bottles of human urine on it on occassion to keep the vermin away as well as sprinkling a little ENVIR CE, a non-toxic and non-hazardous, natural compost conditioner and enhancer every few inches.

In January I put a Bing or Rainier (the weather faded the variety off the label) in this compost hole. They are the only trees I have planted that have Not shown any temptation to bud. They both looked as thought they would be ok, then we got another major freeze and snow and I was not smart enough to cover them.

I did clips some branch tips to make sure they were alive this past weekend, and they were green.

So I assume (and hope) that it is just the strange winter/spring we have had that is causing these two tree's (composted and not composted) to continue to 'sleep'.

I am most curious about how your results end up emgardener.
emgardener
Original Author
15 years ago
big deck,

I'll try to post a follow up in a couple months.

So far, just a few days, I've been surprised the racoons haven't found it. Just have a plywood over the bucket without a latch or weight on it. Previously racoons would dig up scraps I buried. Just to be sure though I'm going to glue/strap a brick to the cover for weight.

And I'm probably to add a few more digesters one each, next to my favorite 5 fruit trees.

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Fertilization Root Depth Question

Comments (9)

naturalstuff

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

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Fertilization Root Depth Question

Comments (9)

naturalstuff

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

Related Discussions

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