Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

I had a customer ask me the other day in the store how one clove of garlic makes a whole bulb and all I could think to answer at the moment was “Why that’s the miracle of life!”

I think he wanted a little more scientific explanation at first but seemed highly satisfied with my answer.

I have never planted a Hubbard squash in my garden but every year for the past 3 years I have had these magnificent squash miraculously appear in my garden.  I harvested around 10 of these giant, blue beauties each weighing around 20 pounds each. The flavor is unmatched in the squash world.  The seeds must have originally gotten into my compost.

I don’t really care how they got there all I know is  that this garden is a miracle and I am grateful for its tasty abundance.

(Image borrowed from flickr, creative commons license allows public use)

I used to scoff at lawns… I thought that a real, lush, soft, bed of grass was only possible with lots of chemical fertilizer and far too much water. Despite my past prejudice I decided last fall to give this organic lawn idea a try. So we dug up a small patch near our house, flattened it out the best we could, added Soft Rock Phosphate, CalCM+ Gypsum and Peaceful Valley Compost and tilled it together. We spread Tough Turf Lawn Seed at the suggested distribution rate once in fall, then again in winter and then one more time in spring. The reason for some of the extra seed was that we had some run off that would carry the seed away. But I would say that even without the run-off issue I would have doubled the suggested distribution rate (I really wanted a lush lawn).

A lush lawn I got! See for yourself:

This lawn was planted in the fall of 07, this picture was taken in April of 08… no chemical fertilizers used, just a little compost tea every other month or so. I water with a Gardena Hydro Fan Sprinkler for 5 minutes a day. I have to admit it turned out better than I thought it would… especially in the first year… now if I could get out of that hammock long enough to mow it (maybe next year).

Making a compost pile that works is easy! Now is the time of year you want to make sure you have your compost set up right.

To make a healthy compost pile you need:

• • leaves, grass, manure, or food waste.

Raw materials:

• • at least 3 feet across and three feet tall

The space for two piles

• • to turn the pile (a fork is easier).

A shovel or a fork

• • A compost bin, with good air circulation to increase efficiency

Optional:

Water

Step 1

Gather the raw materials

40%
• Brown colored, carbon rich materials such as straw, leaves, pine needles, or saw dust

30%
• Fresh green material such as lawn clippings, or grass hay.

30%
• Nitrogen rich material such as alfalfa, animal manure, or food waste.

Step 2

Assemble the pile

Put a layer of the brown material first, then the fresh green, and finally the nitrogen-rich materials. Keep layering until the materials are used up. The pile must be at least 1 square yard to have enough biomass to work properly.

Step 3

Aerating

After the pile is assembled, get it moist all the way through (without getting it too wet), and cover it with a tarp or plastic to keep the moisture in. This is the time to employ a compost inoculant if you choose. These specially cultured bacteria, fungi and enzyme strains speed the composting process and significantly improve the quality of the finished product. Just add to water, wait for it to activate (follow the instructions) and spray it on.

Keep a close eye on the temperature. When it reaches 140 degrees F, It’s time to aerate the pile. Do this by shoveling the pile into the empty space next to the original pile, and creating a new pile with the materials all mixed up. Make sure that the new pile is moist and cover it again. It can be really handy to use a compost bin, you can simply lift it off of one pile, and slide it over your second pile. Your temperatures will rise more quickly due to their open design as well.

After a few days the temperature will again reach 140 degrees F. When it does, shovel the pile back to the original spot, moisten and cover. Every time the temperature reaches 140 degrees shovel it over into a new pile. Eventually the pile will stop reaching those high temperatures, it will be black in color, reduced in volume and smell sweet. If it smells bad, try adding more brown material, and aerating more.

Here’s a recent question from a customer that I fielded… there is some info online about this but not much. If anyone else out there has an opinion or any tips or tricks for horse manure composting… let’s hear ‘em!

Question:

“We use the manure from our horses. When we worm the horses, we stop adding their manure to the compost pile for a week because the manufacturer says the wormer is out of the horses’ systems in three days. What is your opinion/advice on the wormer/manure/compost timing issue?

Short Answer:

You should be fine not segregating your manure if you can answer yes to the following:

• Are you willing to lose 5% of your compost pile’s red worms (worst case scenario)? 95% of the wormer never leaves the horse
• Is your manure exposed to sunlight (from the time it hits the ground to the time it hits the garden)? Sunlight breaks down the active ingredient in the wormer.

