Understanding Garden Compost

What is too hot and what is not?

Compost is a very vague term used indiscriminantly to describe everything from raw manure to leaves. So what really is compost?

It's really a process that builds live soil if it's done right. What we want to do is grow the beneficial organisms that help plants grow. This is a balance of oxygen, moisture, decaying plant material and animal excrement that builds soil.

Raw manure may be a part of that but the nitrogen and salt content will actually burn and hurt our plants if we put it on straight from the animal without taking the time to allow the microbial process and ozone to break it down into an element that is readily available for our plants to absorb through beneficial fungi.

Now let's make it simple. Time; time is the main element that helps all of this to happen. If we follow the basic guidelines to composting and take the time to let the microbial pattern do its stuff, we will have great compost to grow our plants in.

Here is a good link from the University of Arkansas.

The Grow Well Garden Cart

One of the ways I have been working on to create that complete cycle from creating clean nutrient filled soil to growing the plant in a pesticide free environment is what we are calling the Grow Well Garden Cart.

This has the worm farm, irrigation system and an environment difficult for pests to attack built in a easy to move into the sunlight cart.

It started with my need to find sunlight for my garden without cutting down my trees. As a tree guy my trees are way over grown from too much good care (smile). But then I started adding modules to complete the cycle and it's working great.

It can grow food year round because I can roll it into the garage and put grow lights on it.

I hope to have more information about this in a month or so.

The Healthy Soil Cycle Plan

We learned about using the worm farm to start creating healthy soil, now let's take a look at the cycle.

It's much like building anything in that we have to start with a plan design, build it and maintain it.

 

Step One: What is your goal in how much food you realistically can produce. Start with something you know you can maintain in the future or what is the point.

 

Step Two: Don't procrastinate but buy that worm farm today, get a garden cart or a small area of the lawn ready and make sure you have a realistic way to water it.

 

Step Three: Write out a maintenance plan for the entire year and put it on the refrigerator.

 

An example would be to write in your yearly plan what harvest (carrots, beats, spinach) you want and read when those plants should mature. Then set apart 10 minutes every day to water and weed. This 10 minutes becomes as important for your mental health as for your physical health. People who garden are proven to be more at peace believe it or not.

 

So - stop and write down your plan right now and let's get started.

Healthy Soil Cycle

I help dozens of people get started with the Healthy Soil Cycle. I was started on this quest when Jerry Baker (one of the oldest men to swim to Alcatraz) introduced me to his -0- chemical garden. The taste of his Swiss chard (usually biter) was amazingly sweet. His cantaloupe plants were producing 15 fruits with taste so delicious you wondered if you need an insulin shot after eating it. Why was his food better - better soil cycle.

It starts with growing your own plants in soil that has had as little chemical applications as possible. We talked in earlier post how difficult this is, but start somewhere.

Then use the refuse from those self grown plants to feed you worm farm. This is key because the worms will produce new soil and introduce the soil biology (we'll discuss that later) that makes plants able to pick up minerals and nutrients our bodies need.

 Just go to ebay and look up worm farm

Or you can build your own project (Home Built)

 

The worm farm produces two important elements, soil from worm castings and a oil (nice word for worm pee) from the tappet you see on the bottom tray.

 

As you recycle your own food into the worm farm, you've now started your own healthy soil cycle.