So I’m going to get some free raised garden beds and I’m broke. I’ll be getting them mid-summer, I know I can get my hands on free horse manure, and I want to do this on a shoestring budget so here’s what I was thinking:

  1. Fill the beds with free horse manure in mid summer.

  2. Get the horse manure to compost along roughly Johnson-Su bioreactor lines without being too strict about it.

  3. Add in some rich soil that I can probably get my hands on from a gardener to colonize the horse manure to mitigate the risk of aminopyralid contamination while it composts.

  4. Add a fairly small top layer of soil over the horse manure and grow a cover crop like clover or vetch during summer/fall to help keep moisture in and to chop-and-drop to make a good top layer for planting into come spring.

  5. While the clover is growing, get some oyster mushroom mycelium going and then when it comes time to chop-and-drop the clover in late fall, lay out a bed of straw and open-cultivate oyster mushroom with the hopes of getting something to harvest but mostly to help colonize the beds with mycelium and to get spent mushroom bedding while breaking down the chopped clover beneath. (We have very mild winters here so oyster mushrooms will do fine with the local climate over fall/winter.) Obviously this will help maintain the moisture of the Johnson-Su layer below as well. The clover and then the oyster mushroom bedding will help make up for the loss in volume as the horse manure layer breaks down.

  6. When spring arrives, the horse manure layer will be largely composted and the risk of aminopyralid contamination will be low, and I will have a rich top layer that will be a mix of soil, decomposed clover, and spent mushroom straw that I can either amend or I can dig some of uppermost horse manure into to make it something decent.

I don’t really have access to free carbon-rich material as far as I know and I’m not sure if I can source anything for free unless some spoiled hay comes up along the way. I can throw in cardboard waste that I encounter but I doubt it’s going to be enough. Any soil that I have access to is garbage and minimal, and I don’t have access to leaf litter or anything like that either.

The longer term plan is, to have a very biologically active and rich medium in the raised beds and to leave the horse manure as mostly filler. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to get some free woodchips or sawdust at some stage after the spring/summer growing season and I could tear down the beds and fill the bottoms with wood waste, then pile on the composted manure, then grow in the top layer again while the wood waste breaks down from the nitrogen rich, high mycelium composted manure at a fairly fast rate so that I will eventually have really good media to grow in or to use elsewhere.

Anyway, that’s my plan to fill up the lower parts of these raised garden beds and to make good use of the space and what resources I have available.

Any thoughts? Is this workable?

(I’m going with oyster mushroom in this plan because mycology isn’t my strong suit, oyster mushrooms are very easy to work with, and they’ll do fine with paper waste or woodwaste that I throw it at too. I’m fine to diy some carboard spawn for the oyster mushrooms myself on the cheap and I don’t have a lot of space so pasteurized straw seems like the most viable option, plus the relatively quick rate of decomposition makes me think that it’s the right one for my plans.)

    • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      I’ll put the word out on those sites, thanks for the recommendation.

      We have a chip drop type service where I live but the site says you get what you’re given and it can be up to 500+ cubic feet, which would bury my small area and my neighbors would kill me.

  • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    6 days ago

    2nding rec for chip drop for carbon if you need it, but the horses are gonna be bedded in straw so more than likely the manure you pick up will have a good amount of hay mixed in already.

    Another move is in the fall to just drive around and poach lawn waste that people put out. Or ask neighbors for grass clippings. Or you can get cardboard from people getting rid of moving boxes and shred it up.

    I would dig up the soil you have and mix it, you need those inorganic fillers for drainage.

    I don’t think you need the clover it’s gonna be super rich in nitrogen.

    Most states have places that will test your soil for free. Test it before you plant, amend accordingly and you will be golden.

    The most important thing is light. Put them in full sun. Pay good attention you aren’t catching any shade even a little makes a huge difference.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      6·
      6 days ago

      Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately we don’t have free soil testing here except for if you have agricultural land.

      I have clay soil where I am so that kinda fucks me with regard to mixing soil in for drainage lol. I could potentially tear down a bed and turn the composted manure into biochar but I’d need to do sort out a lot to get to that point - I’m not opposed to it by any measure but it would take a fair bit of work.

      We have a chip drop type service that would be ideal but they say you get what you’re given and potentially you can get an absolutely absurd amount of wood chips so as much as it would be ideal, I’m really reluctant to end up with a mountain of wood chips in my yard because it would create more problems than its worth.

      • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Keep an eye out for arborists doing a hardwood tree and if you walk over and ask they’ll drop the chips on your land. If it’s a single tree the amount is manageable. The ones you gotta watch out for are the guys doing like utility clearance that will fill up 40’ trucks lol

        Happybadger would probably have some thoughts on the drainage but I can’t figure out how to tag people

      • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        One more thing I am not sure oysters would be the best species for chips if you’re looking to harvest, they really like totems, but wine caps will do very well in chip beds

        • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          4·
          6 days ago

          Thanks for the tip. I was looking to do a layer of straw to try and stack a few functions: moisture retention, breaking down some high carbon material fairly quickly to develop a better top layer, and then if I actually get anything I can harvest out of it and/or if it colonizes deeper into the pile then great.

          I figure there will already be fungi deeper in the pile that prefer the horse manure, especially if I’ve got the right aeration and moisture levels, but if not then it won’t hurt. Chances are that my best bet at getting more high carbon material will be cardboard so the oyster mushrooms will be happy on that anyway.

          As for wood chips though I’m not banking on getting any anytime soon and if they sit at the bottom of the raised bed acting as bulk that’s fine and if they break down or the oyster mushroom mycelium takes over then great but it’s not a critical part of the plan. I think I’d need to buy spores or spawn for wine caps because they’re not that popular here and shipping costs are absurd (just checked and it looks like it would cost me well over $50 to get some spawn 😬) I’m opting for oysters because they are easy and it’s not that hard to buy some fresh ones and I know I can get a good level of success out of a diy low tech cardboard spawn - all in all I should be able to get more spawn than I need by spending maybe $5 and I’ll be able to eat most of the mushrooms that I pick over, so if I don’t get any success then the venture will only cost me pennies; even if the straw doesn’t get broken down because all my spawn attempts fail (hard to imagine), the straw is still going to make for a good amendment or mulch anyway.

          I suppose if I’m going that far I could price up some bulk straw and maybe run a few buckets of oysters for harvesting and to make use of the spent straw afterwards.

  • D61 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    Sometimes, local utility companies will be out and about clearing power lines and roadsides of trees/shrubs and chipping the bigger stuff. Might give them a phone call. They might be able to send somebody by with trailer or give you some idea where you can go with a small trailer of your own to grab what you can.