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| Tuesday, April 28, 2009 |
Wood ash from hardwoods is rich in potassium and contains significant amounts of calcium and other minerals. Ash from conifers may be similarly rich in potassium but contains little else. Wood ashes spread on the ground tend to lose their nutrients rapidly through leaching. If these nutrients are needed in your soil, then add the ash to your compost piles where it will become an unreachable part of the biomass that will be gradually released in the garden when the compost is used.
_Wood chips _are slow to decompose although they may be added to the compost pile if one is not in a hurry. Their chunkiness and stiff mechanical properties help aerate a heap. They are somewhat more nutrient rich than sawdust.
Wool wastes are also called shoddy. See Hair.
CHAPTER FIVE
Methods and Variations
_A note to the internet reader: In the the print-on-paper edition, this chapter and the next one on vermicomposting are full of illustrations showing composting structures and accessories. These
do not reproduce well on-line and are not included._
Growing the majority of my family’s food absorbs all of the energy I care to put into gardening. So my yard is neat but shaggy. Motivated by what I consider total rationality, my lawn is cut only when it threatens to overwhelm the lawnmower, and the lawn is not irrigated, so it browns off and stops growing in summer.
I don’t grow flowers because I live on a river in a beautiful countryside setting surrounded by low mountains. Nothing I created could begin to compete with what nature freely offers my eye. One untidy bed of ornamentals by the front door are my bow to conventionality, but these fit the entrances northeast aspect by being Oregon woods natives like ferns, salal, Oregon grape and an almost wild rhododendron—all these species thrive without irrigation.
When I give lectures, I am confronted by the amazing gardening variations that humans are capable of. Some folks’ raised vegetable beds are crude low mounds. Then, I am shown photographs of squared, paralleled vertical-walled raised beds, uniformly wrapped in cedar planks. Some gardens are planted in fairly straight rows, some are laid-out in carefully calculated interplanted hexagonal successions and some are a wild scattering of catch-as-catch-can. Some people don’t eat many kinds of vegetables yet grow large stands of corn and beans for canning or freezing.
Others grow small patches of a great many species, creating a year-round gourmet produce stand for their personal enjoyment. Some gardeners grow English-style floral displays occupying every square inch of their yards and offering a constant succession of color and texture.
This chapter presents some of the many different ways people handle the disposal of yard and kitchen wastes. Compost making, like gardening, reflects variations in temperament. You probably weren’t surprised at my casual landscaping because you already read about my unkempt compost heap. So I am similarly not surprised to discover backyard composting methods as neat as a German village, as aesthetic as a Japanese garden, as scientific as an engineer would design and as ugly as . . . |
posted by neptunus @ 7:04 PM
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Shrub and tree prunings are difficult materials to compost unless you have a shredder/chipper. Even after being incorporated into one hot compost heap after another, half-inch diameter twigs may take several years to fully decompose. And turning a heap containing long branches can be very difficult.
But buying power equipment just to grind a few cart loads of hedge and tree prunings each year may not be economical. My suggestion is to neatly tie any stick larger than your little finger into tight bundles about one foot in diameter and about 16 inches long and then burn these “faggots” in the fireplace or wood stove. This will be less work in the long run.
Soil is an often overlooked but critically important part of the compost pile. Least of its numerous benefits, soil contains infinitudes of microorganisms that help start out decomposition.
Many compostable materials come with bits of soil already attached and few are sterile in themselves. But extra soil ensures that there will initially be a sufficient number and variety of these valuable organisms. Soil also contains insoluble minerals that are made soluble by biological activity. Some of these minerals may be in short supply in the organic matter itself and their addition may improve the health and vigor of the whole decomposition ecology. A generous addition of rock dust may do this even better.
Most important, soil contains nitrification microorganisms that
readily convert ammonia gas to nitrates, and clay that will catch
and temporarily hold ammonia. Nitrifying bacteria do not live
outside of soil. Finally, a several inch thick layer of soil capping
the heap serves as an extra insulator, holding in heat, raising the
core temperature and helping seal in moisture. Making a compost heap
as much as 10 percent soil by dry weight is the right target
Try thinking of soil somewhat like the moderators in an atomic reactor, controlling the reaction by trapping neutrons. Soil won’t change the C/N of a heap but not being subject to significant breakdown it will slightly lower the maximum temperature of decomposition; while trapping ammonia emissions; and creating better conditions for nitrogen fixing bacteria to improve the C/N as the heap cools and ripens.
Soybean meal. See Cottonseed meal.
Straw is a carboniferous material similar to sawdust but usually contains more nutrients. It is a valuable aerator, each stalk acting as a tube for air to enter and move through the pile. Large quantities of long straw can make it very difficult to turn a heap the first time. I’d much prefer to have manure mixed with straw than with sawdust.
Sunflowerseed meal. See Cottonseed meal.
Tankage is another slaughterhouse or rendering plant waste consisting of all animal refuse except blood and fat. Locally it is called meat meal. See Hoof and horn meal.
