MORE Compost!

Later I went to our landfill (oops!, Resource Recovery Park is the proper name) and bought a yard of compost. It's good quality but had more sticks than I like. The sticks are small and black to the core (therefore well rotted and not a nitrogen problem). I just threw it around the garden as far as I could and delivered it to the far side with the wheel barrow. Counting the compost I've made, this is probably the fifth cubic yard added since I dug the first beds in fall '05. Still not as rich as I want but definitely getting better.

On The Ground

This picture is of my garden with 200 lbs of agricultural lime spread on it. I had trouble with too many ashes last year and wanted to buffer the pH of the soil as well as make lots of Calcium and Magnesium available for my plants so I added a lot of lime.

Lime and Charcoal

This load of charcoal is the result of the winter's wood burning stove. I saved the ashes and the charcoal that save within them. I then screened the ashes out and kept the charcoal. I'm going to add this to the garden as an experiment.

It's a long story but the short version is that the Indians of the Amazon Basin added charcoal to their soil as a way to make it more fertile. The soils they modified over 500 years ago are still 800% more productive than the unmodified soils. The black soils are called Terra Preta de Indio in Brazil. They are mentioned (I'm told) in the book 1491 and in a BBC documentary titled The Secrets of El Dorado. There's evidence that the rich soils made possible a population that was huge, much larger than lives in the Amazon today.

I corresponded with a scientist at Cornell University and he said that there's not much research been done on how or if this works in the temperate climate zone. If it works well and improves soil fertility, it has a HUGE POSSIBILITY as a part of reducing global warming. Putting carbon in the soil lasts a long time (500+ years) and COULD permamently? sequester the carbon as well as improving the growth and therefore carbon dioxide uptake of green plants. I was unable to powder the charcoal and added it as small chunks. I know the freezing and thawing of the winter breaks down the particle size but i don't know if my larger pieces will work. I'll try some in pots later this summer.

Fertility

Building the reservior of life in the soil is the best way to give life to your vegetables and ultimately life to you. In the photo you see one of my compost piles. I'm harvesting the compost to put on my garden last fall. I like to let the nutrients sink in over the winter. This pile was made from leaves, my own grass clippings and food scraps. I added red wiggler worms from the bins I keep in my basement and they loved it. The population is now huge.

I like to hand screen the compost to make it fine and keep out trash, sticks and unwanted debris. I was only able to make about one cubic yard of compost last year. I bought two yards from our Resource Recovery Park in Lee's Summit Missouri. I'm ready to go get some more today. This year I'm adding agricultural lime (pelletized limestone) and probably 20 gallons of Charcoal as an experiment. I'll write about that in a later blog.

Get ready for Spring!

Welcome

Hi folks!
This is Stan Slaughter, The Eco-Troubadour, starting up a blog to teach about composting. I'll be posting photos of some of the experiments I'm doing. I'm building up a good back-yard garden and working to build my soil fertility. There'll be lots throughout the summer of '07.
Thanks for stopping by and check out the upcoming posts.
Stan