Scientists are discovering the link between happiness and dirt. That’s right, getting your hands into some dirt can mean more happiness. Why? Well, apparently there’s a little critter in the dirt known as Mycobacterium vaccae that has similar effects on the human brain as Prozac and other pharmaceuticals but without the negative side effects and chemical dependency. This little bacterium stimulates serotonin production which helps to decrease agitation, anxiety and increase overall happiness.
Huh! So, for thousands of years, humans have been domesticating and planting crops, digging wells and canals, digging for minerals, digging to catch animals, digging to make shelters, roads, fields, and fence posts, digging, digging, digging. It’s no wonder that our human habits of churning the earth’s crust have continued unabated into our modern era despite all of our newly developed technology and sophistication!
As a bonus, the effect of the bacteria not only lowers stress and improves mood and vitality, but cognitive function and concentration is improved as well.
It gets better! M vaccae has demonstrated anti-mutagenic properties useful in preventing cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, and in boosting our immune system. Dirt particles may come in direct contact with the blood stream through a cut or abrasion during gardening activities. The means of absorbing the bacteria may or may not matter, but the effects of the contact may last up to three weeks! The testimony that the act of gardening does relieve stress is true – no surprise for some of us.
My kids (at the time of this writing ages 5, 3, and 1) recently went to visit their Nanna, Granddad and cousins. Long-term landscape construction resulted in a huge, unavoidable, glorious mound of soil piled in the front yard. There was even a muddy spot next door where a small tree had been removed. My kids played in the dirt and mud and, soon enough, pure filthiness ensued. They discovered that if you pack the dirt just right, you can scoot yourself from the top of the mound to the bottom, face first, as if on the world’s greatest slide. There was dirt in hair, mouths, and little jean pockets.
So, take some advice from my kids. If you want to be happy, make sure to get in a healthy dose of dirt before your bath!
~Jason Tibbetts
References:
Grant, B. L. (2017, March 27). Soil Microbes And Human Health – Learn About The Natural Antidepressant In Soil. Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm
Human beings cannot fully comprehend the microbial interactions going on beneath our feet, in the soil, and at the rhizosphere, or root-zone of our plants. Generations of thousands of species of living microbial populations explode with complex economies of extraction, manufacture, construction, trade, and war, and many individuals go extinct within days or weeks. For some, their entire lives are mere minutes.
But It all starts at ground zero- the surface. Surface or subsurface dwelling detritivores such as worms, earwigs, crickets, wood lice, termites, and springtails chew up debris and excrete the remains as frass, a delectable food source for many other fungi and bacteria. These organisms churn some of this debris down into the root zones of plants, where it is further processed by soil microorganisms.
Soil microorganisms, or microbes, include hundreds of thousands of species of bacteria, archaia, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and others all interacting in a community network of billions of different interactions- feeding, and feeding off of, each other and working in a dynamic group. Sometimes they are symbiotic, sometimes not.
These organisms are creating and processing an innumerable array of chemicals, many of which are only useful to a small handful of other organisms with whom they form relationships. Some microbe species are called saprophytes. These may or may not form direct associations with the plants and do not need to live in or on them for survival.
Many of these organisms are efficient nutrient extractors and foes of pathogenic fungi. They can be highly beneficial in their extraction abilities and in their abilities to parasitize plant pathogens, but many may also compete with, or consume other beneficial microbes. An example of this is Trichoderma viride. Several species of Trichoderma are often used as a readily available fast acting filler ingredient in microbial mixes, but will opportunistically feed on both pathogenic fungi, as well as many species of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi, making them particularly dangerous to a system where mycorrhizal fungi is wanted, and under certain conditions, may even parasitize the plant itself, or humans with compromised immunity.
Some organisms extract phosphorus and potassium ions from the mineral layers deep below the plant using chemicals such as carbonic, oxalic, citric, and acetic acids. Expansion and contraction of soils allow access to trapped potassium. Others are extracting phosphorus from minerals, abandoned roots, and the bodies of other organisms.
Still other bacterias and fungi are bounty hunters- seeking highly toxic chemicals to capture, and break down into new resources, and then trade those resources to others. Extremophiles are organisms that can live in extreme environments, such as highly toxified soil, or extremely high or low temperatures. Many scientific studies have been conducted in which plants have been grown with rich colonies of specific microbes in soil that was highly contaminated with various contaminants. When the plants were harvested they were analyzed for toxins, and no residual toxins were found in the harvested plant- all thanks to the healthy populations of microbes in the soil.
All these interactions are made possible by photosynthesis of sunlight and gases, and the resulting production of sugars. Every microbe has a different function and each consort will grow and thrive depending on what their environment has to offer.
What is Mycorrhizal Fungi?
Plants extract minerals from the soil using secretions of carbonic, oxalic, citric, and acetic acids and other enzymes in root exudates, but fungi are more efficient. Plants, on the other hand, are extremely efficient at turning sunlight into sugars through the process of photosynthesis. By forming a mutually beneficial relationship of exchange the plants can barter sugars for nutrients from the fungi, thereby each organism performing the tasks that they are particularly suited for and getting the rest of what they need from the other. Many species of fungi have specific mutually beneficial relationships with certain species of plants. These organisms may be completely dependent on the roots of plants, often attaching themselves, thereby shortening the distance and increasing efficiency of the exchange.
For example ericoid mycorrhiza have a relationship with blueberries and related plants. The plant’s relationships with these organisms will improve your blueberry crop and plant hardiness. Orchids form a relationship with another group of mycorrhizal fungi.
One of the most important groups of beneficial fungi is the ectomycorrhizal fungi group, which forms relationships with many hardwood and conifer tree species, more than 5% of all plants tested for these relationships. This group of fungi weave sheaths of mycelial lattice around the individual roots like an impenetrable hedge, or filter, thereby protecting the root from the entrance of pathogenic bacteria and other organisms, toxic metals, and other harmful chemicals. In an effect, this lattice of mycelium becomes the gatekeeper. In short, if the population of ectomycorrhizal fungi is healthy, the plant may be completely resistant to soil-borne disease.
By far the most useful clade of mycorrhizal fungi for gardeners and orchardists is one which forms a strong beneficial relationship with more than 85% of all plants that have been tested for mycorrhizal relationships. This is known as the endomycorrhizal fungi group. In this group, the allied populations of fungi embed mycelial hyphae, or fungal “roots,” into the roots of the plant and can then serve as a sort of root extension, extracting nutrients that are otherwise unavailable to the plant and making an exchange. This can greatly accelerate the growth of the plant’s roots, and thereby, its overall health.
These “root extensions” can embed themselves into the root systems of many plants and species simultaneously. Thus the root exudates of one plant may actually become the resources of another through the mycelial network, and visa versa. Because of how these organisms interact with the root system of the plant, they are mutually exclusive. If they have a relationship with ectomycorrhizal fungi they won’t have a relationship with endomycorrhizal fungi.
Allied populations of endomycorrhizal fungi embed themselves into the cellular structure of plants, sending mycelial hyphae into the soil to extract nutrients to trade with the plant for some of its offered sugars. Many are hungry for carbon and a few spend their energy sequestering carbon by manufacturing it into a sort of soil glue called glomulin. This very stable organic carbon glue makes up a huge amount of soil carbon by volume in healthy soils.
Fungi has a different type of respiration system than plants. Plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. The Animal and Fungi kingdoms breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. It’s opposite of the actively growing specimens in the plant kingdom. Thus another way that a close relationship with fungi is beneficial to the plant is via the elevated CO2 levels in the rhizosphere where fungi is present. CO2 is inhaled through the root system as well as the leaves, and both the plant and the fungi benefit.
The Rhizophagy Cycle
The term Rhizophagy Cycle represents the process by which the plants attract several specific species of bacteria by secreting superoxides into the soil from their root tips. The attracted bacterias are then taken in by the plant, as if sucked up by a straw, and cycled throughout the entire system of stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits (and yes, become a nourishing part of our foods and digestive flora).
