Re: compost contents
Pat Elazar (Pat_Elazar@cwb.ca)
Sat, 23 Oct 1999 08:25:27 -0500
Rachael asked:
A question for soil biologists or home composting experts, here. I have
heard that certain types of trees, walnuts and ecalypts among them, are
allelopathic -- their roots secrete something that discourages other
plants from growing nearby. How do eucalyptus leaves behave in
compost? I have a cold compost pile that recently had a lot of
eucalyptus leaves added. Will they break down harmlessly and combine
with the other things in the pile (kitchen scraps, weed clippings, other
leaves etc) to make nice healthy compost to add to my garden, or will
they break down, but leave the compost an environment that will not
enourage veggie growth when I dig it in in the spring?
Thanks for any help and advice.
Pat replies:
I noticed on my home farm where we had lots of old Eucalyptus groves that
nothing lived either under them or in them so I never tried using them in my
compost (we had lots of chicken manure, spoiled hay & unlimited sawdust). On the
other hand, the leaves did rot on the ground so they theoretically would rot in
a pile?
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail