TABLE OF CONTENTS
Organic Gardener's Composting
It helps me to imagine that you are friendly, accepting, and understand my ideas readily. Then I relax, enjoy writing...
CHAPTER ONEHumus is a special and very important type of decomposed organic matter. Although scientists have been intently studying...
For thousands of years gardeners and farmers had few fertilizers other than animal manure and compost. These were always considered...
An Extremely Crude Composting Process
By October the heap has become about six feet high, sixteen feet long and about seven feet wide at the...
Similarly, turning compost can be an impossible, sweat-drenching, back-wrenching chore, or it can be relatively quick and easy. It is...
In September the heap is finished enough to use. It is about thirty inches high and has been reduced to...Where nature is allowed to operate without human intervention, each place develops a stable level of biomass that is inevitably...
Compared to the atmosphere, soil is a place where temperature fluctuations are small and slow. Consequently, soil animals are generally...
Now comes the final stage in humus formation. Numerous species of earthworms eat their way through the soil, taking in...
Plants are composed mainly of carbohydrates like cellulose, sugar, and lignin. The element carbon is by far the greater part...
Nitrogen gas strongly resists combining with other elements. Chemical factories fix nitrogen only at very high temperatures and pressures and...
The protein content of vegetation is very similar to its ratio of carbon (C) compared to nitrogen (N). Quick laboratory...
+/-12:1 +/-25:1 ...
Summarized in one paragraph, Albrecht showed that within a single species or variety, plant protein levels vary 25 percent or...Temperature controls how rapidly living things carry out their activities. Only birds and mammals are warm blooded-capable of holding the...
How hot the pile can get depends on how well the composter controls a number of factors. These are so...
Surface Area of One Gram of Soil Particles
Moisture. A dry pile is a cold pile. Microorganisms live in thin films of water that adhere to...
Though we might like to make our compost piles so large that maintaining sufficient airflow becomes the major problem we...
I have already stressed that filling this book with tables listing so-called precise amounts of C/N for compostable materials would...
The widespread presence of clay and ammonia-fixing bacteria in all soils permits industrial farmers to inject gaseous ammonia directly into...
So any compost is good compost. But will it be good fertilizer? Answering that question is a lot harder: it...
Textural improvements from compost depend greatly on soil type. Sandy and loamy soils naturally remain open and workable and sustain...
Analyses of Various Composts
Organic matter that has been in soil for a while has been altered into a much studied substance, humus. We...
12:1. Then the soil returns to equilibrium. The lower the C/N the more rapid the release, and the more violent...
Yard waste compost is a product much like a homeowner would produce. And yard waste compost contains no industrial waste...Seafood processors will sell truckloads of fresh crab, fish and shrimp waste for a small fee. Of course, this material...
Banana skins and stalks are soft and lack strong fiber. They are moderately rich in phosphorus, potassium, and...
Castor pomace is pulp left after castor oil has been squeezed from castor bean seeds. Like other oil...
The price of any seed meal is strongly influenced by freight costs. Cottonseed meal is cheapest in the south and...
Sprinkled atop soil as a side-dressing, dried blood usually provokes a powerful and immediate growth response. Blood meal is so...
Putting food scraps and wastes down a disposal is obviously the least troublesome and apparently the most "sanitary" method, passing...
Homeowners who demand the spiffy appearance of a raked lawn but still want a healthy lawn have several options. They...
In more recent years, fresh wet spring grass was packed green into pits and made into silage where a controlled...
Hoof and horn meal. Did you know that animals construct their hooves and horns from compressed hair? The...
Once each year, leaves are available in large quantity, but aren't the easiest material to compost. Rich in minerals but...
There is another reason to make sure that a compost pile contains an abundance of calcium. Azobacteria, that can fix...
There are many kinds of manure and various samples of the same type of manure may not be equal. This...
Paper is almost pure cellulose and has a very high C/N like straw or sawdust. It can be...
Phosphate rock. If your garden soil is deficient in phosphorus, adding rock phosphate to the compost pile may...
Safflowerseed meal. See Cottonseed meal.
Soybean meal. See Cottonseed meal.That is why before discussing those manufactured aids to composting that can make a consumer of you, I want to...
When bin three has settled significantly, repeat the process, turning bin three into bin four, etc. By the time the...
As compostable materials are available, the wire circle is gradually filled. Once the bin has been loaded and has settled...
The compost tumbler is a clever method that accelerates decomposition by improving aeration and facilitating frequent turning. A rotating drum...
Frequent turning with machinery keeps the heap working rapidly. During the initial experiments the turning was done with a tractor...
Like a coarse power planer in a wood shop, the other type of machine uses sharpened blades that slice thin...
