Worms
- Compost, Gardening adventures, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Worms
Compost Happens
Good rich soil that needs screening Compost happens, whether you fool with it or not. Given moisture, air circulation and the creatures that help decompose and you can compost anything. Without these factors you have mummies. Or zombies, but that is another discussion. If you want to read about the many ways to compost without a heap, please read Fifty Ways to Leave Your Compost.
I am a lazy composter. When I weed I usually throw what I pull up under the growing trees to quickly mulch down. Excess weeds and branchy things I throw into a compost bin made of wire. Rats and mice enjoy the structures.
Wire bins of weeds have been gradually settling over the months. Kitchen scraps, paper towels, tissues, tea bags, paper cups and plates all go into a Rubbermaid compost bin I bought years ago. I don’t turn the piles. Compost happens, but it happens slowly. A little kitchen waste goes into another bin to feed sorely neglected worms.
I am also composting in place. A raised garden bed lined with wire to keep out gophers was empty, so I’ve been throwing in weeds and dirty chicken straw. By next spring it should be ready to use.
In this bed I’ve been composting in place. The Rubbermaid compost bin is in an inconvenient place. I’d moved it in early spring and now I’m moving it again. This doesn’t count as turning the pile, really, because the last time it sat in situ for years. It had the best soil under it on the whole property. Even without turning, and only over about six months, you can see that compost has been happening.
A lot of debris on top of the heap…. After I took the sides down, below the layer of debris there was about four inches of compost.
After about six months with no turning, there is great compost at the bottom This I screen and then use in the raised vegetable beds.
My garden’s demand for compost is more urgent these days, and the amount of debris to compost is larger. If I had a chipper or shredder, much of the debris would be composted in a short amount of time. However I’m going into the regular compost bin operation. I had a three-bin compost bin made out of old pallets. I already had the green metal stakes to hold up the pallets, and three pallets to use. Unfortunately they weren’t all the same shape or size, so the two wonderful men creating this for me, Jacob and Steve, went on a pallet hunt in their yards and came back with what was needed.
Wooden pallets make a great compost bin. Debris and yet-to-be-collected-from-a-friend’s-house llama poo will be layered in the first chamber and watered. As it decomposes it will be turned into the second bin, and the process begun again in the first. Then each will be moved again and all three chambers will be filled with compost in three degrees of decomposition. It should be easy to fill a wheelbarrow from the last chamber, screen it and deliver the rich compost to the base of the fruit trees and my raised veggie bed. Meanwhile, weeds that have recently been gathered, especially ‘trouble’ weeds such as Bermuda grass, are stuffed in black plastic sacks and cooking in the sun until they can’t reproduce anymore, and then will be added to the heaps. I don’t like using plastic, or contributing to the amount of plastic on the planet, but I am reusing and recylcing the bags.
Screening compost twice, once with smaller holes. - Animals, Bees, Birding, Gardening adventures, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Ponds, Reptiles and Amphibians, Soil, Worms
Fall Morning
The birdwatching garden. I use the kitchen table as a work center, but spend a lot of time not working. That is because from the big dusty windowseat, through the spiderwebs that catch sunlight in the corners of the glass I watch a fairytale of animals. Song sparrows with their formal stripes and classy single black breast spot hop along the uneven flagstone walkway. The walkway, recently weeded, is again being compromised by sprouts. The small pond wears a heavy scarf of peppermint along its north side, and a mixture of fescues and waterplants around the south. A waterlily bravely floats pads on the still water after having been drastically thinned last month. A calla lily opens partially white, partially green.
Below the window in a dish of seed set low for ground feeders are house finches, the males’ proud red fading like the leaves of the Japanese maple behind the green bench. Lesser goldfinches skeletonize the leaves of sunflowers that have sprouted from birdseed; a nuthatch and a mountain chickadee take turns on the hanging suet feeder, both noisy and reminding me of pine forests. A pair of crows who have lived near this garden for years, but who have been about other business during the summer, are reunited on the telephone line. She grooms his feathers and he leans into her. I’ll have to put treats out for them, to keep on their good side. A Nutall’s woodpecker looks like a childhood toy by hopping straight up the big pine. I grin a welcome to a couple of white crowned sparrows, the forefront of the migratory flock. These spirited and chatty birds shuffle leaves onto my walkway every morning, and I quite happily sweep the leaves back for the next round. It is a ritual just between us. A young scrub jay swoops in with much show, seeing how big a reaction he can get from startling the smaller birds clustering at the feeders or taking warm dirtbaths. He lands on a small trellis and pecks out seeds from a sunflower I propped up after its yellow glory faded. Finches visit when he leaves and take their share of this high protein food.
