Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

PVFS Brand Organic Compost

I’ve had the privilege of attending a free composting class sponsored by Nevada County Recycles which took place at Fulcrum Farm in Penn Valley. It was taught by one of the owners of Fulcrum Farm, Marney Blair (Fulcrum Farm produces the very same compost we use at our local store to brew our fabulous compost tea!). I came away from this class excited, inspired and just generally feeling good about how amazing composting can be!

I knew a bit going in but came out with that “I know nothing” sense on this subject… however very excited about learning so much more about the process. It can seem complicated but it’s not and it’s ALL natural, it’s the ultimate recycling program. I picked up a couple key points, like most residuals, i.e., pesticides, fertilizers, etc., will be neutralized through the process. I learned about how to touch and feel for moisture content and bulk density, what is carbon and what is nitrogen… then how to combine the various materials just by knowing what you are looking at and feeling. I learned what good compost should look like, smell like and feel like. If it’s black… NOT good, it’s been burned. I never knew that!

Anyway, there’s another class coming up next week and I CAN’T WAIT to go! Once you’ve gone to one of these classes, Marney will come out and do a free consultation to. She was a wonderful and inspirational teacher. You can always tell when someone has passion for what they do. Marney’s got compost passion. If you want to get in on this party:

Contact Lynne Cody Lacroix
Recycling Technician, Nevada County Recycles
950 Maidu Avenue
Nevada City, CA 95959
530.265.7119
NevadaCountyRecycles.com

You’ll be glad you did!

A lot of our earliest and most vibrant reminders of Spring are bulbs.  But what happens after the flowers have gone and the leaf material has turned brown and wilted?  If they are inter-planted with other perennial plants or late blooming bulbs your beds will look wonderful through summer.  Then Winter hits and we sometimes wonder where the bulbs went and will they make it through our typical winter freezes?  The good news is that most of our favorite bulbs are in the hardy plant category that can over winter underground even where frost penetrates deeply into the soil.  Crocus, Daffodils, Tulips, Lillies and Hyacinths fall into this category.  Bulbs will benefit greatly from a 2-4″ deep mulch of shredded bark or hardwood, leaves or compost.  Mulch prevents the ground from alternately freezing and thawing, which can heave bulbs right out of the ground during winter.  In summer, mulch conserves moisture and keeps the weeds at bay.  Wait until the ground freezes to apply a winter mulch to fall planted bulbs.  Check your local Master Gardeners County Extension for more information in your area.

Customer Question:

I have had a disease on my tomatos the last two years that looks like vermiculim wilt. I rotate my plants over 3 years. I understand that earthworms can reduce the fungus in the soil. Do you have any other recommendations?

Grama Pam’s Answer:

Biozome is one of your best bets. It’s a microbe that competes with all fungi except mycorrhizae which for some reason cohabitates with them just fine. This little bugger actually eats petroleum base products.

Keep in mind this is not silver bullet. I use it every fall after I clean up my beds and get them ready for cover crops, then again in the Spring in the planting holes. This has greatly reduced my fungal problems and deepened my soil significantly because of it’s super composting abilities.

Several university sites have other ideas for hygiene. The sure fire solution is to plant resistant varieties. Hope this helps and thank you for growing organically.

Grama Pam
Nursery Staff

I was curious to know whether Earthworms (aka Night Crawlers) were the same as the Red worms we sell in the store, so I did some Web searches and ended up at wormsway.com. Here’s the short version:

1) Red worms are the best for enclosed composters, and Earthworms are best left in your garden.

2) Earthworms prefer temperatures around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, while Red worms will thrive in a wider temperature range (59-77 degrees Farhenheit).

3) Red worms can handle more frequent intrusions (i.e. adding food scraps and harvesting the worms’ castings); whereas the Earthworm prefers solitude, only surfacing when searching for food (rotting leaves and debris).

4)Red worms are also prized for their ability to process waste (fruit & veggie scraps) in a relatively short time; as well as reproducing at a fairly rapid rate. In ideal conditions, as much as Doubling in the space of a Month! (Eewww!)

Happy Gardening, and Thanks for Growing Organically!

Kimberly

-Order Taker @ PVFS

Right now people are ordering mostly irrigation supplies and fertilizer!

Folks living in colder regions are ordering seeds and row covers.

Also, it seems like composting with worms is a hot thing to do this year; we are selling our can-o-worms and the redworms like hot cakes. People are really excited about trying this method of generating compost.

- Suzanne in the Call Center

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!