Bibliography 20 Gaia s Garden by Toby Hemingway selecting your compost structure organicgardeninfo.com 2014 http:// www.organicgardeninfo.com/compost-structure.html Make Your Place by Raleigh Briggs Basic gardening zine series #1
2 RESOURCES 19 What is soil?...3 Observing the soil (basic tests).5 What is compost?...7 How to make compost...9 Compost Structures..11 Problems and solutions...13 CSU Soil Testing Lab. You can ask for an analytical soil test here, which costs between 20 and 40 dollars depending on the test. http://www.soiltestinglab.colostate.edu/ for more information CSU Extension is a service of Colorado State University meant to support the region s farmers and people. There are many publications and resources with information about growing in our area, available for free. http://www.ext.colostate.edu for more information. Denver Urban Gardens: An organization in Denver that teaches about composting and gardening. They have many helpful publications. www.dug.org Colorado Worm Man: Also known as John Anderson, A Fort Collins man who is an expert on worm composting. He sells worms and worm compost. Contact him through here: www.cowormman.org Worm Compost..14 Mulch and Sheet Mulch.16 Preparing the soil for planting...18 The basic garden zine series is an effort to condense the boggling amount of information relating to gardening into a simple and easily replicable booklet. Karen Seed wrote it and drew the illustrations, unless otherwise noted. May your garden grow abundant! Other titles: Soil & Compost Bugs Food Crops Starting Seeds Irrigation Harvesting & Food Preservation Seed Saving Recommended Readings Gaia s Garden by Toby Hemingway. A really great introduction to practical permaculture technique. Written for climates that are a bit more temperate with a lot of rainfall (IE the Pacific Northwest/Cascadia region) The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. The best, most well-researched, comprehensive, and hilarious manual on composting human poop I ve ever seen. Actually, one of the only books I ve ever seen about this. Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof and Mary Frances Fenton. Seriously epic and useful manual on worm composting. Toolbox for Sustainable City Living by Scott Kellogg and Stacey Pettigrew. These two were co-founders of the legendary Rhizome Collective in Austin, TX. The book is an extremely practical rundown of how to obtain, grow, and deal with life s necessities in an urban environment: food, water, waste, energy, bioremediation. Illustrations by Juan Martinez of the Beehive Collective are great too. http://compost.css.cornell.edu/ Cornell University developed a bunch of useful research and info on composting. Then they made this site for you!
18 Preparing the Soil and Making beds. 3 Well, there are lots of ways to do this. This is a general method! 1) clear out plants that are living there. If there is grass there, cover the grass with a heavy tarp for several weeks until it dies. Then, it will be easy to dig up. 2) breaking ground: For first-time gardens, its good to loosen the soil very deep. You can add compost, manure, or organic matter like leaves to the soil at this time! A good method for home growers is the double-dig (see diagram). 3) Now is the time to add any soil amendments. If you have finished compost, add about 1 inch deep to the top of your garden, then dig it in. 4) Loosen all dirt clods and rake the soil out gently. This is called creating a tilth a fine, loose texture that is smooth and easy to plant in. 5)You are ready to Plant! Soil is sometimes called the skin of the earth. It is the result of millions of years of the rocks standing in the rain and turning into sand, years of plants growing and dying, animals pooping and moving around, bugs and bacteria eating stuff, and humans living on and farming the land. Soil in the wild takes thousands of years to form so, humans can help the process by adding lots of organic matter and water. Why is it important? 80% of problems with plants, like nutrient deficiencies, diseases, insects, and so forth, are caused by the soil being poor! In organic farming, we feed the soil first by adding manure, compost, mulch, and other organic matter. The soil organisms who live there break down that stuff, and they feed the plants. Consider this compared to industrial farming, the farmers add synthetic fertilizers for the plants only, which starves the organisms and kills the soil slowly over time. Soil is the source of life! Soil is made of. MINERAL. The mineral portion of soil is the sand (particles.05-2 mm in size), silt (.002-.05 mm), and and clay (<.002 mm). The exact composition of mineral depends on the geology of the area, but generally it s made of silica, aluminum, and oxygen. Soil mineral particles usually have a permanent negative air 0-50% charge, 49-45%% mineral 0-50% water 1-6 % OM