There are significant differences in the quality of materials and workmanship that go into making these machines. They all look...
Sheet composting is the easiest method of all. However, the method has certain liabilities. Unless the material being spread is...
Another garbage disposal variation has been called "trench composting." Instead of a post hole, a long trench about the width...
If the plot is very infertile to begin with there won't be enough biological activity or nutrients in the soil...
Troy-Bilt Manufacturing Company, 102D St. & 9th Ave., Troy, NY 12180Locating the Worms
Unless you are very strong do not construct a box larger than 2 x 4 feet because they will need...
Soil
You'll also need a box that holds six or seven cubic feet, or about 2 x 3 feet by 12...
Then add the worms. Spread your redworms over the surface of the bedding. They'll burrow under the surface to avoid...
Most people use some sort of plastic jar, recycled half-gallon yogurt tub, empty waxed paper milk carton, or similar thing...
Appelhof suggests sucking them up with a vacuum cleaner hose if their numbers become annoying. Fruit flies are a good...
People in the North may want to use a worm box primarily in winter when other composting methods are inconvenient...Perplexing new farming problems--diseases, insects and loss of seed vigor--began appearing after World War 1. These difficulties did not seem...
Professor William Albrecht, Chairman of the Soil Department of the University of Missouri, tried to help farmers raise healthier livestock...
I view organic gardeners largely as examples of American Puritanism who want to possess an clear, simple system of capital...Humusless soils that are mixtures of sand, silt, and clay can become extremely compacted and airless because the smaller silt...
Later, the farmers will complain of drought or infertility and seek to support their crops with irrigation and chemicals. Actually,...
"The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the...
Earthworms are inhibited by acid soils and/or soils deficient in calcium. Far larger populations of worms live in soils that...
Some overly enthusiastic worm fanciers believe it is useful to import large numbers of earthworms. I do not agree. These...
Almost any kind of ground cover will enhance winter survival. A layer of compost, manure, straw, or a well-grown cover...
Louise Howard, Sir Albert's second wife, made a very similar judgment in her book, Sir Albert Howard in India....
Krasilnikov's great contribution to science was discovering how soil microorganisms assist the growth of higher plants. Bacteria are very fussy...
In 1990, half of crop "F" grew well, half poorly. this was due to the presence of crop "D" in...
Certain types of fungi are able to form a symbiosis with specific plant species. They insert a hyphae into the...Other factors, like the basic mineral content of the soil or its texture, also influence the amount of organic matter...
Timothy grass is probably a slightly more efficient converter of solar energy into organic matter than was the original prairie....
However, 10 percent loss per year may understate losses in some places. I have seen old row crop soils in...
Fertilizing Vegetables with Compost
I've frequently encountered a view among devotees of the organic gardening movement that if a little organic matter is a...
"The orthodox scientist normally measures the fertility of a soil by its bulk yield, with no relation to effect on...
The average soils in our region test moderately-to strongly acid; are low in nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium; quite adequate...
Albrecht would probably have approved of the following chart that expresses the essential qualities of dryland and humid soils.
Average Nutritional Content by Climate
HEALTH = NUTRITION IN FOOD DIVIDED BY CALORIES IN THAT FOOD
HEALTH = Nutrition/Calories = Calcium/Potassium
Growing most types of vegetables requires building a level of soil fertility that is much higher than required by field...
1 part by volume: Bone meal or rock phosphateThat is why small amounts of chemical fertilizer applied to soil that still contains a reasonable amount of humus has...
One point of this brief history lesson is GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. The finished compost tends to have a...
Once a compost heap has cooled, azobacteria will proliferate and begin to manufacture significant amounts of nitrates, steadily lowering the...
In the beginning of his work at Indore, Howard observed that the district's soils were basically fertile but low in...
At Indore, all available vegetable material was composted, including manure and bedding straw from the cattle shed, unconsumed crop residues,...
And because he actually lived on a farm, Howard especially emphasized that composting must be sanitary and odorless and that...
Manure
61 41 66 39 76 38 82 36 90 33
During the 1920s a patented process for making compost with a chemical fertilizer called Adco was in vogue and Howard...
Making Indore Compost in Deep and Shallow Pits
This is one area of controversy where I am comfortable seeking the advice of an expert. In this case, the...
1982. A delightful, slim, easy reading, totally positive book that offers enthusiastic encouragement to take advantage of vermicomposting.
King, F.H. Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan. Emmaus: Rodale Press, first...
Of interest to the serious food gardener
1943.
Hamaker, John. D. The Survival of Civilization. Annotated by Donald A. Weaver. Michigan/ California: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982.
(1939)
