Feeling defeated by chemicals

My dreams are coming true. I have a horse, goats, chickens and garden area just waiting to be planted in with some already established fruit trees. Yet now, I’m feeling quite disappointed with my mulch options. I’m far away from mulch and dirt businesses. I know how contaminated the hay and alfalfa are without needing to ask the local providers that get it elsewhere. And I have tried. They know nothing or say nothing.
Recycling center gets mulch some days from people bringing in down or trimmed trees. Who knows what’s in that pile. I don’t want to spend hundreds on bagged mulch. I have too much to cover.  The super high horse manure hay compost pile that I am not sure is even heathy for the garden now has me nearly in tears trying to figure out what the hell to do.
What are you permies using out there? Do you just have better access to bulk mulch? Are you saying F it and just using whatever you can find? I hate feeding it to the animals but I don’t seem to have a choice without spending too much and driving too far too often. Would love your thoughts on this.

I totally hear your frustration on this one. I've had bad experiences with stump grindings from trees that council staff drilled and poisoned before they were felled, and it can take years to recover from a bad load of mulch or compost. Been there, done that, got the tshirt.

On a scale of riskiness, I would think that homeowners bringing tree branches in to be chipped is going to be pretty safe compared to hay. You can always test it by planting some seeds in a pot with the material on top and see if they grow normally after germinating. Sensitive ones like beans are good for this test.

How much land do you have?  Is it possible to just move fertility around to feed your new plantings?  For example, raking leaves for mulch, or collecting grass clippings?

Gray Henon wrote:How much land do you have?  Is it possible to just move fertility around to feed your new plantings?  For example, raking leaves for mulch, or collecting grass clippings?

I live in the desert. No such things around.

Even in the desert you can grow carbon or cover crops. If you expect rain in the winter and it doesn't get insanely cold, there are lots of legumes and grains that you can sow, then chop and drop when they're at their peak growth. If the rainy season is in summer, amaranth is a good one. In the Sonoran Desert, amaranth comes up after the first decent downpour of the monsoon and forms a carpet. Add in tepary beans and you get some food for your trouble.

Phil Stevens wrote:Even in the desert you can grow carbon or cover crops. If you expect rain in the winter and it doesn't get insanely cold, there are lots of legumes and grains that you can sow, then chop and drop when they're at their peak growth. If the rainy season is in summer, amaranth is a good one. In the Sonoran Desert, amaranth comes up after the first decent downpour of the monsoon and forms a carpet. Add in tepary beans and you get some food for your trouble.

Yes, I did order a cover crop mix recently and plan to add that soon.

I would contact any companies that do tree trimming. Lots of people in desert city areas have palm trees that they have trimmed regularly. One tree can make a pretty big pile of fronds. I would let any company around dump all of those they wanted at my place. As soon as I had a huge pile, I would rent a chipper from a big box store and chip them. In half a day you can make a really substantial amount of chips.

Trace Oswald wrote:I would contact any companies that do tree trimming. Lots of people in desert city areas have palm trees that they have trimmed regularly. One tree can make a pretty big pile of fronds. I would let any company around dump all of those they wanted at my place. As soon as I had a huge pile, I would rent a chipper from a big box store and chip them. In half a day you can make a really substantial amount of chips.

Good idea. I have a massive one. Guess I could rip down some dead fans and use those.

I scrounge lots of mulch from the organic recycling place. I go pretty much once a week once people start mowing their lawns and fill up my truck. I only get grass clippings that have lots of broadleaf bits in them. It's not a guarantee, but I've been doing it for years and haven't had a problem yet.

I used to be really paranoid about it. I had pots of pea seedlings going all the time to test each batch of grass clippings, but I stopped doing that after a couple years.

I also get masses of dry leaves, which, I think, should be pretty safe. People might spray their fruit trees, but no one's bothering with their maples and birches. I also grab things like hedge clippings, which are fine enough to use as mulch, and whatever plants people are pruning - peonies, irises, tomatoes, whatever. I've never really had problems with plant diseases, so I don't worry about bring things like tomatoes home.

