Happy International Compost Week!

Whether you pile it, bury it or feed the worms with it, composting is easy and critical to the food system. Talking about waste is not pretty, but it is essential.  And trust me, when you see your veggie scraps and yard waste become nutrients for your garden, there is nothing more beautiful!
I am a big believer in composting as an easy way to help minimize trash and to keep your garden growing well.  I have seen all kinds of compost systems in my time- three- bin systems, piles housed in chicken wire, buried in holes and even worm bins inside apartment pantries!  I have two piles going right now- a giant one at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden where I work, and a tiny 'transfer station' one at home.  Both are super easy to maintain.
The three bin system at Lewis Ginter was initiated by the head chef at the Garden, Tony Arrington.  His dedication to saving food scraps and keeping them in his walk- in refrigerator is essential to the success of the whole operation.  Two or three times a week, either the youth volunteers or I head up to the kitchen to collect 6- 9 five gallon buckets of salad trimmings and coffee grounds.  We incorporate this project into our programs, and visiting families love to help 'feed the worms'!  We cover the food scraps with dried leaves or grass, and add a few handfuls of compost that is farther along to the new pile.  When one of those bins fills up, we let it 'rest', taking the compost out of the other bins and adding it to the garden, and then we start a new pile!  This is a 'cold composting' system- it is basically a giant worm bin that never goes above 120 degrees.  Sometimes squash seeds will sprout, but we don't mind.
My pile at home is the super lazy gal's answer to composting.  I have a bucket by the sink for food scraps, and every once in a while, I dump the bucket over the side of my deck.  The pile is hidden by a witch hazel shrub from the front.  With the small volume I create, even with the garden waste, lint, dog hair and contents of the vacuum bag, it never gets big enough to mess with.  Once a year I shovel the stuff from the bottom of the pile onto the garden, but it really just feeds the bed it is in- kind of like a keyhole garden!
So, cheers to you and your compost- whatever form it takes!

Soil Life and Your Garden- Something to Consider

 I was trying to think of  catchy, attention grabbing title for this post.  I had something like Microscopic entities grow Giant Kale!  with "and, lettuce and broccoli and sweat peas......" heading up the text.  I went with a much 'quieter' heading, but as Sci-Fi fantastic as it sounds, those kale growing micro-organisms are as real as you and I.

As spring approaches and we start planning and preparing our vegetable gardens, it's a great idea to take some time to learn about the life within the soil.  I've read that a double handful of good garden soil contains more living organisms than there are people on earth.  It's true.  With billions of bacteria, countless yards of fungal hyphae (threads), hundreds of protozoa, dozens of nematodes, and don't forget the earthworms, arthropods, and gastropods there's a lot going on down there!  Sound scary?  It shouldn't be.  Healthy garden soil has a work force of microbes (microscopic organisms) that provide food, water, pest and disease protection, and nicely aerated soil for your plants.  There are certainly 'bad guys' in the soil- bacteria, fungi and nematodes to name a few- that are out to eat your plants. The idea is to foster a large and diverse population of soil life to keep the harmful organisms in check. 
Over millions of years plants have evolved intricate relationships with bacteria, archaea, and fungi in the soil.  In nature, plants actually expend some of the energy from photosynthesis to create "exudates." These excretions from the plant roots contain carbohydrates, proteins and minerals specifically aimed at attracting bacteria and fungi into the area within their root system.  That may seem crazy at first, but these organisms are responsible for 'fixing' nitrogen so it is in a form available to the plants, as well as searching out, unlocking and transporting critical phosphorus, water and other nutrients. One of the most well known examples of bacteria and plant symbiosis is with legumes.  Plants like clover, sweat peas,  beans, and vetch are great companion plants and cover crops because they add nitrogen to the soil.  However it is actually different species of Rhizobia bacteria that will 'infect' the plants root tissue and then from inside the roots convert nitrogen to an available form for the plant to use.  In exchange the bacteria gets carbon and air from the plant.
If we're talking vegetables a few things to remember: They rely on different types of bacteria working "together" to provide nitrogen in the Nitrate form they prefer.  You may know that vegetables prefer a pH of 7 or just below.  What you may not know is that these beneficial bacteria also prefer a pH of 7, and without disruptive influences from us, the protective film bacteria create around themselves will slowly raise the pH of the area around them to 7 to help their numbers grow.  Other plants like trees and shrubs tend to prefer somewhat more acidic soils and have built relationships with fungi who also want more acidic soil and create acids themselves that will lower the pH of nearby soil!
Bacteria are also the main food stuffs of earthworms.  Earthworms may eat soil and organic matter, but what they are really after are the bacteria attached to those particles.  It is then up to other bacteria in the gut of the earthworm to process what they have ingested.  The earthworm waste, or "castings" created by this process are considerably higher in nitrogen and other critical nutrients than the matter they'd consumed.
Growing organically, adding compost, properly made compost teas and organic matter to your soils, mulching with shredded leaves, green mulches and shredded pine bark for the veggie garden are all great steps to take in support of healthy soils.
This is a huge topic, with books written on every different type of participant in the 'Soil Food Web'.