As the bacterial cells travel through the plant active enzymes in the plant’s fluid dissolve the bacterial cell wall. The cell wall is broken down into amino acid sugars (a very usable form of nitrogen) and assimilated by the plant as a nitrogen source needed for growth. As the bacteria near the end of their journey through the plant they are then excreted back out into the soil as protoplasts, or cells without a wall. The bacteria then regrows its cell wall, is attracted back to the plant by its superoxide secretions and the cycle begins again.
The Nutrients
Misunderstanding N-P-K
Many of the scientists and farmers who study the rhizophagy cycle have determined that nitrogen is rarely a limiting nutrient factor when the soil microbiome is healthy. Most of the time, plants are able, through their relationships with fungi, bacteria, archaia, and other organisms, to supply all the nitrogen needed for necessary growth, environmental factors contingent.
However, our misconceptions of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), potassium (K) and other nutrients have resulted in a dramatic change in soil dynamics. In human ignorance we think that if we give the plant some N-P-K it’s all going to be fine. As a society we have an expectation that we must feed our plants with chemicals, and that we can somehow substitute the interdependent relationships embedded in evolutionary plant DNA with human contrived solutions. In reality, these common misconceptions come from not understanding things that we cannot see.
In fact it has been proven time and again in university studies (some on plots in continuous plantings for more than a hundred years) that a continual dosage of nitrogen fertilizer over time will decrease carbon. Carbon = fertility, therefore, decreased carbon means decreased fertility. Fertility implies many things, including the soil’s ability to retain an adherent structure. Without this, the result is rapid desertification.
Microbes use approximately 24:1 to 35:1 Carbon to Nitrogen ratio optimally to break down material. Different sources of organic material supply different ratios, and regardless of the ratio, as long as moisture is consistent, you’ll eventually get compost,… eventually. If microbes have a lot of cellulose carbon available, they must have nitrogen to break it down, even if it means taking it from the plant or from available soil N.
Why would it be any different with nitrogen? It’s not. If microbes have nitrogen, they must have carbon, which means that they will consume all the necessary carbon from the soil carbon bank in order to process the available nitrogen, thereby resulting in decreased fertility.
So farmers and scientists have traditionally been applying way more nitrogen than the plants actually need and the soil microbes feel it their eternal duty to create a balance. Thus, poof! Your carbon just vaporized into carbon dioxide gas. Along with your optimum fertility. Better to be high on the stable carbon side, thereby culturing an environment that encourages a healthy population of bacteria that can supply that nitrogen in forms that nature’s complex system is used to doing. But burning up available carbon may not be the only down side of heavy applications of ionized nitrogen; it may cause other challenges as well.
Endophytes, which are any beneficial bacteria that live in or on plant material, such as on and inside seeds, are generally quite robust. They usually have little problem surviving treatments such as scalding water baths, high chlorine concentrations in municipal water supplies, and other factors, but are actually quite sensitive to ionized nitrogen. The epitome of this irony? Fertilizer coated seeds. Recent scientific evidence has shown that many attempts to improve germination and active growth of seedlings by applying a coating of fertilizer to crop seed, has resulted in comparatively poor initial growth compared to untreated seed. As healthy populations of endophytes are an important addition to the successful growth of new seedlings, this is likely the reason.
Unfortunately few available lab tests for available nitrogen will account for the nitrogen derived from the amino acid sugars provided by the breakdown of bacterial cell walls within the plant itself, or in the surrounding soil profile and generally only account for available ionized nitrogen.
No One Fertilizes the Forest
If you spend any amount of time in wilderness areas, you may find wild fruit trees and berry bushes in the forest for which nobody is broadcasting fertilizer, and yet they’re loaded with fruit. Why is that? You may see trees that are growing out of a crack of rock on the side of a cliff. There’s not even any soil there! Where are they getting NPK from? Certainly not from agricultural fertilizer or runoff.