If I was desperate, I'd fill the truck up with all the branches people drop off and being them home to chip. That's quite a bit of work for less volume, so I don't bother.

I can understand your concerns and have a few thoughts. First, even if your mulch options are slightly contaminated, the vegetables you grow are still going to be way less contaminated than anything you will buy at the store, including possibly "certified organic". So don't let trying to make things perfect get in the way of having a garden. Things don't have to be perfect right off the bat, but just work towards getting them to where you want them. I don't personally worry too much about using commercially produced compost as a stop-gap while I am trying to get better systems in place.

If you buy hay directly from the growers, rather than a feed store, you can certainly ask what sprays they used. Some are not as bad as others, as far as persisting in the composted product and killing your plants. Just explain you want to use it for gardening and they should understand and be happy to tell you what they used. You can also find organic alfalfa pellets to supplement your goats' diet if you like.

I'm a few hours south-east of you, between Austin and College Station. Now right, there is a hay shortage due to the drought all summer, so we have to take what we can get as far as hay. But usually you can actually get organic hay straight from the grower. You just have to watch craigslist or other online classifieds, maybe even make your own ad saying what you are looking for, and jump on opportunities if they come. I get mine from an organic pecan farm; it's the grass and weeds they mow from under the trees and is fertilized with chicken manure. That is in Elgin; quite far for you, but you could rent a trailer or a U-Haul, or even pay someone to deliver a bunch of round bales. You would have feed for your goats and compost materials for years that way. My particular grower won't have hay this year due to the drought, and hopefully you could find something closer to you, but just as an idea for a way to get a large amount of chemical-free organic matter. My understanding is that horse-quality hay has to be sprayed because there are certain weeds that can hurt horses, but the organic hay would be great for your goats and your garden.

Cover crops are of course a great option. I grew sunn hemp this summer; it can be used as goat feed and as green manure/ mulch. You cut it and it comes right back, over and over again until it gets cold. Also great for providing shade for other plants in the summer heat. It did need to be watered through the drought, but it truly thrived in the heat; didn't mind it at all as long as I watered regularly.

I have not been to Fort Worth, but are there not deciduous trees in the suburban areas that drop their leaves in the fall? I collect a lot of these from the curbs down here in my nearest town. Yard maintenance companies in more urban areas are often looking for places to dump these leaves; if you live far out they probably won't want to drive to you, but this is another time it might be practical to rent a U-haul, make the drive, and load up a big load. Or not, depending on how far out you live and whether there's a company willing and able to stockpile them for you.

As far as other, non-mulch ways of improve your soil with what is accessible to you, have you considered a worm bin? I recently started one; those red wrigglers sure do love that goat manure! Eventually I'd like to have enough worms to be able to run all my goat manure through the worms to supercharge into castings before adding it to the garden. Most of my scraps can be eaten by either the chickens or the goats, so the worms mainly get manure.

Another note on goat manure; I've also been using it fresh in the garden by digging a deep hole wherever I plan to plant something in the garden, and mixing a quart or so of goat manure into the soil at the bottom of the hole. Fill in with soil and then plant my seedling on top of that. I figure by the time the seedling gets its roots down there, it will be mellow enough, and so far it has been working great! The okra, zucchini, and tomatoes that I planted this way look fantastic. I am now planting out greens like kale and chard using this strategy. I've strayed a bit from your question about mulch on top of the soil, but this is one way of using your goat manure right now to improve your soil, without having to let it compost.

I hope something here helps you out!

There is a lot of good suggestions here.

How about coffee grounds from coffee shops?

Soon it will be time to find bags of leaves, Like Jan suggested, they are a good source.

Have you started your own compost pile?

Are there any mushroom growers in your area?  They often offer free mushroom compost.

Bulk loads of woodchips from your local tree surgeons. We get a few loads dropped each year. Some gets used on paths. Some in the deep litter chicken run. Some direct on beds. But about half sits and decomposes in place... which is a good thing because it breaks down to a lovely dark soil, which can be applied anywhere needed.