4 garden. 17 ORGANIC. The term organic matter refers to all the biologic material in the soil: from the very fresh, to the partially decomposed, to the very decomposed and stable material known as Humic Acid. Very fertile soils will have between 4 and 6 % organic matter. The OM is very important. Organic matter improves the physical structure of soil, allowing air and water to flow easily. It acts as a sponge, holding water. It increases nutrient holding capacity, and it is a source of food for microbes, who then turn it into nutrients for plants. SOIL SOLUTION. (Up to 50%) Water with nutrients dissolved within. SOIL GAS. (Up to 50%) Often lower in oxygen and higher in CO2 than the atmosphere, due to the activity of microbes. Did You Know?? Potting soil from the store is not technically soil at all. It is usually made of peat moss (an organic material high in carbon) and pearlite, and sometimes compost for nutrients. There are no soil minerals in potting soil, which is what makes it light and easy to move around. It works like this: In the fall, we dig the existing soil a little bit. Then, we layer organic material on top of it. It is just like regular composting: You need a balance of nitrogren and carbon, and having many different sources of those nutrients will give you more balanced soil. The cardboard at the bottom serves as a weed barrier, while the leaves or fabric at the top prevent it from drying out. Once built, leave the bed alone for 4-6 months, but keep it watered as best you can. In the winter, water during warm spells and let it freeze otherwise. This will help it break down into amazing, wonderful soil! It is normal for the bed to seem to shrink a little bit. This is because the material is decomposing. Life in the Soil PRO TIP: Keeping the soil somewhat damp is important, even if there are no plants growing there at the time. If the soil In the spring, uncover it! Viola it is now soil! If it does not look properly broken down, you need to give it more time. If it looks dry, give it more water. becomes dried out, the soil life starts to die or go somewhere insects Fungi and mold Microbes else. A soil that is watered consistently is more fertile because it has more life!
16 Mulching and Sheet Mulching In a forest, the leaves and pine needles fall onto the surface of the earth, right? And animals come and leave their droppings, trees fall over and die, and over time the mushrooms and bacteria eat these things and they become soil. If you dig down into the forest soil, you will see layers: the most decomposed material is on the bottom, the freshest and least decomposed on the top. The soil is being created in layers. Nature never leaves the soil bare. If you see a natural landscape, it is always covered in plants or leaves or something. The only time the soil is bare is when it has been disturbed (by a natural disaster or by human activity.) In the garden, weeds are simply a way for nature to cover-up the disturbed area.keeping your garden mulched with leaves or straw all the time is a great way to enrich the soil, surpress weeds, and save water from evaporating. Simply spread leaves underneath the plants or on top of the beds in the fall. They will break down! Let mama nature do the work! Color Darker color in the soil means it has more carbon. Carbon is the main component of soil organic matter. Therefore, a darker soil has more soil organic matter, which is good. Organic matter is part of what makes soil fertile: it s a source of food for microbes, worms, and plants and it helps with both drainage and water holding. 5 SHEET MULCHING Sheet mulching is a similar process which is used in areas that have very poor soil. Unlike regular mulching, it is a lot thicker, and it is not done at the same time that plants are growing there. Sheet mulching is when we intentionally create those layers in our farms and gardens in order to build the soil. Unlike nature, we add the specific ingredients all at once, and keep it watered so that it will break down very fast and give us fertile soil. Over the course of one year (or even just one winter) you can have dramatically improved topsoil for your Drainage Dig a hole in the soil. Fill the hole with water. See how long it takes for the water to drain out of the hole. If the water stays there for more than an hour, it is not a good sign it s a problem with the structure, the overall composition. We can fix that by digging it and adding organic matter (like compost). It will improve even more as time goes by. Texture The mineral component of the soil is made of small particles
