Trevor Dobrinska

Alright. I will get them shredded and piled this weekend. The coffee grounds only come about once a week, so can I just make a pile of leaves now, and then once a week, dump a bag of grounds into it? It may take a while to get to the right C/N ratios, and will prove difficult once it gets super cold/snow covered. Or should I just shred and pile the leaves now, and then stockpile the grounds in a shed until everything starts to thaw in the spring?

I have collected upwards of 100 bags of leaves from the city-folk who give away this precious material for free. I also have a steady stream of coffee grounds from the local coffee shop (~70 lbs/week). My goal is to create as much compost as I can in order to use it in the gardens come springtime. However, being in north central Wisconsin, it is getting to the point where winter will come quick (the fact that there is not any snow on the ground yet is just short of a miracle). Should I get my leaves all shredded and piled now, and let them and the grounds sit until spring? Should I shred and leave them in bags to make compost as the coffee grounds arrive? What is the best path forward to be able to have copious amounts of compost come springtime?

Hello all; first post, but I've been a lurker for quite sometime. I recently purchased a 10 acre piece of property that had an already established garden area. The location is not ideal, as it is what I would consider Zone 2, as well as at the bottom of a large runoff from the neighbors property. With the heavy snows we get (northern Wisconsin), that area floods every spring. My plan is to relocate the garden and place a pond in the old gardens place, but since we moved in around early July, I figured I would just buy some plants and get them in the ground this year, then tackle the new garden location and pond during the fall. Well, it turns out that all of my tomatoes got hit severely with blight in the old garden spot. From what I understand, blight then gets in the soil, and will harbor there for several years. This would not normally be a problem for a pond,  but I was planning on using the soil that was removed for the pond to create several raised beds. Is there anything I can do to make this soil usable for my new gardens without bringing along a severe fungal infection with it? The planned pond is going to be larger than the old garden was, so can I just pull soil from near the garden (~ 15-20 ft away) without risk of introducing the tainted soil?