Stan's Com-Posting

Soil Preparation

2007-04-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

I used my Dad's tiller to turn the garden deeply. This mixed in the yard of compost I had applied. It also mixed in the gypsum to loosen the clay.

About two weeks later I had made the beds and trails in the garden. I shoveled trenches out of the garden and piled the soil up to make raised beds.

The upper three beds are the best soil so they didn't get a second application of compost. I was able to spread the compost on the lower beds just before a one inch rain.
The upper beds are planted but it's been really cold so we may have to replant them. I'll till these lower beds before planting them.

Condition the Browns

2007-04-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

Condition the Browns:
Composting is the art of mixing green and brown materials. While the greens need quick handling and care not to loose their value. The browns often require some preparation for going into the pile. Browns should be chopped or shredded or mowed up -anything to break down the particle size. Sir Albert Howard threw cotton stalks under the iron wheels of carriages on the road. This helped chop and shred the stalks. He also used stalks and stover as bedding for his animals. They chop with their hooves, moisten with their urine and fertilize the stalks with their dung. It’s a good start to composting.

These fresh leaves are greatly like shingles. They are a long way from turning into humus. You can leave them in piles to be moistened by the rain. ( that’s my favorite) or rake them up quickly.

Just leaving my “borrowed” leaves in paper sacks has moistened them a little. It’s important to have some browns in the spring when an onslaught of greens occurs. These leaves are ready for action.,.. almost.

I mow the leaves with my bagging lawn mower chop them up into smaller pieces. Every time I add leaves, I water to moisten the leaves throughout the pile. I recently combined two bins of leaves into one. I had my garden hose and spray nozzle to allow me to spray the leaves repeatedly throughout the process. These leaves have some ashes mixed into the bin (again on the advice of Sir Albert Howard) but mostly these Browns are getting ready to decompose soon.

This pile is so well rotted that it's ready to go to work. The leaves are so soft that they dissolve between your fingers and worms and worm castings are common. This mulch doesn't meet the visual test for compost, ( i.e., Does it look like what it used to be?) but this MUCK will condition the soil and eventually become it!

Last years mulch was stored for another year. Later this year we’ll be mulching with muck and then covering with this mix of sticks and straw.

The landfill gives us truck loads of fresh chips such as these that spent the winter waiting for a job. I put the chips on paths and around my trees and bushes. They're untreated hardwood chips (mostly pallets) so they decompose cleanly and quickly into the soil.

Use your seasonal wait time to get your browns into good composting condition.

MORE Compost!

2007-03-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-17T12:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

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