6 called sand, silt, and clay. Sand is the biggest, silt is medium, and clay is smallest. All soils have all three, but the proportions are different. The distribution of the proportions is the texture. You can kind of tell whether you have more sand, silt, or clay by feeling it with your hands. Take some soil, put it in a bowl. Put water on until it is like a cookie batter, but not a soup. Squeeze it between your fingers and note whether it feels gritty or smooth or slimy. Gritty means sand, smooth means silt, and slimy means clay. All are important, but if you have a lot of sand, then the soil will drain water very fast and dry out quicker. If you have a lot of clay, the soil will be very hard to dig and hard for plant roots to grow. You can t really change the soil texture short of bringing in all new soil, but it can always be improved by adding more organic matter. Second texture test: Fill a jar 1/3 full with soil and the rest with water. Shake thoroughly and wait 1 day. The soil will have settled into three layers: The layer on the bottom is sand, the middle is silt, and the top is clay. The largest layer is the largest component that you have. 15 1) Food. ( green stuff ) As with pile composting, the worms need the highnitrogen green food to eat. This is usually the scraps from your kitchen. 2) Bedding ( brown stuff ) The worms need the high-carbon material like leaves or straw to provide a home for them to live in and give them air flow. 3) Water. The compost inside the worm box should be kept moist but not waterlogged. FEEDING THE WORMS It is said that one pound of worms can eat one pound of food within one week. When you feed them, simply put equal amounts of food and bedding into the container, and add a little water. A scrap of carpet on the surface of the compost will keep them from drying out. **Getting a Soil Test. Sometimes it is good to get your soil tested at a professional laboratory. They can tell you how much Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, and other nutrients are in the soil. They can also tell ph of the soil and EC (electrical conductivity, which is a measure of the salt level in the soil). If you live in an area that was once used for manufacturing or industry, or if the houses were built before 1972, the soil could have Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic, or other toxins. If you think this could be a problem, get it tested for those things.
WORM COMPOSTING! 14 7 Worm composting is also called Vermiculture ( verm =worm) and it is a method of using worms to turn food scraps into compost. The compost is very high quality, and the process is less smelly. It requires a little bit of work to build the bin and set it up, but the maintenance of the compost is a lot easier because the worms do all of the work! To keep the worms, you need to have a box for them to live in, which must have holes in the bottom for drainage. If the box is kept inside, it can be as simple as a bucket or a tub. If the box is kept outside, it needs to be well insulated because otherwise the Colorado winter temperatures will kill the worms. Boxes can be built with insulated foam board,, or Styrofoam refrigerators with the Freon removed from the back (please consult a professional, Freon is a dangerous pollutant and is inside most refrigerators.) You can also keep the bins inside in the winter and outside in the summer! The type of worms which are used in vermiculture are called Red Wigglers (Eisenia fetida). You can get them from a friend, from your local garden center, or online! The worms need to have these three things: What is compost? The word compost actually refers to two things... 1) Compost is a process in which we combine the right ingredients together, which decompose into a crumbly, black, rich material that can be used to fertilize plants and the soil. Basically it s a way of recycling food scraps instead of throwing them away. 2) Compost is the product that comes from that process! Finished compost is very dark brown or black, crumbly, and smells like earth, 3) Often, the word compost is also used to refer to undecomposed food scraps, but this is not accurate. We should probably call this material food scraps or kitchen waste for consistency.