I love learning and talking about this stuff! In  my classes it so great to see people be as surprised and amazed as I first was to realize just how much life is in the the soil, and just how much the plants depend upon that life. 
Want to learn more on your own?  A lovely resource is the book Life in the Soil by James Nardi. An education and guide is also provided by the book Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardeners Guide to the Soil Food Web.   You can also check out the USDA-NRCS page on soil biology by Elaine Ingham.  There you'll find some very sciency talk and lots of great electron microscope images. Or if you are really getting into it, how about the website for The American Society for Microbiology?

Turning a grassy backyard into an organic garden - the easy way.

Brother Al was generous enough to write about (and photograph) his experience installing a raised, square foot garden last weekend! Read on...

Let's start with the fact that I am not a gardener, but I want to be. I have a grassy backyard with soil as deep as a microchip and about as healthy as prison lunch. I wanted to plant healthy food to feed my small family but I didn't know how. Should I get my soil tested (what little soil there is)? Should I dig? Should I make raised beds? Where? What to plant? When?

These seem like such basic questions, but I had no answers. There are a zillion books and a gazillion internet articles (now a gazillion and one). Where to start reading? Which one is right? You see, the questions were increasing, answers few and far between, and no garden was happening. I was stuck.

Enter the Sustainable Food Center in Austin. I met them while attending a TEDx event. They brought a live chicken and charts about compost to a technology seminar. Hello - I fell for them quickly. Erin and I had a meeting with them and learned that they do more cool things than a juggling disco troupe. I also learned that they were teaching a "Citizen Gardener" class that advertised in its description it would teach me how to make an organic garden out of a grassy backyard with no previous knowledge required. Were they reading my mind, and how?

I never did figure out how they were reading my mind, but I did find out exactly how to make a garden, and a nice one at that. I though I'd share with you what little of their knowledge I soaked up so that you can do this too. It's easy. I promise.

Several quick points:

1) None of the knowledge here comes from me. It's all kind of open source and taken from a number of places such as a book by Mel Bartholomew called "All New Square Foot Gardening". There are a lot of resources out there to improve upon this blog post (just Google "Square Foot Gardening").

2) What was so cool to me about all of this was that there was an action plan to follow - do this, then this, then this, then eat. Now I am sure there are areas anyone can improve on. And you will surely improve on these ideas. But the basics technique is a quick and very straightforward method to go from lame unhealthy grass to a healthy source of food in a number of easy to follow steps. So let's go.

The idea is to create one or more 4 foot by 4 foot raised beds (about 8-12 inches high) in which you'll do some intensive gardening. You don't need a lot of space! Each 4 foot by 4 foot raised beds is then divided (mentally, not physically) into sixteen square foot areas. Each area is planned out and grown to create a high yield, easy to manage garden. One bed per mouth is a good place to start. I went for two. But remember to start small - this is intense gardening.

Here's my makeshift carpentry area where I cut down the 2 by 12 cedar boards for the raised beds (you can do 2 by 10s no problem and probably even 2 by 8s). Here in Texas we're spoiled with cedar. You can use anything, just make sure it's not treated with gross chemicals that will surely leach into your food.

Then I planned out where the garden would go. In a sunny (and grassy) part of my lawn, I laid down an area of cardboard that is then soaked with water and covered in mulch to prevent weeds and grass from ruining the garden. The cardboard looks kind of ghetto, but it's free, and once covered in mulch no longer looks so ghetto.