They are getting it from bacteria on their roots. No human is going up there and pouring a watering can of Super-gro fertilizer down the crack of the rock on the side of the cliff. If they did they would probably kill that tree. This plant is actually farming bacteria on its roots- feeding off of the nutrients from the bacteria. Those bacteria are breaking down rock and extracting minerals the tree needs through root acid exudates and enzymes. Nutrients are supplied to the plant in exchange for the one thing that the plant has in relative abundance: sugars from sunlight.
At Eden Institute, we propose that if you have a healthy population of microbes you may not need to fertilize at all. A bold proposition to be sure, but nature does the job that it was designed to do. And once that population is established people don’t need to be there to do it. Many, many plants are very beautiful and productive with little to no human intervention.
If farmers, gardeners, and landscapers were to give up fertilizer and instead focus on introducing and sustaining the beneficial microbes, over time these microbes will adapt with interactive populations that have the ability to give the plant everything that it needs, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the “essential” N-P-K.
Soil Nutrition = Food Nutrition
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently published a comparison of 13 different nutrients in 43 different garden crops from 1950 to 1999. The results were quite telling. The experiment first adjusted data to account for differences in moisture content before calculating ratios of nutrients in foods. While there was no statistically reliable decline for 7 of the 13 nutrients tested, there was a statistically significant reduction for 6 primary nutrients: protein, calcium, potassium, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) , and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). The nutrient density of our modern average grocery store produce pales in comparison from that produced in 1950.
In addition to the actual mineral and nutrient content of our modern produce, the “living” probiotic quality of our foods is empty by comparison because of modern agricultural practices. Beneficial bacteria are normally taken in at the roots and translocated throughout the plant; they’re not just found in the roots, but also in the leaves, tissues, flowers, fruits, and seeds. The fruits and vegetables grown in soil with a healthy microbiome will themselves have a healthy dose of those same probiotics resulting in sweeter flavor, more easily digestible, mineral rich, nutritionally dense, and medicinally capable. As an aside, studies have even been performed showing that foods that are grown in a healthy microbiome may also last longer on the grocery shelf and in the refrigerator.
Those same microbes will add to, and diversify, your gut flora making nutrients more readily available to your body. A healthy gut flora also leads to an internal production of B Vitamins, from the breakdown, and subsequent digestion of gut bacteria. You may be getting as much B Vitamins from these microbes as you do from the food that you eat. The bacteria is feeding your body in a similar way that it feeds the plants. Those microbes end up populating our digestive systems resulting in a diverse gut flora that displaces pathogenic gut bacteria and is essential for good health. Without this plant/bacteria relationship and cycle our food will be devoid of the very bacteria that our digestive system needs to thrive.
Living Soil Amendments
Compost
Compost can be fantastic… if done right. It can potentially be a microbially diverse, nutrient rich soil amendment that can change the productivity of your agricultural ventures. But it can also contain pathogens. It’s soil life consists mostly of saprophytes which are bacterias and fungi that can be powerful for breaking down nutrients, but they may, or may not, have a direct relationship with plants.
Manures
Manures may contain the primary bacteria organisms essential to the healthy production of healthy plants, but may also contain high concentrations of salts, undigested weed seeds, and if the livestock was raised in densely populated confined stockyards and feedlots, may contain hormones, chemicals, and pathogenic species that are highly detrimental to human health. They also do not include the mycorrhizal fungi essential for optimum plant growth.
Traditional Microbe Products
Traditional microbial soil amendment products can be a very useful option to populate species of beneficial microbes in your soil microbiome. But they also have some downsides.
Traditional microbial soil amendment products are usually liquid in form because they work faster as a liquid, but either need to be refrigerated or they have a short shelf-life. Dry concentrated microbe products contain microbes that are stunned through a freeze-drying process that detrimentally affects their productivity for an extended timeframe and usually take weeks to populate after reconstitution. They often contain cheap, easy to obtain filler organisms that work quickly to break down material into available nutrients, but are usually pathogenic to beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. And of course they are designed as a mixture of a limited number of microbes added together much like a recipe that you could compile yourself from online wholesale sources.
