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| Friday, May 1, 2009 |
“I have lived a healthy country existence practically all my life, and for the last 25 years of it I have been actively engaged in farming. I am physically robust, and have never suffered a major illness, but until 1938 I was seldom free in winter from some form of rheumatism, and from November to April I invariably suffered from a continual succession of head colds.
I started making compost by Howard’s method using it first on the vegetables for home consumption.... That winter I had no colds at all and almost for the first time in my life was free from rheumatic pains even in prolonged spells of wet weather.”
Fifty years later there still exists an intensely polarized dispute about the right way to garden and farm. People who are comfortable disagreeing with Authority and that believe there is a strong connection between soil fertility and the consequent health of plants, animals, and humans living on that soil tend to side with the organic camp.
People who consider themselves “practical” or scientific tend to side with the mainstream agronomists and consider chemical agriculture as the only method that can produce enough to permit industrial civilization to exist.
For many years I was confused by all this. Have you been too? Or have you taken a position on this controversy and feel that you don’t need more information? I once thought the organic camp had all the right answers but years of explaining soil management in gardening books made me reconsider and reconsider again questions like “why is organic matter so important in soil?” and “how much and what kind do we need?” I found these subjects still needed to have clearer answers. This book attempts to provide those answers and puts aside ideology.
A Brief History of the Organic Movement
How did all of this irresolvable controversy begin over something that should be scientifically obvious? About 1900, “experts” increasingly encouraged farmers to use chemical fertilizers and to neglect manuring and composting as unprofitable and unnecessary. At the time this advice seemed practical because chemicals did greatly increase yields and profits while chemistry plus motorized farm machinery minus livestock greatly eased the farmer’s workload, allowed the farmer to abandon the production of low-value fodder crops, and concentrate on higher value cash crops.
Perplexing new farming problems—diseases, insects and loss of seed vigor—began appearing after World War 1. These difficulties did not seem obviously connected to industrial agriculture, to abandonment of livestock, manuring, composting, and to dependence on chemistry.
The troubled farmers saw themselves as innocent victims of happenstance, needing to hire the chemical plant doctor much as sick people are encouraged by medical doctors to view themselves as victims, who are totally irresponsible for creating their condition and incapable of curing it without costly and dangerous medical intervention.
Farming had been done holistically since before Roman times. Farms inevitably included livestock, and animal manure or compost made with manure or green manures were the main sustainers of soil fertility. In 1900 productive farm soils still contained large reserves of humus from millennia of manuring. As long as humus is present in quantity, small, affordable amounts of chemicals actually do stimulate growth, increase yields, and up profits. And plant health doesn’t suffer nor do diseases and insects become plagues.
However, humus is not a permanent material and is gradually decomposed. Elimination of manuring steadily reduced humus levels and consequently decreased the life in the soil. And (as will be explained a little later) nitrogen-rich fertilizers accelerate humus loss. |
posted by neptunus @ 12:39 AM
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Garbage Can Composting
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Here’s a large-capacity vermicomposting system for vegetableatarians and big families. It might even have sufficient digestive capacity for serious juice makers. You’ll need two or three, 20 to 30 gallon garbage cans, metal or plastic. In two of them drill numerous half-inch diameter holes from bottom to top and in the lid as well. The third can is used as a tidy way to hold extra dry bedding.
Begin the process with about 10 inches of moist bedding material and worms on the bottom of the first can. Add garbage on top without mixing it in and occasionally sprinkle a thin layer of fresh bedding.
Eventually the first can will be full though it will digest hundreds of gallons of garbage before that happens. When finally full, the bulk of its contents will be finished worm casts and will contain few if any worms. Most of the remaining activity will be on the surface where there is fresh food and more air. Filling the first can may take six months to a year. Then, start the second can by transferring the top few inches of the first, which contains most of the worms, into a few inches of fresh bedding on the bottom of the second can. I’d wait another month for the worms left in the initial can to finish digesting all the remaining garbage. Then, you have 25 to 30 gallons of worm casts ready to be used as compost.
Painting the inside of metal cans with ordinary enamel when they have been emptied will greatly extend their life. Really high-volume kitchens might run two vermicomposting garbage cans at once.
PART TWO
Composting For The Food Gardener
Introduction
There is a great deal of confusion in the gardening world about compost, organic matter, humus, fertilizer and their roles in soil fertility, plant health, animal health, human health and gardening success. Some authorities seem to recommend as much manure or compost as possible. Most show inadequate concern about its quality. The slick books published by a major petrochemical corporation correctly acknowledge that soil organic matter is important but give rather vague guidelines as to how much while focusing on chemical fertilizers. Organic gardeners denigrate chemicals as though they were of the devil and like J.I. Rodale in The Organic Front, advise:
“Is it practical to run a garden exclusively with the use of compost, without the aid of so-called chemical or artificial fertilizers? The answer is not only yes, but in such case you will have the finest vegetables obtainable, vegetables fit to grace the table of the most exacting gourmet.”