Here's the soon-to-be-less-ghetto-looking cardboard weed preventer with a pile of compost I made over the winter in the background. Yum - compost!

The first raised bed is filled with dirt I scavenged from another area of my unhealthy yard combined with compost - mmmmm. I even made a little dainty moveable seat out of the scraps of boards left over from making the raised beds. I copied this from my class. Don't think I'm that clever.

Here's the first 4 foot by 4 foot bed placed on the watered cardboard. In the background there's more compost I got from the Sustainable Food Center. Theirs is so much more delicious looking than mine...

Leveled out the second bed, and spread mulch around the first.

Tied up some string to level the two beds with each other (yes I'm that annoying), and spread mulch around both beds. Call up your local tree service - I got all the mulch I could use (which is a lot) all for free.

Each bed is divided into sixteen squares - here a little string helps out with the visualization. Then each square is planned out

according to how large each plant gets and how many of each plant can be fitted in a single square. Some plants, like tomatoes, are one per square. Other plants, like radishes, carrots, garlic, and spinach, can have six, nine, or even sixteen plants per square foot. Wow! Make sure you plant short plants towards the South and tall plants towards the North so that the tall ones don't shadow the short ones. Flip that if you're in Australia.

Then the plants go in the dirt! Some of these were transplants, and others I started from seed. There are tomatoes, basil, several kinds of chard, hot chili peppers, bell peppers, cucumbers, spinach, radishes, potatoes and I even have a square left for carrots. And that's only one bed! You can also plant flowers, especially ones that bad bugs and deer and annoying rodents don't like.

And there you go! I even made a little journal where I made grids and notes and dated entries. But if you're not a nerd you don't have to do that. Most important is getting a garden going and having fun.

I'll follow up through the growing seasons with some updates. I hope this can inspire others to begin growing healthy food instead of weedy grass! Thanks to all who were involved in teaching me this great technique. I had a blast and look forward to more growing - and eating.

Reports and invitations

I never wanted to be the kind of blogger who started out a post with some excuse about why I have not been writing. But, yes, I am about to do just that. It has been very exciting and rewarding and quite lovely, and I did miss being able to share it with you. First- the spring median garden was a big success- I got to share scads of beautiful lettuce with many friends and neighbors. Clyde only likes to look- too bad he won't eat any.

And really, are there any plants more adorable than peas?

Also, not only was I able to build a new compost system in the children's garden at Lewis Ginter, Tony, the head chef at the Garden, is willing to save as many vegetable scraps and coffee filters as we want to add to our compost! So, we are starting out with two pickups a week, and we'll see how it goes from there. I have realized lately how important it is to combine resources within your community in order to be truly sustainable. Plus, I met some cool folks who work in the Garden Cafe. You can read more about the system on the Lewis Ginter blog, which will post later this week.

I also had the opportunity to teach a class this spring at St. Stephen's based on Michael Pollan's newest book called Food Rules. I teamed up with a nurse practitioner, and we got to share the good news about the benefits of fat, and why it is important to eat with other people, and how our food system has changed. Of course, our last class was a potluck supper- one of the best I have ever had! That class was so much fun, I am already looking forward to teaching it again next year.

Another project I am really excited about is the Farmers' Market at St. Stephen's. We have had four very successful and really fun markets, and are looking forward to a new season in this 'delicious revolution'. Amazing vendors, great local bands and really wonderful energy- it is truly an honor to be a part of such a thing. I am also happy to report that we have been able to share leftover produce from willing vendors such as Frog Bottom Farm and Flores Produce with the food pantry at St. Stephen's. The food pantry gives food to about thirty families a week, and I am thrilled that we are able to work together to everyone's benefit. The Farmers' Market at St. Stpehen's has blossomed into a food ministry that works with many aspects of wellness. What more could we want from our work, except that it deepens that which we know is true?

I hope you all are enjoying your gardens and your suppers and your community. If you are around northside this week, why don't you stop by the median garden and take some lettuce home? It is time to plant the tomatoes!