Tofu factory waste. Okara is the pulp left after soy milk has been squeezed from cooked, ground soybeans. Small-scale tofu makers will have many gallons of okara to dispose of each day. It makes good pig food so there may be competition to obtain it. Like any other seed waste, okara is high in nitrogen and will be wet and readily putrefiable like brewery waste. Mix into compost piles immediately.
Urine. See Manure.
_Weeds. _Their nutrient content is highly variable depending on the species and age of the plant. Weeds gone to seed are both low in nitrogen and require locating in the center of a hot heap to kill off the seeds. Tender young weeds are as rich in nitrogen as spring grass.
Weeds that propagate through underground stems or rhizomes like quack-grass, Johnsongrass, bittersweet, and the like are better burnt. |
| posted by neptunus @ 7:04 PM
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Rice hulls: See Buckwheat hulls.
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Rock dust. All plant nutrients except nitrogen originally come from decomposing rock. Not all rocks contain equal concentrations and assortments of the elements plants use for nutrients. Consequently, not all soils lustily grow healthy plants. One very natural way to improve the over all fertility of soil is to spread and till in finely ground rock flour make from highly mineralized rocks.
This method is not a new idea. Limestone and dolomite—soft, easily powdered rocks—have been used for centuries to add calcium and magnesium. For over a century, rock phosphate and kainite—a soft, readily soluble naturally occurring rock rich in potassium, magnesium and sulfur—have been ground and used as fertilizer. Other natural rock sources like Jersey greensand have long been used in the eastern United States on some unusual potassium-deficient soils.
Lately it has become fashionable to remineralize the earth with heavy applications of rock flours. Unlike most fads and trends, this one is wise and should endure. The best rocks to use are finely ground “basic” igneous rocks like basalts. They are called basic as opposed to “acid” rocks because they are richer in calcium and magnesium with lesser quantities of potassium. When soil forms from these materials it tends to not be acid.
Most basic igneous rocks also contain a wide range of trace mineral nutrients. I have observed marked improvements in plant growth by incorporating ordinary basalt dust that I personally shoveled from below a conveyor belt roller at a local quarry where crushed rock was being prepared for road building. Basalt dust was an unintentional byproduct.
Though highly mineralized rock dust may be a valuable soil amendment, its value must equal its cost. Application rates of one or two tons per acre are minimal. John Hamaker’s _The Survival of Civilization _suggests eight to ten tons per acre the first application and then one or two tons every few years thereafter.
This means the correct price for rock dust is similar to the price for agricultural lime; in my region that’s about $60 to $80 a ton in sacks. Local farmers pay about $40 a ton in bulk, including spreading on your field by the seller. A fifty-pound sack of rock dust should retail for about $2. These days it probably costs several times that price, tending to keep rock dust a novelty item.
The activities of fungi and bacteria are the most potent forces making nutrients available to plants. As useful as tilling rock powders into soil may be, the intense biological activity of the compost pile accelerates their availability. And the presence of these minerals might well make a compost pile containing nutrient-deficient vegetation work faster and become better fertilizer. Were the right types of rock dust available and cheap, I’d make it about 5 percent by volume of my heap, and equal that with rich soil.
Safflowerseed meal. See Cottonseed meal.
Sawdust contains virtually nothing but carbon. In small quantities it is useful to fluff up compost piles and prevent compaction. However this is only true of coarse material like that from sawmills or chain saws. The fine saw dust from carpentry and cabinet work may compact and become airless. See _Paper _for a discussion of lowering the fertilizing value of compost with high C/N materials.
Seaweed when freshly gathered is an extraordinary material for the compost pile. Like most living things from the ocean seaweeds are rich in all of the trace minerals and contain significant amounts of the major nutrients, especially potassium, with lesser amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen. Seaweeds enrich the heap, decompose very rapidly, and assist other materials to break down. Though heavy and often awkward to gather and haul, if they are available, seaweeds should not be permitted to go to waste.
Those with unlimited money may use sprinklings of kelp meal in the compost pile to get a similar effect. However, kelp meal may be more economically used as part of a complete organic fertilizer mixture that is worked into soil. |
| posted by neptunus @ 7:03 PM
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Evaluating Nitrogen Content
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A one-cubic foot bag of dried steer manure weighs 25 pounds and is labeled 1 percent nitrogen. That means four sacks weighs 100 pounds and contains 1 pound of actual nitrogen.
A fifty pound bag of cottonseed meal contains six percent nitrogen. Two sacks weighs 100 pounds and contains 6 pounds of actual nitrogen.
Therefore it takes 24 sacks of steer manure to equal the nitrogen contained in two sacks of cottonseed meal.
If steer manure costs $1.50 per sack, six pound of actual nitrogen
from steer manure costs 24 x $1.50 = $36.00
If fifty pounds of cottonseed meal costs $7.50, then six pounds of actual nitrogen from cottonseed meal costs 2 x $7.50 = $15.00.
Now, lets take a brief moment to see why industrial farmers thinking only of immediate financial profit, use chemical fertilizers. Urea, a synthetic form of urine used as nitrogen fertilizer contains 48 percent nitrogen. So 100 pounds of urea contains 48 pounds of nitrogen. That quantity of urea also costs about $15.00!