Since the 1950s a government-funded laboratory at Cornell University has cranked out seriously flawed studies “proving” that food raised with chemicals is just as or even more nutritious than organically grown food. The government’s investment in “scientific research” was made to counter unsettling (to various economic interest groups) nutritional and health claims that the organic farming movement had been making. For example, in The Living Soil, Lady Eve Balfour observed: |
| posted by neptunus @ 12:38 AM
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Maintenance
After a new bin has been running for a few weeks, you’ll see the bedding becoming darker and will spot individual worm casts. Even though food is steadily added, the bedding will gradually vanish. Extensive decomposition of the bedding by other small soil animals and microorganisms begins to be significant.
As worm casts become a larger proportion of the bin, conditions deteriorate for the worms. Eventually the worms suffer and their number and activity begins to drop off. Differences in bedding, temperature, moisture, and the composition of your kitchen’s garbage will control how long it takes but eventually you must separate the worms from their castings and put them into fresh bedding. If you’re using vermicomposting year-round, it probably will be necessary to regenerate the box about once every four months.
There are a number of methods for separating redworms from their castings.
Hand sorting works well after a worm box has first been allowed to run down a bit. The worms are not fed until almost all their food has been consumed and they are living in nearly pure castings. Then lay out a thick sheet of plastic at least four feet square on the ground, floor, or on a table and dump the contents of the worm box on it.
Make six to nine cone-shaped piles. You’ll see worms all over. If you’re working inside, make sure there is bright light in the room. The worms will move into the center of each pile. Wait five minutes or so and then delicately scrape off the surface of each conical heap, one after another. By the time you finish with the last pile the worms will have retreated further and you can begin with the first heap again.
You repeat this procedure, gradually scraping away casts until there is not much left of the conical heaps. In a surprisingly short time, the worms will all be squirming in the center of a small pile of castings. There is no need to completely separate the worms from all the castings. You can now gather up the worms and place them in fresh bedding to start anew without further inconvenience for another four months. Use the vermicompost on house plants, in the garden, or save it for later.
Hand sorting is particularly useful if you want to give a few pounds of redworms to a friend.
Dividing the box is another, simpler method. You simply remove about two-thirds of the box’s contents and spread it on the garden. Then refill the box with fresh bedding and distribute the remaining worms, castings, and food still in the box. Plenty of worms and egg cocoons will remain to populate the box. The worms that you dumped on the garden will probably not survive there.
A better method of dividing a box prevents wasting so many worms. All of the box’s contents are pushed to one side, leaving one-third to one-half of the box empty. New bedding and fresh food are put on the “new” side. No food is given to the “old” side for a month or so. By that time virtually all the worms will have migrated to the “new” side. Then the “old” side may be emptied and refilled with fresh bedding.
People in the North may want to use a worm box primarily in winter when other composting methods are inconvenient or impossible. In this case, start feeding the bin heavily from fall through spring and then let it run without much new food until mid-summer. By that time there will be only a few worms left alive in a box of castings. The worms may then be separated from their castings, the box recharged with bedding and the remaining worms can be fed just enough to increase rapidly so that by autumn there will again be enough to eat all your winter garbage. |
| posted by neptunus @ 12:38 AM
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Seasonal Overloads
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On festive occasions, holidays, and during canning season it is easy to overload the digestive capacity of a worm bin. The problem will correct itself without doing anything but you may not be willing to live with anaerobic odors for a week or two. One simple way to accelerate the “healing” of an anaerobic box is to fluff it up with your hand cultivator.
Vegetableatarian households greatly increase the amount of organic waste they generate during summer. So do people who can or freeze when the garden is “on.” One vermicomposting solution to this seasonal overload is to start up a second, summertime-only outdoor worm bin in the garage or other shaded location.
Appelhof uses an old, leaky galvanized washtub for this purpose. The tub gets a few inches of fresh bedding and then is inoculated with a gallon of working vermicompost from the original bin. Extra garbage goes in all summer. Mary says:
“I have used for a “worm bin annex” an old leaky galvanized washtub, kept outside near the garage. During canning season the grape pulp, corn cobs, corn husks, bean cuttings and other fall harvest residues went into the container. It got soggy when it rained and the worms got huge from all the food and moisture.
We brought it inside at about the time of the first frost. The worms kept working the material until there was no food left. After six to eight months, the only identifiable remains were a few corn cobs, squash seeds, tomato skins and some undecomposed corn husks. The rest was an excellent batch of worm castings and a very few hardy, undernourished worms.”