Compost Tea At The South of The James Market

I've noticed the 'Living Soils' banner attached to a new tent near the front of the South of the James Market this season. I had yet to stop, and check it out, but I am sure now that I will. Victory Farms mentioned this new enterprise in their e-mail so I visited the website to check them out. Five dollars will buy you one gallon. A half gallon is three dollars. So good for your soils, and usually tricky to find, having a quality compost tea available at the South of James would be exciting news indeed.

Backyard Farmers

My friends Jay and Rochelle started an organic garden last summer, and could not figure out why their tomatoes would not fruit. They were really disappointed, as they had purchased topsoil from a local farm, and had researched and purchased beautiful, organic plants. And after all of their work, nothing much happened.
Backyard Farmers came to their rescue, helping them amend their raised beds with compost and planting a cover crop. Shawn and Tim, two of the Backyard Farmers, tested the soil that Jay and Rochelle bought and found that it was dead and that the soil structure was too loose, so they introduced components that would encourage microorganisms and water retention.
Jay was so excited because the Backyard Farmers pulled all of the weeds, re- worked the beds then planted garlic in one bed, buckwheat in another, and rye grass in the third. These cover crops will help break up the hard pan under the amended sections, bring nutrition for later crops to access, and remain a weed deterrent. Jay and Rochelle can also add the biomass to their compost pile when they are ready to clear the beds to plant in the spring.
The Backyard Farmers will come back to the garden in the spring, and walk Jay and Rochelle through what seeds to purchase , when to plant and how to care for the crops. These knowledgeable horticulturists have made themselves available to their clients, and Jay and Rochelle are looking forward to growing their own food, and learning a lot in the process. Check out the BF website to get in touch with these mobile farm gurus.

Compost Workshop this Saturday

From the Backyard Farmers:

This Saturday, October 17th, join us for a Compost Workshop at the Humphrey Calder Community Garden at the corner of Patterson and Thompson. The event starts at 10:00 am and will feature discussions on the composting process, cover crops, vermicompost and biodegradable products. This event has been put together by local businesses and organizations who are interested in educating people to lead more sustainable lives. Special thanks to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Backyard Farmer, Tricycle Gardens, Green Duck and Worm Crusaders.

Schedule
10:00 am – Welcome, Introductions and Overview of Compost
10:30 am – Break Out Groups
· What Is Compost – a detailed overview of what it is and how it happens
· Growing Soil – a discussion on the importance of organic matter and soil fertility and how we can accomplish this in our homes and on our farms
· WORMS – a discussion and demonstration about the wonderful work of worms and how to use worms at home to recycle your food waste
· Trashenomics – a discussion of where we are today and how much we could and should be composting.
11:45 – Compost Grab Bag and Conclusion
12:00-1:00 – Community Conversation on Composting in Richmond (optional)

This event is a great opportunity to learn a lot about one of the easiest ways to have a positive impact on the environment. You will learn how to grow your own compost and prepare your soil for a plentiful harvest in the Spring. Bring your friends, family, colleagues; tell your teachers to bring their students! There is a suggested $10 donation, but this event is open to the public.
Registration is suggested, but not required. Please contact Jess Barton at Jbarton@cbf.org to reserve your spot.

Dirt! The Movie

Am I allowed to be this excited about dirt? Absolutely!! Soil is what gardening is all about, and it's also the subject of a new and (at least for me) exciting documentary called Dirt! The Movie. Dirt is definitely one of those ignored issues (especially when we're all up in arms about economic insanity), but it is without question more important than most people think. Check out the trailer for Dirt!:



Chris Lawrence, State Agronomist for the National Resources Conservation Service, recommended this movie at a recent horticulture conference.

Also, co-blogger Shannon recently recommended a book concerning similar topics: Dirt: The Erosion of Human Civilizations, by David R. Montgomery. According to a review on the Amazon website: "Montgomery...argues persuasively that soil is humanity's most essential natural resource and essentially linked to modern civilization's survival." I haven't read the book yet but I'm excited. When I went to see John Jeavons (GROW BIOINTENSIVE guru extraordinaire from California) speak at EMU, I remembered hearing him say 'peak soil' all the time. I was eager to hear more science and hard facts concerning the current situation with our total agricultural land and whether or not we have really reached a peak...

In any case, both of these resources sound like good motivation for getting your own compost bin cooking. Just because you're cutting down on 'discretionary' spending doesn't mean you can't afford a compost thermometer!