Soil Fertility Accelerator
Soil Fertility Accelerator (SFA) is a step above the rest. This product contains no fillers, is pathogen free, is not a blended recipe, but rather a naturally developed consortium of hundreds of millions of microorganisms that are in “suspended animation” and will activate within seconds upon reconstitution with water.
SFA also contains the most powerful biostimulants and microbial food sources available, necessary for the support of native beneficial microbial populations. It increases Brix levels, plant proteins, soil carbon, soil fertility, plant health, vigor, and nutritional content of fruits and vegetables.
Conclusion
Understanding, and taking advantage of the powerful interactions that are taking place below our feet is the first step to healing our soils. We now have what is necessary to make that happen.
If done right, using inline fertigation may be one of the fastest, easiest and most accurate methods of administering Soil Fertility Accelerator (SFA) and other such products to the landscape. As a reiteration, SFA needs to make contact with soil pretty quickly in order to adapt to its specific environment, which is why it must be flushed through on the “fast” setting. A residential size EZ-Flo inline fertigation tank will flush through completely on the fast setting with about 400 gallons of water per 1 gallon of tank. Other systems will have their own rates. By using an in-line fertigation method on a fast delivery setting you will ensure that those microbes are ready to go when they hit the soil.
We will now review an example with these parameters:
A 2 gallon residential EZ-Flo fertigation tank flushes completely in just 800 gallons on the “fast” setting.
For a monthly application of 6,400-12,800 square feet of planted area approximately 1 oz may be used.
EZ Flo Application Example
Step 1: Calculate Square Footage
As stated before- don’t stress too much on flawless precision dosage. These are living microbes whose populations fluctuate by the billions within a matter of minutes. Be close, be consistent. For most applications I recommend just assuming that your area is relatively evenly distributed square footage, and that your application rates are going to be the same for each zone.
Step 2: Calculate Zone Water Usage
Calculation Methods
There are two different ways to calculate the water usage for each landscape irrigation zone.
The first method is to calculate the water flow rate of each nozzle, and emitter and add them up to determine the total water usage per zone. I do not generally recommend this method unless you are an engineer with some extra time on your hands and are convinced that your landscape irrigation system is flawless.
The second method (and easier) method is to use the water meter to determine the water usage of each zone. Note: to get an accurate calculation you will need to make sure that you do not have any leaks in the irrigation system and all needed repairs are made prior to calculating water usage.
Tip! If you use the water meter to determine the gallons per minute you may want to start timing after you are sure that the system has fully pressurized. To do this write down your starting gallonage beginning at 10 seconds after you initiate the program and again at 70 seconds. This should accurately provide you with the gallonage per minute used for that zone.
Note: Because of the inaccuracy associated with the time it takes to pressurize a system an effort to achieve precise dosage will be an exercise in futility. Get it close. Be consistent. Don’t stress too much about calculating in the time it takes to pressurize the system.
Example
For our example using a 2 gallon EZ-Flo inline fertigation tank system we have decided upon the water meter method to calculate the following:
Zone 1: The drip emitters are flow-regulated at 4 gallons per hour and there are 4 emitters per tree and 30 trees. It is determined that our drip emitters and water meter are consistent with each other and Zone 1 water usage is approximately 480 gallons per hour, or assume 8 gallons per minute.
Zone 2: The drip emitters are flow-regulated at 2 gallons per hour and there are 1 emitter per shrub and 30 shrubs. It is determined that our drip emitters and water meter are consistent with each other and Zone 2 water usage is approximately 120 gallons per hour, or assume 2 gallons per minute.
Zone 3: The back lawn sprinklers are all 15’ fixed arc popup nozzles. We shall assume that they accurately put out about 1 gallon per quarter circle. This lawn is a rectangle with four quarter circles and 4 half circles. Using the water meter method we have determined that Zone 3 water usage is approximately 12 gallons per minute.