House finch nabbing sunflower seeds ( photo taken through a dirty window! Sorry!) The outside water is turned off; I should be on my knees in mud down by the chicken coop right now fixing a break in the pipe but I am held here by the autumnal light. Even in the morning it slants at a kinder angle, bringing out the gold in the leaves. Later when the water resumes the dripper on the bird bath will start and sparrows, finches, towhees and random visitors will sip drinks and take cleansing baths. One of my favorite sights is watching a group of finches taking turns in the bath, daring each other to stay longer and become wetter. Their splashing sends a cascade of drops into the sunlight. They give Finch Frolic its name. Now the only visitors are honeybees taking water to hydrate their honey. I emphathize with these bees. Only the older females do the pollen gathering, carrying heavy loads in their leg sacks back to the hive until they die in flight. A useful life, but a strenuous and unimaginative one.
Perhaps today there will also be a house sparrow, or a common yellowthroat or a disagreeable California towhee, what everyone knows as a ’round headed brown bird’. Or maybe the mockingbird will revisit the pyracantha berries, staking them out as his territory while finches steal them behind his back. I hear the wrentit’s bouncey-ball call, but as they can throw their voices I usually don’t spot them. Annas hummingbirds spend all their energy guarding the feeders, stopping to peer into the window to see if I’m a threat. My black cat Rosie O’Grady stares back, slowly hunching, mouth twitching with a soft kecking sound as if she could hunt through a window. I see that the hanging tray of grape jelly needs to be taken in and washed because the orioles have all migrated. Rosie is given up by the hummingbird and instead she watches cat TV as the birds shuffle in the Mexican primrose below the window.
I don’t see either of the bunnies this morning, Primrose or Clover. They live under the rosemary bush, and perhaps in the large pile of compost in the corner of the yard. I’ve watched them nibble the invasive Bermuda grass, and pull down stalks of weedy sow thistle and eat the flowers and seeds. They do no harm here, and are helping with the weeding; I love watching them lope around the pathways living in cautious peace.
Unseen by me by where I sit, mosquito fish, aquatic snails, dragonfly larvae, strange worms and small Pacific chorus frogs hang out in the pond and under the overhanging lips of flagstone I placed there just for them. Under the plants are Western fence lizards big and small awaiting warmth from the sun to heat up the rocks so they may climb the highest stone in their territory and posture while the heat quickens their blood. A mouse scurries between plants, capturing bits of birdseed scattered by the messy sparrows. The soil is good here, full of worms and microbes and fungus. Everything is full of life, if you only know how to look for it. You can smell it. You can feel it.
Now comes the spotted towhee, black headed with white patterns on his wings and reddish sides. Once called the rufous-sided towhee, he is bold and handsome, his call a long brash too-weeet. He sassily zig-zags down the narrow flagstone pathway looking for bugs.
Spotted Towhee grubbing in his fancy clothes, so bright after a molt. I haven’t seen the rat family for a few days. The four youngsters invade the hanging feeders, tossing each other off and being juvenile delinquents. At night I hear the screech of a barn owl, which might be my answer.
The oxblood lilies – always a surprise during the dry and the heat of September, have almost all faded, but sprouts of paper white narcissus are beginning to break ground. They are Fall flowers here, usually done by Thanksgiving.
It is Fall. Finally. The world of my garden is tired and ready for a rest from the heat, the mating, the child rearing, the dryness, the search for diminishing food, the hiding so as not to become food. Although the days here are still in the high 80’s the evenings bring coolness and a much-needed dampness. Rain won’t come until November or later. But we wait for it, the animals, the plants and I. And time passes as I sit at the table and watch. I know of no better way to spend an autumn morning.
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Why Plant Natives?
The following article was written for and published in the summer 2012 Fallbrook Land Conservancy’s newsletter, the Conservation Chronicle (http://www.fallbrooklandconservancy.org/News/Chronicles/Summer2012/Summer2012.pdf, pg. 6). It was slightly edited and retitled for publication.
Why is planting native vegetation a good idea? We all know that native plants arranged in natural combinations and densities provide safety corridors for our native animals. San Diego’s plant communities have, like all established ecosystems, developed a symbiotic relationship with native and migratory fauna. Our plants leaf out, bloom and fruit when native animals and insects need the food, and provide appropriate nutrition that imported or invasive plants may not. Wildlife then disperses seed and pollen in methods that suit the plants, as well as providing the fertilizer for which the plants have adapted. Flora and fauna have set up symbiotic relationships to an extent where some species rely solely on a single other species for their existence. A balanced ecosystem is a dance between inhabitants who know each other’s needs and satisfy them for their own survival.