Vacations
Going away from home for a few weeks is not a problem. The worms will simply continue eating the garbage left in the bin. Eventually their food supply will decline enough that the population will drop. This will remedy itself as soon as you begin feeding the bin again. If a month or more is going to pass without adding food or if the house will be unheated during a winter “sabbatical,” you should give your worms to a friend to care for.
Fruit Flies
Fruit flies can, on occasion, be a very annoying problem if you keep the worm bins in your house. They will not be present all the time nor in every house at any time but when they are present they are a nuisance. Fruit flies aren’t unsanitary, they don’t bite or seek out people to bother. They seek out over-ripe fruit and fruit pulp. Usually, fruit flies will hover around the food source that interests them.
In high summer we have accepted having a few share our kitchen along with the enormous spread of ripe and ripening tomatoes atop the kitchen counter. When we’re making fresh “V-7” juice on demand throughout the day, they tend to congregate over the juicer’s discharge pail that holds a mixture of vegetable pulps. If your worm bin contains these types of materials, fruit flies may find it attractive.
Appelhof suggests sucking them up with a vacuum cleaner hose if their numbers become annoying. Fruit flies are a good reason for those of Teutonic tidiness to vermicompost in the basement or outside the house if possible. |
| posted by neptunus @ 12:38 AM
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Then cover the box. Mary Applehof suggests using a black plastic sheet slightly smaller than the inside dimensions of the container. Black material keeps out light and allows the worms to be active right on the surface. You may find that a plastic covering retains too much moisture and overly restricts air flow.
When I covered my worm box with plastic it dripped too much. But then, most of what I feed the worms is fresh vegetable material that runs 80-90 percent water. Other households may feed dryer material like stale bread and leftovers. I’ve found that on our diet it is better to keep the box in a dimly lit place and to use a single sheet of newspaper folded to the inside dimensions of the box as a loose cover that encourages aeration, somewhat reduces light on the surface, and lessens moisture loss yet does not completely stop it.
Feeding the Worms
Redworms will thrive on any kind of vegetable waste you create while preparing food. Here’s a partial list to consider: potato peelings, citrus rinds, the outer leaves of lettuce and cabbage, spinach stems, cabbage and cauliflower cores, celery butts, plate scrapings, spoiled food like old baked beans, moldy cheese and other leftovers, tea bags, egg shells, juicer pulp. The worms’ absolute favorite seems to be used coffee grounds though these can ferment and make a sour smell.
Drip coffee lovers can put the filters in too. This extra paper merely supplements the bedding. Large pieces of vegetable matter can take a long time to be digested. Before tossing cabbage or cauliflower cores or celery butts into the compost bucket, cut them up into finer chunks or thin slices. It is not necessary to grind the garbage. Everything will break down eventually.
Putting meat products into a worm box may be a mistake. The odors from decaying meat can be foul and it has been known to attract mice and rats. Small quantities cut up finely and well dispersed will digest neatly. Bones are slow to decompose in a worm box. If you spread the worm casts as compost it may not look attractive containing whitened, picked-clean bones.
Chicken bones are soft and may disappear during vermicomposting. If you could grind bones before sending them to the worm bin, they would make valuable additions to your compost. Avoid putting non-biodegradable items like plastic, bottle caps, rubber bands, aluminum foil, and glass into the worm box.
Do not let your cat use the worm bin as a litter box.. The odor of cat urine would soon become intolerable while the urine is so high in nitrogen that it might kill some worms. Most seriously, cat manure can transmit the cysts of a protozoan disease organism called Toxoplasma gondii, although most cats do not carry the disease. These parasites may also be harbored in adult humans without them feeling any ill effects.
However, transmitted from mother to developing fetus, _Toxoplasma gondii _can cause brain damage. You are going to handle the contents of your worm bin and won’t want to take a chance on being infected with these parasites.
Most people use some sort of plastic jar, recycled half-gallon yogurt tub, empty waxed paper milk carton, or similar thing to hold kitchen garbage. Odors develop when anaerobic decomposition begins. If the holding tub is getting high, don’t cover it, feed it to the worms.
It is neater to add garbage in spots rather than mixing it throughout the bin. When feeding garbage into the worm bin, lift the cover, pull back the bedding with a three-tine hand cultivator, and make a hole about the size of your garbage container. Dump the waste into that hole and cover it with an inch or so of bedding. The whole operation only takes a few minutes. A few days later the kitchen compost bucket will again be ready. Make and fill another hole adjacent to the first.
Methodically go around the box this way. By the time you get back to the first spot the garbage will have become unrecognizable, the spot will seem to contain mostly worm casts and bedding, and will not give off strongly unpleasant odors when disturbed. |
| posted by neptunus @ 12:37 AM
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