@jtjmartin, I've been thinking a lot about your hugelculture approach with clay. I want to diversify the forest here but the soil is not much - just a skim of clay among rocks and boulders. At the same time, there are all these different recommendations about the crops we grow - garlic and alliums they say don't compost it get rid of those tops. So I've been keeping my garlic waste out of the compost by tucking it away in the woods instead - now I'm realizing I need to do a better job of composting that and get serious about building some patches of soil where a different tree might grow. I picked out a spot this spring where I put some stuff from the fire pit, and some branches that I figure will break down pretty easily, and now I'm planning to build a compost using the garlic waste around that. I think coffee grounds and egg shells is what drives my everyday compost.
Unless I have something special like manure or kelp. So I will see what I can get to rot around those branches and make it happen.
I remember discussions about how to dispose of tomato plants too, long while ago. A lot of people thought they should be burned or sent to the dump, but I always composted mine and even the plants that I stuck in the compost pile one year didn't seem to mind their own soil a bit. Tomato plants are a huge producer of biomass in the course of a season. They are worth growing for the compost alone!