Zone 4: Again, using the water meter, we have determined that the front lawn water usage is approximately 10 gallons per minute.
Zone 5: Again, using the water meter, we have determined that the garden area uses approximately 8 gallons per minute.
Step 3: Calculate Run Times
As we are trying to accurately divide up the amount of water that the tank needs to deliver to each zone we will use the previous calculations, which have added up to 40 total gallons per minute (assuming that they all ran at once). Divide 800 gallons by 40 gallons per minute (gallons needed to completely flush the tank – 400 gallons per gallon of EZ Flo tank size) = 20 minutes total run time.
Now divide the flow rates previously calculated into the 20 total minutes. Our results for the product application will be as follows: Zone 1 = 4 minutes, Zone 2 = 1 minute, Zone 3 = 6 minutes, Zone 4 = 5 minutes, Zone 5 = 4 minutes.
Step 4: Calculate Product to Apply
Standard dosage rates are about one ounce per 6,400 -12,800 square feet every 4-6 weeks.
If we have a 10,000 square foot property, but only about 7000, square feet planted out for the landscape, our application quantity could be about an ounce. If we have only 5000 square feet, and we are on a monthly application schedule then once ounce may last us two months.
Conclusion
Now Apply!
The dosage of SFA to be applied to the landscape may be initially reconstituted into a slurry of about 8 ounces of water per 1 ounce or less of product. Once the product goes into full suspension it will be ready to put into the tank. Note: there may be some particles that settle to the bottom and do not immediately fully dissolve. This is ok and not to be worried about. If the tank is already full of water, drain off half, pour SFA slurry into the tank, fill up the tank to the top. If your yard resembles the example, you may have SFA in your landscape in 20 minutes!
Soil Fertility Accelerator is revolutionary! While you can apply this through a backpack sprayer or hose-end sprayer, using an inline fertigation delivery process works great in scheduled maintenance routines for gardeners, landscape crews, homeowners, farmers, and horticulturists. Increase your soil carbon, water retention, nutrient density, plant hardiness, vigor, and disease resistance. Change your soil, Change your LIFE!
You may have heard of the great benefits of composting. You may have tried a few methods and had some success. Many people want to do it but don’t know where to start. There are tons of composting methods out there, and we have tried several. Here are the 5 simple steps that we recommend to have a compost system that works.
1. CHOSE A SITE FOR YOUR COMPOST
KEEP IT CLOSE
Ideally, a compost would be situated near your home so that it’s easy to dump your leftovers without excuses! As we use a substantial amount of produce and empty it multiple times a day, we recommend not placing your compost so far away that it’s a pain to take out!
AFTERNOON SHADE
Don’t put it right against the house, since there is a potential for bugs, decay, and some smell. Be assured, that if you are doing this correctly the smell is of minor concern! If it’s done right, it will have a sweet earthy smell that some describe as reminiscent of apple blossoms. Choose a place that provides some afternoon shade to prevent the pile from drying out too quickly.
NEAR THE COOP
Next to the chicken coop is also a good idea, because you would be visiting it often. Chicken manure is too “strong” to apply directly to your garden without composting it first. Every time you clean out the coop or pens you wouldn’t have far to haul the stuff! Some people I know even decorate their compost bins to match the “theme” of the chicken coop and make it “pretty.” The important point though is to have it in easy reach and ideally a straight shot from your back door. Other than that anywhere should work.
2. SET UP A COMPOST SYSTEM
There are an innumerable styles of compost systems out there. You can use a single bin and flip the pile right in place, or use multiple bins and just move the pile from one to the other. Find a system that works for YOU!
SINGLE BIN SYSTEMS
A single bin works great if you are generating a small amount of compost. Depending on where you live, cities may offer upcycled municipal waste collection bins for free or a small deposit. Some conveniently elevated models have a crankshaft for turning and can fit a wheelbarrow underneath.