We plant natives in our yards because they are hard-wired for our soil and climate. They naturally conserve water and do not need fertilizer or insect control. They also can be beautiful. Planting native plants is good for our wallet, our resources and our health. But there is more to the equation. Living in every handful of good soil are billions of microscopic creatures and fungi collectively called microbes that make nutrients available to plant roots. The smell of fresh soil is a chemical released by these microbes called geosmin. Scientists now know that the microbes in undisturbed soils form a communication network between tree and plant roots. When a tree is attacked by insects, communication is sent out chemically by the tree’s roots and carried via this microbial network throughout the ecosystem, and other trees set up defense mechanisms to lessen their own damage.
Plants also communicate via scents not detectable by humans. Lima beans and corn planted downwind of brother plants which had been subjected to grasshopper attack lowered their sugar content to be less desirable. Such plants received 90% less insect damage than those planted upwind. California sagebrush (Artemisia californica) allows sibling plants to grow nearby because when attacked, it emits an airborne chemical to repel insects. The more sagebrush in the area, the better the protection as other sages respond in kind. Some plants when attacked will release a chemical that attracts the predatory insect which will feed upon the bug that is attacking the plant.
Thus plants communicate via airborne chemicals and through their roots via the microbial network. They call for help, they send out alarms and insect invitations and what’s more, they respond to each other. The why of planting natives is therefore also this: It is important to plant natives because they all speak the same language. Plants introduced to an area by humans are like strangers in a strange land. They cannot communicate well with other plants. They don’t know which bugs are bad until it’s too late. They have no one to call for help; the pheromones they emit are for beneficial bugs that live far away. Their seeds cannot supply the proper nutrition for the wildlife, and the wildlife may not be able to supply the plant with what it needs to keep healthy. They struggle to succeed in our soils and become stressed and sickly. We pour fertilizer and pesticides on them to help them survive, which kills the microbes that create good soil. Also, without the natural checks and balances found at the plant’s native ecosystem it may well become invasive and rob space, water and nutrition from our natives. The weeds you see in reclaimed properties are mostly non-native. Foxtails and wild radish do not belong here. Hike in some of the preserves which have not been previously farmed. There you’ll see the real native wildflowers, such as California peony, rattlesnake weed, tidy tips and Blue-Eyed Mary, living in harsh decomposed granite soils on little water, in relationships with the other chaparral surrounding them. You’ll understand a little more about how plants form guilds to support each other, and create that wholesome rightness that we feel when we walk in undisturbed nature. Recreating those guilds in your garden, adapted to provide human food, medicine and building materials, is called Permaculture.
- Animals, Chickens, Compost, Gardening adventures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Soil, Vegetables, Worms
Fifty Ways To Leave Your Compost
Its not fruit; its pre-compost! I have no idea how many years I’ve composted kitchen scraps. So many that when I see anyone dump veggie bits, egg yolk and shells, plate scrapings, old leftovers and even floor sweepings into the regular garbage it sets off all of my alarms. How can anyone waste all that good stuff? That is like throwing gold away! Its not dead stuff… its all living and ready to transform in to perfect soil, which shoots health into your plants! Most people say that they don’t have the time to compost, or they don’t want to turn a heap.
Well.
Here may not be fifty ways to compost easily, but certainly enough for ANYONE to keep their compostables out of the mainstream trash. And apologies to Paul Simon.
A blurry glimpse into my sink composting bucket. Egg shells, tea bags, banana peels, and tissues! 1. You Just slip out the back, Jack, with that little pail you have in or under your sink, into which you scrape everything compostable. They warn you about bones and meat because of animals digging through your heap to get to them, but if you bury your compost deeply, you won’t have that problem. I use a little bucket that they gave me for heaven-knows-what-reason at the hospital when I had my gall bladder out. It isn’t pretty, but it does the job. When I had both my children at home there was a lot more veggie peels to deal with, so in my kitchen I had a woven laundry basket, and inside I had two plastic liners, one for recycling and one for compost.
Big ol' basket, divided in half inside. One part recycling, the other compost. I only emptied it once a week. I didn’t like using so much plastic, but I’d put the plastic bag in the recycling. They sell all kinds of really nifty compost buckets now. Get one with a lid to keep those annoying little fruit flies from developing. Or if you have an open bucket like mine, just fill it partly with water so that the compost is submerged. It is easier to dump out that way and keeps cleaner, too. Especially if you’re going to…
Is it a Vita-Mix, or is it a composting machine? Make a new plan, Stan, and instead of making a compost heap, you put all those scraps (barring big pits and nut shells) with water into a blender and whip it up. Then march outside and pour that brew around your plants! You can always kick a little dirt over it if its thick. This gives your plants a fantastic compost boost. Since it is undecayed pureed plant matter, you don’t want to bind up the nitrogen around seedlings or young plants, so pour it outside the drip line (how far the roots come out), or in an area you are preparing to plant in the future. This compost will decompose with days, depending on how warm the ground is (cold weather kills off or slows down microbes and wormies). If it is snowy winter where you are, then you might just freeze the stuff, in ice cube form or in paper cups. When the soil warms, plant those cubes! (Be sure to label them when in the freezer so no one thinks they are smoothie-pops!)
