Yup, I'm with you on that, mostly. (Except that I'd say "chop" rather than "mulch", which I tend to reserve for "a layer of something on top of the soil", and that I think of "green manure" as producing/adding its own nitrogen as it breaks down, whereas woody/dry/brown material tends to temporarily borrow some N from the soil.)
I suppose the device pictured appeals to the "Oh, cool & ingenious Toy!" that's so strong in the nature of many people I know.
But of course there's a size-related difference in practicality that can also operate to form preferences. For small home gardens like ours, shredding & composting first, then either using the finished/sifted compost as a mulch or immediately working it into the top foot or so of soil works swell. For a larger area or farm -- where a roto-tiller or tractor-drawn disk harrow is routinely used -- that's pretty much out of consideration. There are also the factors of soil consistency, and climate. Some soils need to have coarse organic material worked into them, for aeration and water-penetration, much more than others do, and in warm-winter areas like SoCal the beneficial physical effects of coarse, uncomposted additives tend to be longer-lasting than those of compost. I tend to compromise, screening and applying compost almost as soon as the pile cools enough to be comfortable to work with.
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Date: 2009-04-21 05:09 pm (UTC)But that's me. I like compost better for the weeding, and because I don't acrifice some of my hard won fixed nitrogen to rot the green manure.
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Date: 2009-04-22 05:45 am (UTC)I suppose the device pictured appeals to the "Oh, cool & ingenious Toy!" that's so strong in the nature of many people I know.
But of course there's a size-related difference in practicality that can also operate to form preferences. For small home gardens like ours, shredding & composting first, then either using the finished/sifted compost as a mulch or immediately working it into the top foot or so of soil works swell. For a larger area or farm -- where a roto-tiller or tractor-drawn disk harrow is routinely used -- that's pretty much out of consideration. There are also the factors of soil consistency, and climate. Some soils need to have coarse organic material worked into them, for aeration and water-penetration, much more than others do, and in warm-winter areas like SoCal the beneficial physical effects of coarse, uncomposted additives tend to be longer-lasting than those of compost. I tend to compromise, screening and applying compost almost as soon as the pile cools enough to be comfortable to work with.