MULTIPLE BIN SYSTEM
If you are like us and end up with an enormous pile of compost seasonally you may consider a multiple bin system. One stall is for the currently-working compost, the second for mostly-finished compost, and the third stall contains compost that has been sifted and ready to use, or is empty. Once a stall is empty it becomes the receptacle for the turned stuff from another stall.
The ideal sized compost pile for optimum breakdown is 3’H x 3’W x 3’D. In our case we used salvaged pallets for this. You can find them for free or low-cost if you ask local shopping locations, distribution centers, businesses, or plant nurseries (where we got ours). No pallets? Simple wood construction works just as well. There is no shortage of DIY compost system tutorials out there!
BUILDING YOUR COMPOST SYSTEM WITH PALLETS
Our system is composed of seven pallets of similar size with narrow gaps between boards. Each pallet is cut down to the desired height and the base boards removed. After several years of use we have had to reinforce the bottom portion of a few of the pallets with plywood. A few tree guy poles driven into the ground in strategic locations provide the vertical supports and everything is then screwed together with a box of deck screws. This provides three “stalls” open in the front.
If you want to get started right away and don’t want the hassle of setting up bins or stalls you can simply use piles and shift from one pile to the next. Just move it over and keep it moist. When our drip system is not hooked up to it, we have a hose with a valve operated spray nozzle on the end and just spray each layer between each toss with a hay-fork. This exercise provides an excellent upper body workout!
3. KNOW WHAT YOU CAN AND CANNOT PUT IN YOUR COMPOST
The basic idea is to put mostly PLANT material in your compost, and DIVERSITY is good. This includes vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, potato skins, leaves, small yard trimmings, grass, weeds, manures, and so on.
BALANCE THE GREENS AND BROWNS
There is a vast amount of scientific information out there about the perfect balance of carbon (browns) and nitrogen (greens), but that frankly overwhelms most people. Having composted for years I suggest not making it so difficult for yourself. Layer about half “greens” and half “browns” for a good mix that should break down fairly quickly.
For clarification, anything still juicy or with pliable cells, such as kitchen peelings, could be considered a “green”. Anything dehydrated and crispy, such as dried leaves or straw, may be considered a “brown.” Fresh citrus leaves have some tough cellulose so I consider them mostly a brown.
COMPOSTING WEEDS
I highly recommend composting weeds BEFORE they go to seed. If your compost is hot enough (we will cover “hot composting” below) there will be no problem and the weed seeds will break down, but rarely do they all. So compost your weeds early, and the really seedy ones just feed to the chickens, put in the trash, or dump in the burn pile.
EGG SHELLS
Although they are not plants, eggshells are great for adding nutrients and minerals to your compost soil, however I recommend processing them first. To use eggshells in your garden it is best to first let them dry somewhere (on the counter, in the garden shed, etc.).
Once they are fully dried then you can powder them in an old food processor (keep one in the garden shed?). Use an old one from a second-hand store because egg shells will dull the blades. The resulting powder can then be mixed with dusting sulfur to speed the breakdown process once it is added to your compost or soil.
You can amend your garden beds directly with eggshell fertilizer prior to planting! Not only do worms love it for the protein source in the dehydrated membrane of the shell, but it is a great source of calcium, which is essential to prevent blossom end rot on tomatoes, peppers, and squash. Be aware, because eggshells take a long time to break down, it is best to add this consistently over multiple seasons, thereby building up the available calcium in your soil.
WHAT NOT TO PUT IN YOUR COMPOST
Now that you are clear on what is safe to put in your compost, here is what you should NOT be adding! Avoid high proteins, fats, oils, and grease. In addition to favoring the wrong kinds of bacteria, these items may also attract the undesirable insects and critters. There are separate systems for these items such as vermicomposting, anaerobic digesters, and black soldier fly hatcheries. If you are interested in more information about these, feel free to leave a note in the comments below and we would be happy to share more info or possibly a future post.
