Composting in the Mountains

I live in Ruidoso, NM 88345 my email address is jscooking@aol.com and I've lived here for 7 years. I have composted all my life, had successful vegetable gardens in Texas and NM. Even when I lived in Truchas NM at almost 8500 feet, I had a successful garden.

Always I looked to my natural sources for composting. Here my natural resources are rocks, pinecones and pine needles. I have an abundant of shade, live on a slope and when something does grow, I have deer which delight in everything, even the "deer resistant" plants. They even ate the rhubarb leaves down to the ground and when the leaves grew back, ate them again.

I have been trying to compost pine needles for all these years, by layering with blood meal, but while I have a very small amount of needles breaking down, not much to work with. My kitchen scraps don't even compost, just sit there. A friend of mine in Silver City, totally different climate etc, said she puts her kitchen scraps in a 5gallon bucket and when it is a stinky sludge she puts it her compost of course, leaves and grass.

So I tried that last year. I haven't been out to the compost pile yet because I had major reconstructive back surgery this winter and can't bend, lift or twist for a year. To pass the time this winter I've been reading a fascinating book " Teaming with Microbes" by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. In the book they talk about the soil food web and how to restore your soil. There were several references to E.coli. The fact that I "brewed" my kitchen scraps until they smelled like my next-door neighbor's septic field, an indicator of anaerobic bacteria, did I unknowingly contaminate my composting pine needles with E. coli? I still have two buckets of "brew" which I didn't have time to put on my pile before the surgery and while they are not stinky, are they to be trusted to be OK for the compost?

I must say this the hardest place I've ever lived in to garden. No top soil, no soil texture, structure, erodes away with every rain, shade, and then deer. I've read tons about composting pine needles since it is my only natural resource; no "lawn" with grass clippings, no deciduous tree leaves, and most references say not to had more then 10% needles into your pile. Any experience with this?

I am going to try different clovers, winter rye, rye grass, buckwheat, as ground covers, for erosion control, and possibly a green source for my compost. I just might have more deer to the "green diner" than crops, but I'll give it a try.

Of course, there are but a few of us crazy enough to compost and have a vegetable garden under these conditions and they think I know something! Basically, everything I knew doesn't work here. Do you have anyone there with any experience gardening under these less than suitable conditions?

I look forward to hearing from you.