Without taking into account its value in terms of phosphorus, potassium and other mineral contents, nitrogen from seed meal costs at least eight times as much per pound as nitrogen from urea.
Newspapers, even with colored inks, can be safely used in compost piles. Though some colored inks do contain heavy metals, these are not used on newsprint.
However, before beginning to incorporate newsprint into your composting, reconsider the analyses of various types of compost broken out as a table in the previous chapter. The main reason many municipal composting programs make a low-grade product with such a high C/N is the large proportion of paper used.
If your compost is intended for use as mulch around perennial beds or to be screened and broadcast atop lawns, then having a nitrogen-poor product is of little consequence. But if your compost is headed for the vegetable garden or will be used to grow the largest possible prized flowers then perhaps newsprint could be recycled in another way.
Cardboard, especially corrugated material, is superior to newsprint for compost making because its biodegradable glues contain significant amounts of nitrogen. Worms love to consume cardboard
mulch. Like other forms of paper, cardboard should be shredded, ground or chopped as finely as possible, and thoroughly mixed with other materials when composted._
__Pet wastes_ may contain disease organisms that infect humans. Though municipal composting systems can safely eliminate such diseases, home composting of dog and cat manure may be risky if the compost is intended for food gardening.
Phosphate rock. If your garden soil is deficient in phosphorus, adding rock phosphate to the compost pile may accelerate its availability in the garden, far more effectively than adding phosphate to soil. If the vegetation in your vicinity comes from soils similarly deficient in phosphorus, adding phosphate rock will support a healthier decomposition ecology and improve the quality of your compost. Five to ten pounds of rock phosphate added to a cubic yard of uncomposted organic matter is about the right amount. |
| posted by neptunus @ 7:03 PM
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There are many kinds of manure and various samples of the same type of manure may not be equal. This demonstrates the principle of what goes in comes out. Plants concentrate proteins and mineral nutrients in their seed so animals fed on seed (like chickens) excrete manure nearly as high in minerals and with a C/N like seed meals (around 8:1). Alfalfa hay is a legume with a C/N around 12:1.
Rabbits fed almost exclusively on alfalfa pellets make a rich manure with a similar C/N. Spring grass and high quality hay and other leafy greens have a C/N nearly as good as alfalfa. Livestock fed the best hay supplemented with grain and silage make fairly rich manure. Pity the unfortunate livestock trying to survive as “strawburners” eating overly mature grass hay from depleted fields. Their manure will be as poor as the food and soil they are trying to live on.
When evaluating manure, also consider the nature and quantity of bedding mixed into it. Our local boarding stables keep their lazy horses on fir sawdust. The idle “riding” horses are usually fed very strawy local grass hay with just enough supplemental alfalfa and grain to maintain a minimal healthy condition. The “horse manure” I’ve hauled from these stables seems more sawdust than manure. It must have a C/N of 50 or 60:1 because by itself it will barely heat up.
Manure mixed with straw is usually richer stuff. Often this type comes from dairies. Modern breeds of milk cows must be fed seed meals and other concentrates to temporarily sustain them against depletion from unnaturally high milk production.
After rabbit and chicken, horse manure from well-fed animals like race horses or true, working animals may come next. Certainly it is right up there with the best cow manure. Before the era of chemical fertilizer, market gardeners on the outskirts of large cities took wagon loads of produce to market and returned with an equivalent weight of “street sweepings.” What they most prized was called “short manure,” or horse manure without any bedding. Manure and bedding mixtures were referred to as “long manure” and weren’t considered nearly as valuable.
Finally, remember that over half the excretion of animals is urine. And far too little value is placed on urine. As early as 1900 it was well known that if you fed one ton (dry weight) of hay and measured the resulting manure after thorough drying, only 800 pounds was left. What happened to the other 1,200 pounds of dry material? Some, of course, went to grow the animal. Some was enzymatically “burned” as energy fuel and its wastes given off as CO2 and H2O. Most of it was excreted in liquid form.
After all, what is digestion but an enzymatic conversion of dry material into a water solution so it can be circulated through the bloodstream to be used and discarded as needed. Urine also contains numerous complex organic substances and cellular breakdown products that improve the health of the soil ecology.
However, urine is not easy to capture. It tends to leach into the ground or run off when it should be absorbed into bedding. Chicken manure and the excrements of other fowl are particularly valuable in this respect because the liquids and solids of their waste are uniformly mixed so nothing is lost. When Howard worked out his system of making superior compost at Indore, he took full measure of the value of urine and paid great care to its capture and use.
Paper is almost pure cellulose and has a very high C/N like straw or sawdust. It can be considered a valuable source of bulk for composting if you’re using compost as mulch. Looked upon another way, composting can be a practical way to recycle paper at home.
The key to composting paper is to shred or grind it. Layers of paper will compress into airless mats. Motor-driven hammermill shredders will make short work of dry paper. Once torn into tiny pieces and mixed with other materials, paper is no more subject to compaction than grass clippings.
Even without power shredding equipment, newsprint can be shredded by hand, easily ripped into narrow strips by tearing whole sections along the grain of the paper, not fighting against it. |
| posted by neptunus @ 7:03 PM
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