Making Gourmet Compost

Compost is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. If the green matter you are composting is lacking in nutrients the resulting compost will be lacking in nutrients. If the manure you use comes from animals that are regularly fed antibiotics the antibiotics will end up in the compost. I read yesterday that plants can take them up and they appear in the leaves. Yikes! If the compost is missing the microorganisms in the soil food web that make nutrients available to the plants the nutrients are bound up in the compost.
I do the following things to be sure my compost is doing what i expect it to do. First i make sure my garden is well fed so that the plants (including the weeds) have all the nutrients i and my compost need. Second, i add kelp meal and local granite sand to the compost to compensate for any missing nutrients. I get my manure from people i know who feed their animals a natural, nutritious, and healthy diet. I have my compost tested by Soil Food Web, Inc. to be sure all the organisms in the soil food web are present. I study my compost under a microscope to see if all the organisms are present. I then add some older compost to all my new piles to be sure the organisms will be in the new compost. You can get soil and organic matter from old undisturbed forests to add to your pile if you are not sure all the organisms are present. I monitor the internal temperature of the pile to determine when it needs turning and when it is ready to be used. A hot pile needs to reach 135º and remain there for 3 days in order to kill weed seeds and harmful bacteria. It needs to be turned 3-5 times with the temperature returning to 135º each time to insure all of the pile gets into the middle and heats up properly.
That's how you make gourmet compost!
Go here to see a graph of compost temperature over the 1st week and a half.

The Race is On

I'm in a race to get plants moved out of the community garden and settled here at the Funny Farm before A. the thief gets them and B. spring advances so far that it is too late to move them successfully. Today i prepped the asparagus bed, dug up 13 crowns and settled them in. I was hoping that i would have until next fall to improve the soil before i had to do it but obviously I'm not the one in charge. The bed is in pretty good shape so i'm confident that the plants will do fine. I worked in some alfalfa and kelp meals after tilling the rye and clover cover crop under. After planting i topdressed with more alfalfa meal to feed the microorganisms as they break down the rye and clover. I sprinkled some of the super compost from the community garden over the bed to reinforce the existing army of microbes. I guess you could call it a surge with no timetable for withdrawal.

A few of the emerging asparagus stalks snapped off during the move so i felt compelled to saute them in some butter and consume. It has been a really long time since i've eaten fresh picked asparagus. I don't remember them being so sweet. Yummm!

Ok, i confess, they didn't really break off. I cut them off with my knife. I couldn't resist. I love asparagus. The rules say that one should not harvest any the first year. Well. technically this is the second year and since i got really good rootballs on them rather than being bare root, i figure it won't hurt to harvest a few more stalks this spring.

My pee is going to stink tonight!

Wild Fermentation at the Funny Farm

Robin and I attended the Georgia Organics Conference last weekend. It was a great event. Attendance was up 50% from last year with over 600 people attending this year. We are making progress people.

The highlight for me was the presentation by Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution will not be microwaved. He is a very dynamic speaker with a simple but powerful message. He has made sauerkraut making an agent for positive change and revolt against the tyranny of the corporate-industrial food monster. His book Wild Fermentation (haven't read the other one yet) is  a well-researched treatise on the history and politics of the culture of food growing, preparing, preserving and sharing. It is also an instruction manual on how to preserve through fermentation almost anything we can eat.

As winter retreats and spring advances it is time to harvest the last of the winter vegetables before they go to seed. Thanks to Sandor, I now have the skills to preserve the carrots, collards and garlic by chopping them up, putting some sea salt on them and letting those ubiquitous microorganisms go to work on them turning them into a delicious and nutritious fermented delicacy in a week or two.

For me it completed the microbial circle of the soil food web by explaining how the same microbial community that makes turns organic matter into compost, and helps feed plants, also helps us preserve the harvest and make it more nutritious, as well as breaks food down in our bodies into the component nutrients that we require to sustain us.

Its all connected. Long live the microbes.

Never use Anti-bacterial soap. Ever!

Oh Yeah, there is a link to Sandor's website to your right. Wild Fermentation.

Craptastic

I guess it's a good thing to start one's blog with a controversial subject but i never expected the amount of shit i've gotten from my friends about my composting toilet. Most of it revolves around "does it stink?". Well at first it did. My employees were working here at the Funny Farm when i first started using it 2 weeks ago and they complained to Robin about the smell when they came in to take a crap in the regular toilet. (no, the pussies wouldn't use the composting toilet. they even told her that it would be worthwhile for them to build us an outhouse.) BS! We've got our outhouse in house.
They we right, i must admit, about it smelling bad at first. But after 2 weeks the microorganisms have been feasting on the deposits and the smell has changed from shitty to earthy. Just like a compost pile should.
There have been several people who want to make deposits of their own, especially after my adopted son said anyone who did would get a bratwurt.
So come on out and make your contribution to the life of the Funny Farm if you dare!