Basic Ingredients of Compost 8 13 GREEN STUFF: refers to high-nitrogen materials. This includes.. Food scraps grass clippings manure/poop alfalfa hay. BROWN STUFF: refers to highcarbon materials. Dry leaves from trees Straw shredded paper and cardboard. The pile smells horrible: This is because the pile doesn t have enough oxygen, so the wrong kind of bacteria grew. Try stirring it with a shovel, and adding high-carbon brown stuff, like leaves. WATER: The bacteria that make compost work need water. It should be moist at all times. To test, take a handful of the pile. Squeeze it. It should feel like a wet sponge, and water should come out when you squeeze. If not, add water. AIR: The bacteria that make compost work are aerobic That means they need oxygen. If the pile gets too squished down, or too wet for too long, they cannot do their work. It is good to stir the pile every two months or so to fluff it up and add air. The pile won t decompose/its not working: It probably doesn t have enough water, or green stuff. Try adding water first. If that doesn t help, add more food scraps and stir it thoroughly. Also, the pile could be too small, so it s not able to get hot enough because the wind is cooling it off. Make the pile bigger. A compost pile should be at least three feet tall before you are finished adding to it.
2) Wire Mesh compost bin Advantages: Easy to build Pile stays well-aerated Easy to work with compost Easy to move Disadvantages: Wire rusts over time Rodents can still get from the top 12 HOW TO COMPOST 1) Make a space for the compost. It should be nearby your garden and on flat ground. It s good if the wind doesn t blow it too much (it can get dried out and too cold), so consider building a structure for the compost pile, or putting it in a place that is not windy. 9 3) Fixed compost pile: made from blocks, wood, logs, or bricks. Advantages: Solid walls give stability to the pile. Fits nicely on the side of a fence Can easily be made from recycled materials; pallets, old bricks etc. Disadvantages: Not mobile Can also be expensive if you buy all new materials to build Rodents can get in unless you build a lid **You can also make the fixed compost pile a multi-chambered pile, which is useful for making a rotation of new & old 2) Gather your ingredients. For the Green Material, get a bucket with a lid and place in the kitchen. Put food scraps inside, and take out when it s full. For Brown Material, you can buy bales of straw from local farmers, or you can save leaves from the previous Autumn. Store the brown material nearby under a tarp or in a place where it won t get wet. 3) Mix the ingredients together. Add equal parts green stuff and brown stuff, and stir them together with a shovel. If you can, add some water. Push it all into a pile and cover with a burlap sack, straw or leaves. 4) after about 1-2 days, the pile will get HOT! This is because the bacteria that decompose the food create heat in the initial stages, as they go on a feeding frenzy. This is good, and normal. 5) If you want to keep adding to that pile, just make sure you add the same amount of brown stuff and stir like before. 6) When the pile is about three feet tall, cover it and start a new pile, and let the old one finish decomposing. 4) Compost tumblers. Advantages: Easy to turn and mix Well aerated Keeps out rodents Disadvantages Expensive No contact with native earthworms or microorganisms 7) The pile will be ready about six months after you stop adding to it. During this time, just check on in periodically, and add water. If you want, dig through the entire pile and re-form it every couple of months. This is called turning the pile and is done to add oxygen to everything.
10 11 Choosing a compost structure that works for you! There are many ways to organize your compost area. It s best to choose one that fits your lifestyle, building skills, and preferences. In this section we ll show a few examples of this. Size: The pile needs to be a certain size in order for it to retain heat and moisture, thus composting properly. So when you build a pile or structure to house the pile, plan accordingly. How big? The minimum is 7 cubic feet. Of course, a pile bigger than this will get hotter and decompose faster, but if you have too big a pile it will be hard to manage. Smaller than this will probably still compost, but it will take a lot longer. 7 cubit feet is also (approximately): 2 ft by 2 ft by 2 ft.5 m by.5 m by.5 m 52 gallons 192 liters 11 5-gallon buckets 2 full wheelbarrows Types of structures: 1) no structure (free-standing pile) Benefits: Inexpensive and easy to build Easier to access and work on Contact with the ground allows earthworms to come in Location can be moved easily Disadvantages: Animals can get into it more easily, which can cause a mess Less attractive