WORMS
Do not put worms directly in your compost system. If your compost system is working properly the heat will kill the worms. I do however, throw every fat juicy beetle grub (Japanese beetles, June beetles, etc) that I find into the compost. I don’t necessarily like them munching on plant roots in my garden, but they do a fantastic job at speeding up the breakdown process of cellulose. If I find them in my sifted finished product they go to the chickens. The advantages of redirecting nature’s energies to fulfill multiple functions is marvelous!
DON’T FORGET THE LABELS!
Be sure to remove the plastic store-bought produce labels from your fruits and veggies. It is very annoying to find and remove them from the compost pile or garden beds after the fact. It took us a few rounds of finding old fruit labels in our garden soil and reminding the family before they were no longer showing up in the pile!
4. KEEP IT MOIST
WHY DOES MOISTURE MATTER?
Moisture is essential for your compost system to quickly break down organic material. As we live in a hot, dry desert climate, this may be an issue. If your pile is not maintaining sufficient moisture it will “petrify” and become hydrophobic, thereby becoming very difficult to re-wet and need an extra watering of each layer, as well as the addition of some liquid form of nitrogen (fish emulsion works) to restart the breakdown process. Additionally, if the pile stays too dry ants, cockroaches and other critters may decide to move in and call it home.
If your pile is too wet, it will “putrefy” and become gross and stinky. This problem seems to exist much less commonly here in the desert. For many years we had our drip system hooked up to the back of our compost stalls with a fogger emitter that wet it down every time the trees got watered. It certainly made the moisture levels more consistent and that has become my recommended way to go. We simply mounted drip lines on the outside of the back wall and attached a misting emitter to each line. Whatever method you choose, the idea is to maintain moisture. As you turn it you may find dry layers. This is when an additional spray between layers is needed.
5. TURN IT OFTEN
SPEED UP THE BREAK DOWN
A 3′ x 3′ x 3′ compost pile that has the perfect mixture of greens and browns and the perfect moisture content, but is not turned will take about a year to break down on its own. Each time you turn it you provide oxygen to the microbes and cut the break down time in about half. If your system is running smoothly and being turned every 2 or 3 days, you can ultimately get finished compost in as little as three weeks. Here in our hot, dry summer months it will likely be more like six weeks depending upon the pile’s moisture levels.
MICROBES
If the microbes in your compost system are busy doing work for you and they have an ideal environment, it is not uncommon for the pile to heat up to about 160°, and the center of the pile will likely be hotter. If the pile is sufficiently hot weed seeds and unwanted pathogens will cook. The result will be sweet, earthy compost, full of life-giving nutrients!
SIFTING YOUR COMPOST
The last step before having compost ready for your garden is to sift. In some cases, especially where the ideally-sized brown material had been used, this will likely be unnecessary, but in our case we are using yard clippings, sticks and all, in our compost.
A 1/2 wire mesh or expanded sheet metal screen attached to a wooden frame and mounted above a wheelbarrow is all you need. The compost is then shoveled on, agitated, and the remaining bulky material is then thrown back into the compost pile to break down further.
If you are really lucky, you may have a spinning compost trommel mounted at an angle that does the work for you. Rough compost loaded into one end is spun and sifted, and compost will drop below into a wheelbarrow or a tarp while the bulky material travels down the tube to a collection at the other end.
FINAL THOUGHTS
SCHEDULE TIME
Plan on spending about 15 minutes 2-3 days a week turning and watering your compost. These steps should lead to a great system that can produce compost in 3-8 weeks. The multi bin system will offer you a pile of compost ready at any time to use in your garden.
LET IT REST
One final step! After your compost has completely broken down and added to your garden, let the bed rest for a week or two before planting. This will allow the beneficial microbes and fungi to populate your soil and invite good garden critters back in such as worms. As long as you feed your soil, your soil will feed your plants and you will be a gardening success!
So what is your favorite compost system and how has it worked for you? We would love to hear how your garden is growing! And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