I feel for you!  We've dealt with this issue as well, had many bad experiences and finally decided to think like someone from a so-called developing nation - use what we have at hand, what we can grow ourselves, and learn to use everything around us.  

Look up any of the talks from Helen Atthowe on this site; those are the types of methods we use.  We grow/forage our own mulch.  It takes time to build up, but has worked much better for us. We have become more and more self-sufficient over the years and buy fewer and fewer inputs.  The last bit of stuff I buy is coconut coir and fish bonemeal for making our own seed starting/potting mixes (combined with native soil). I haven't yet found a solution that works well enough for seed starting, for replacing the needed phosphorus in our phosphorus-deficient soil. But I keep trying!

As far as creating masses of your own compost and your own animal forage - what works for animal forage also happens to make great mulch and compost in my experience.  As long as it's not seeding.  

You may wish to look into silvopasture/agroforestry/tree pasture techniques.  You can grow a lot more plant-eating-animal food by using trees and coppice systems in a small space than you can with grass/forb forage.  You can also grow a lot of compost and mulch.  This isn't likely possible on a city lot, but you can come close with a bigger lot and of course on acreage you could do it using permaculture water harvesting methods.

Here's an article that may sound familiar in the frustration for you; a woman who chose silvopasture solutions for her goats:
Why a California Dairy Goat Rancher Doesn’t Owe Her Soul to the Company Feed Store

Here's a book:
Silvopasture: A Guide to Managing Grazing Animals, Forage Crops, and Trees in a Temperate Farm Ecosystem. by Steve Gabriel and with foreword by permaculturist Eric Toensmeier

Here is what I'm growing for this use in my zone 8a aridland region:

Leuceana retusa -golden leadball tree - lovely, thornless nitro fixing  and forage tree native to NM and Texas
Tagasaste, aka Tree Lucerne - nitro fixing, but harder to grow than Leuceana in my experience. Here's a great article about growing tagasaste for goat feed commercially:
Redwood Hill Dairy how they grow their own feed
Mulberry - forage, compost, free fruit
Honey locust - forage, compost, edible pods
Arizona sycamore is also useful  - the peeling bark makes a lot of mulch each year - but I don't know it's forage value
Roselle and hibiscus relatives - many are proving quite drought tolerant.  Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (Rose of Sharon) grows in unwatered locations in Silver City, NM. Easy to propagate, cuttings root in water.
Rose of Sharon - Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Forage as a potential feed for animals: A Review

Black locust - This has toxic bark and can only be eaten by certain animals, and only the leaves - but that is a big advantage in my situation which requires trees surviving rabbits and deer when young. It uses less water than Honey Locust. Online in the USA, people will often say Black Locust is poisonous to many livestock.  It seems to mainly be an issue with horses if they eat too much, so you might not want it if you have horses that could get to the trees.

Here is a research paper comparing Black Locust to other forage trees for goat silvopasture: Forage value of Mediterranean deciduous woody fodder species and its implication to management of silvo-pastoral system for goats

And this: Cornell University Small Farms article about black locust

I like Black Locust for it's low water use and as Paul says, black Locust is one of those trees that "plays well with others". We read research that it helps walnuts grow, and planted it near some of our stunted walnuts - it did seem to help.  It's a great tree.

We also use vines, which make a lot of vertical mass. Great space savers:
Hyacinth bean/Lablab
Cowpeas - forage, mulch, food
sweet potatoes - get the bonus of tubers! But the greens are good mulch and food, too.

And plants that makes a TON of material in a small space:
Sunchokes - forage, mulch, food
Prickly pear - the sorts with fewer prickles make excellent feed and a succulent mulch
Sunflowers, annual ones - the seedheads are great for chicken feed, the leaves good forage, and the leftovers make great compost
Corn, same as above, corn mulch is excellent, too.
Mexican sunflower - different varieties of tithonia are studied for forage and compost/mulch use. They reseed easily and attract many varieties of butterflies.

