Trench Composting In Early Spring

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:06]Hey, it's Greg here with Maritime Gardening and today I'm doing some trench composting. I've done videos on this before, but it's been a while. So, I just thought I'd show it again. So, I got a bed here where the soil level is dropped almost to the point where even though it it looks like a raised bed, it's not a raised bed because the soil in this bed was practically at grade.

[00:00:26]So, I've dug a deep trench. you can see down here. And I started filling it with weeds and all kinds of stuff that really has no place. Um, so just show them over there. But so you can see here, these are weeds I pulled in other gardens.

[00:00:42]Every kind of weed I could think of.

[00:00:44]Some old rotten wood, some un not fully composted cardboard from last year's garden that's just sitting there all winter. Now this time of year, you got a lot of weeds. You got a lot of things that have just been happening since last fall and early spring. You got to sort that all out. So, if you just pan out a little bit more, I got a garden over here where I'm planting potatoes. I had weeds. I filled a container of weeds with that. Um, over here, this garden had weeds. Pulled all of those and cultivated the soil there. And this bed had some weeds and stuff, so we pulled all of those. So, now I've got all this stuff in these containers.

[00:01:24]And I mean I could put it in a composter and wait for it to compost or I can just bury it here and it will compost. So that's what I'm going to do. Um these these are like this is grass. Sometimes you can show over here.

[00:01:39]I got all these things that I mean sand sand pathways are great. They don't tend to get weeds but anywhere like this this spot here there's a bit of shade, right? you will get weeds because the soil can't dry sand can't dry out quickly here. So weed seeds, I mean they they fly they fly into your garden through from the air, right? They're going to gather around edges like this. So they're going to grow, right? All right. So, I just gather those all up, put them in a bucket, and whatever bed looks like it needs more soil, I just fill I dig a trench and I fill it with weeds. I do this every year with everything.

[00:02:25]And uh people have asked, "Aren't you worried about the weeds growing and stuff?" No, I'm not. That's why I'm doing it. I was worried I wouldn't be doing it. Um, so I mean there are some weeds I would never do this with. Like I would not do this with Japanese knotweed. I would not do this with um, you know, gout weed. I wouldn't do this with anything that's invincible, you know, has a really strong ability to punch through, push through and stuff.

[00:03:03]But most of what I got here once we bury it. And you see here, I'm falling down.

[00:03:11]I'm stomping. I'm stomping this all down. I'm giving these old weeds a curb.

[00:03:17]Stomp, right? Getting them down.

[00:03:20]Trying to get them packed in like that.

[00:03:22]I mean, what plant likes that, right?

[00:03:25]So, yes, I'm compressing all of this, but the weeds, they're fibrous, right? It's okay that you're pressing them down.

[00:03:36]After a few months, it'll all be loose.

[00:03:42]All right. Now, I'm going to grab the rake, put some of the soil in like that.

[00:03:52]Do another little walk.

[00:03:55]You don't want the trench collapsing after a couple months. It is compressing a bit. Still not compressing a lot.

[00:04:07]Right now, I'll put some more soil over there.

[00:04:11]Like that. I'm not going to walk on that, but maybe I'll give that a quick quick pound with the old rake.

[00:04:18]Like that. Now we smooth the whole thing out. And I think by doing this, the whole bed will have gained about an inch of soil, right? Cuz we've added, I don't know, like let's say a wheelbarrow full of plant matter, which is basically soil now. It's going to be it's future soil, right? Even though it's weeds. And one of the other benefits of using the weeds in this way is that all plants excrete various kinds of sugars and things out of their roots into the soil that touch their roots. So to put that another way, the soil that is touching the roots of weeds, this is rich good soil, right? That's why you tend to you pull a a dandelion on your front lawn, it's like 50/50 chance there'll be a worm in the roots. That's why, right? A lot of good stuff there, right? And all the different forms of microbial life in the soil are attracted to those roots. So, by planting the roots, you're actually kind of fertilizing the soil. Now, that's buried deep in the trench, but there's worms and other things going around in the soil here, distributing all that stuff throughout the garden.

[00:05:55]So everything that's in those roots of the weeds will eventually don't want that will eventually be everywhere else. Rock there.

[00:06:12]So we're effectively amending the garden.

[00:06:21]Look at that guy. He gets it. All right.

[00:06:25]So, we're doing a good thing for the garden.

[00:06:30]We're avoiding having to buy soil and get it from somewhere else. We're turning weeds into soil. Maybe that should be the title of the video.

[00:06:40]This garden is ready for planting. It's going to be a carrot garden. Just for those that don't know, the next thing you do is you go around the garden. Oh, dude.

[00:06:53]This guy's in trouble over there.

[00:06:57]Look at that one.

[00:06:59]Holy smokes. It's like they're all trying to escape.

[00:07:02]>> Yeah. Go back down. Go.

[00:07:05]What's the matter with you? Go away.

[00:07:08]All right.

[00:07:11]Further evidence that this is good soil.

[00:07:14]Right.

[00:07:17]Oh, you just go around like this. The reason you do this, you're tamping it down and yeah, you're compacting your soil a little bit, but not that much.

[00:07:26]What you're doing with the rake is what one good rain would do, right?

[00:07:37]And by doing this, when you plant your seeds, in this case, carrots, the next time it rains, it's not going to mess the garden up. the soil will stay in place. Right? This is good soil.

[00:07:52]You know you've got good soil, you can turn it into a snowball like that. Right? So, by compacting it like this a little bit, it'll just stay like this when there's rain and stuff. That's why we do that.

[00:08:08]Okay.

[00:08:10]All right. So, this garden's all ready for planting. It didn't take long. We came out here today. We weeded three beds and now all the weeds are gone and they're actually working for me in this garden that needed the soil level brought up. I brought the soil up about an inch. I've avoided having to bring soil in from somewhere else. I've avoided having to buy soil and I've added lots of good nutrients and stuff and worms I suppose and micro microorganisms to the soil. So, hope you found this video interesting. If you did, please like, share, subscribe, check out my sponsor, Vessie Seeds, and my new sponsor, Sprro Box Garden.

[00:08:45]Details in the description box of all the different coupon codes and deals you can get with those. And until next time, get out there, get at it, have fun in your garden. Thanks for watching.