Long Answer:

Do you know the brand of wormer you are using?

I have horses and have looked this up in the past… the page I had looked up is here.

Here is what you want to know from that page:

“Will horse dewormers kill red worms? The most common wormer used is known by the brand name Ivermectin® made by the Merial Company. Merial’s research shows that the active chemicals in Ivermectin® are deactivated when manure is exposed to sunlight. Equine studies show that 95 percent of the active chemicals in Ivermectin® are deactivated in the horse before being passed in the feces. Leading experts in vermicomposting believe that the concentration of Ivermectin® in the horse manure is not high enough to seriously injure Eisenia.”

In the past I have used wormers with the above mentioned active ingredient, I have been trying some alternative to chemical/pharmaceutical worming (tobacco and other natural alternatives). See: ‘Natural Horse Wormer – A Gentle Alternative’.

What I started to do with all my horse manure after reading that sunlight would break down the chemicals was to muck it and dump it outside my compost pile, let it sit in the sun for a week or so and then add it to my compost pile. I do this with other ingredients of my compost too. My leaves, grass trimmings, some local soil, sand and horse and chicken manure are all in separate piles near my compost enclosure. I add my food compostables directly to my bin, then add other ingredients to keep the balance.

Having said all that… I have always had high amounts of red worms in my manure piles (even when using chemical wormers) and in the past I never made a point to segregate the manure right after worming. In fact I worked on a horse ranch for a while and we composted the manure of all 30 of the horses there and never changed routine for the wormer… always had a huge worm population (it was monitored by ranch guests who wanted to go fishing

Currently I segregate the manure for other reasons:

A) the balance I mentioned above

B) I like it to dry out a little prior to composting.

I’m not sure if having it dry out is good or not (now that I type that, I question it). I guess since I segregate it and it dries out in the sun I have gotten used to it being dry when I add it. I like that it’s lighter and not as smelly when it’s dry… I assume that it still has high Nitrogen content… and when it’s dry it mixes easier with other compost materials. When you add wet manure it sticks together and sometimes will not break apart or mix with other materials… when it’s dry it crumbles.

Hope that helps!

I think that cover crops have great potential for use in suburban environments, and I’m not just talking about large swaths of green grass that cover our yards…

Many Versatile Uses 

Cover crops, such as clover, rye, vetch, grains, certain peas and beans, and many beautiful pollinator-attracting plants, have the ability to pull nutrients from deep in the soil, effectively mining minerals out of the ground and making them available to other plants.  They serve as great “green” or Nitrogen-rich compost material, and many will readily regrow when sheared.  They can be used as mulch by cutting lush growth and letting it lay on the ground around plants.  You can keep unwanted weeds at bay because a well-selected cover crop will choke them out.  Many cover crops are drought-tolerant once established, needing little supplemental water, yet casting shade and retaining soil moisture underneath their small canopies.  They can serve as meadows…pollinator gardens…erosion control…nutrient retention…I could go on…and on…

Books

There are many books on the subject, a favorite of mine is Gaia’s Garden – A Guide to Homescale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway.  Peaceful Valley carries many books on the subject of cover cropping as well.

Nature abhors a vacuum – weeds will make their way to bare patches of soil in our yards, and as nature has designed, break up the earth to allow for larger shrubs and trees to grow with the help of the wind and birds.   Mother Nature continually tries to reforest herself, but we can use this to our advantage by planting a cover crop that will stop weeds from germinating.  Are you losing a battle with weeds on your property?  A cover crop may be the answer for you.

My Yard 

Last Summer my husband and I decided to convert half of our back lawn into an orchard.  Now I’m not talking an acre here, just about 20′ x 30′ – enough room for a few drawf fruit trees like most suburban lots.  But first, the soil definitely needed to be improved.

In the middle of our blazing Northern California summer, we stopped watering the future orchard site to kill the grass (we could have sheet mulched as well).  Once the fall rains came, we tilled the dead grass into the soil, and spread a cover crop seed.  With the moisture in the soil from the rains, the cover crop germinated quickly, and covered the area with lush green growth in short time. 

In late winter, we tilled this cover crop back into the soil, providing nitrogen, and other trace elements to the newly planted bare-root fruit trees (which have put on quite a bit of growth just since January!).  Our next step is to reseed a cover crop around the trees that will cover the bare earth and attract pollinators to our mini-orchard.

I hope that you will consider a versatile cover crop for your many needs as well.

Katie at GardenPunks