Wild mulches we collect:
Pigweed Amaranth - this is one of my favorites, mineral accumulating and makes excellent compost
Most any purslane relative
Any grasses lucky enough to grow this year
We use pretty much any weed before it seeds...prickly stuff goes into hugels, though, like tumbleweed.

Then on top of that, we grow winter crops that can be used as green and brown mulches, like Austrian winter pea, favas, wheat and rye. And alfalfa, though it takes a bit of water.  It's a nice addition to the garden if you also like the alfalfa seeds to sprout. You can buy organic, non-gmo project certified alfalfa seed from High Mowing seeds.

The trick is learning what goes in season when in your area and planting a wide enough variety to have something harvestable as much time as you need it.  

You can look up feed values of almost all the plants listed above here: Feedipedia - online resource of feed values aimed towards warm climate farming

Now getting the mulch part down really well for our gardening material needs, my and my husband's goal is to have a self-contained system as much as possible, including for animal feed.  We lived in Oregon buying food for our animals, and even though they were able to eat a lot off the land, it was never the whole diet.  I really disliked being dependent on a feed supply/quality like that, even though we had for years.  

That was in Oregon, where green material is everywhere.  We moved to the desert SW and were shocked to see how dependent people were on feed.  We had never seen small scale, home raised cattle on sandlot for example.  It was hard to fathom raising animals again and not having anything to feed them much of the year.  So we made a promise to ourselves to hold off getting animals again until we have managed to grow almost all their food. It's been a great learning experience.

Siberian elm trees grow well in high desert Utah and Colorado, dunno how they do further south, but they are very willing to grow there.  They make beautiful hard wood, good fire wood, the seeds at a green stage are delicious, and they shed their leaves in the fall and great drifts of dry seeds in the summer.

Comfrey is another willing grower.

The annual kochia plant grows tall if moisture is available, stays small in dry locations.  It is excellent forage for goats, maybe other herbivores.  My guess is that at least at some stages of growth it would make wonderful compost because of the protein in it.

A rather controversial idea is to encourage bind weed.  It has a water storage root, which benefits neighboring plants, and can cover the surface of the soil, thus protecting soil organisms from extremes of temperature, and desiccation.  Goats really like bindweed too.  Not so tenacious are the dock plants… water storage root, waxy leaves help them survive in hot dry locations.

Another controversial plant is datura.  Once established hot and dry is fine.  I’ve seen a datura plant in hot dry conditions as big as a Volkswagen!  Beautiful fragrant flowers, shades the soil.
But it is poisonous.

The situation of ubiquitous toxic agricultural compounds is sad and discouraging.  It takes awhile, but various mushroom species do decompose carbon containing substances.  That’s their way of life…. decomposing.

Look into mycoremediation, and then colonize your piles with fungi.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Look into mycoremediation, and then colonize your piles with fungi.

This is one of the best ways to overcome chemicals.

And the mushrooms are very tasty, too.

I added a couple more to the list above. Mexican sunflower has been such a blessing here. It grows fast, self seeds, requires little water, and has soft leaves and stems.  Makes excellent mulch, and one variety has been studied for using in increasing tomato growth.

Also, Rose of Sharon - the drought and heat tolerant hibiscus bush.  It's lovely! They are so easy to start by cutting - the cuttings root in water.  So if you see one at someone's house, just ask for a cutting. You can cut them shorter, too, to about 4-5 inches, and root those.  They come in a wide range of colors.  Above I linked a research review of forage uses for Rose of Sharon.

We also grow roselle, the hibiscus known as jamaica, or red drink.  It self seeds very well, too and is drought tolerant. One of it's excellent uses is for acidifying soil for plants that need it.  The whole plant is very sour.  I mainly grow it for the calyxes (the part you harvest for tea), but then my secondary use is as compost or mulch, and my third use is as a soil acidifier or calcium or iron release for plants prone to chlorosis (iron-deficiency) in our soils.  Our citrus trees, for example. When their leaves start yellowing, it has thus far been an indication that they needed a bit of acid. They usually grow abundantly after an acid treatment.