Hi, New here, so please bear with me. I'm having trouble figuring out what is right and wrong for making compost.
I have a ranch with not the best soil. It was an old cotton farm and that may have depleated the soil. In reclaiming the pasture I cut out tens of thousands of mesquite and cedar trees. After burning most of them, I finally bought a 6" chipper for my tractor. It makes fabulous mounds of fairly small chips which I hope will make some good compost someday to apply to my soil.
The question is, when I chip lots of freshly cut down cedar, youpon, mesquite, elm, oak, etc., can a portion of that be considered "greens"? I'm having trouble getting enough cow manure to add to the piles and other greens are in short supply in the winter. When the summer comes, manure is in short supply because the dung beetles cart it off so fast. I added 2 yards of cow manure to 5 yards of green chips. Is that enough to make good compost? For a month, the chips by themselves didn't heat up much, so they aren't really greens, I'm guessing. They did start to turn a nice brown color.
Does anyone have experience mulching fresh wood?