Freeze your blended compost, then empty the cubes into a bag and LABEL. You don’t need to be coy, Roy, but depending on your neighbors you may not want them to see you burying your compost. That’s right, you don’t have to make a heap, or blend it up. Just march outside with your bucket and a shovel or trowel, dig some small holes and bury it! The wormies will turn it into soil for you in weeks. Sometimes you’ll get surprises, like when a potato sprouts…. free veg! Here again for those who have frozen winters, you can pop the compost as is in a bag in the freezer. The only problem is freezer space. Just think, though, every bit you can save helps your garden!
Dig it in! Just get yourself free from all your hangups about compost heaps and go buy a compost bin. I’ve a Rubbermaid bin for about twelve years. When my compost container is full I march it down, open the top, toss in the contents and away I go. When I pull weeds or thin the garden, I throw that in there too. Do I turn it? Heck, no! But if I wanted to I could very easily. The sides and two halves of the top fit together like enormous puzzle pieces, so I just need to take them all off, reassemble them right next to the heap, then pitchfork the compost back into it. The stuff that was on the top would now be on the bottom. Fresh compost can be shoveled out of a hole in the side on the bottom. Compost that is turned is not only matured faster, but is of a better quality and more broken down than that which isn’t turned. But as the bumperstickers say, compost happens! Stuff breaks down. Throw stuff into the top of the bin, and rake it out the bottom. Free your mind from compost regulations! Just go for it!
Throw it on! Compost happens! Hop on the bus, Gus, and become a real composter. You can build compost bins very cheaply. If you can nail things together so that they actually stay together (I can’t), you can build a three-section compost bin out of old pallets. There are lots of YouTube videos showing how. The best kind have removable slats in the front so that you can start low and gradually add to the front as the heap grows. Then when you want to turn it into the next bin, you may easily remove the slats for quick access. You can also just take a section of wire and make a cylinder out of it, then pitchfork in the weeds, grass, and throw in the kitchen trimmings. When its time to turn it, just undo the wire or slip it off, and set it up next to the pile again. Or have a line of wire cages. I have three, plus my bin. Do I turn them either? No. I keep throwing on excess weeds, and it keeps sinking down. Remember: compost happens!
You don’t need to discuss much with wormies because they can’t answer you: their little mouths are so full of your kitchen waste that they can’t talk! Make yourself a worm bin. Or buy one. You’ll need two dark plastic bins (one fits inside the other). Drill holes all through the lid for ventilation, and in just one of the bins drill some holes along the top of the sides, then drill tiny holes in the bottom for drainage. Fit the drilled bin inside the non-drilled bin. Put wads of newspaper, or paper from your paper shredder (unless you are saving it all to pack your mail-out Christmas gifts with instead of those nasty Styrofoam things) in the bin up to about half way. Lightly sprinkle with water. Throw a little soil in there, but not much for these kinds of worms. Find someone who has worms, or buy some red wigglers. You don’t want earthworms. Put these little guys gently into the bin. Take your compost and put it into one corner. Cover with a dampened sheet of newspaper and put the ventilated lid on the top. Keep the wormies from extreme temperatures. Some people keep a bin under their kitchen sink. Many school kids keep wormies as projects and for fun (baby wormies are white and wiggly!). As the wormies devour your compost they’ll leave behind castings, which look like sticky dirt. This is gold. If they had worm castings in Fort Knox instead of all that gold bullion our dollar would never fluctuate. What collects in the bottom bin is ‘worm tea’, which is just as valuable. Pour this stuff into your houseplants or directly on your plants. Commercial worm bins have several sections to hold more compost, are a little easier to manage and have a spigot for the worm tea. A perfect Mother’s Day gift! That or a compost bucket or bin!
Just drop off the key, Lee, with your housesitter when you go on vacation, and don’t forget to let her know to throw those kitchen scraps in with your chickens! Or goat! Or miniature pig! You don’t even need a heap when you have beaks! All those scraps are pure vitamins and minerals and chickens will not only devour them, but give you the best eggs you have ever tasted. Don’t forget to crush eggshells and give them right back to the chickens! They need that calcium to keep their eggs nice and hard. Chickens turn your compost into great eggs for you and great poo for the ground. Chicken manure can be used right away in your garden. Goaties will eat just about anything, as will piggies, so kitchen waste is perfect (slops).
Feed it to the chickens! And get yourself free from all that guilt that you shoulder when you throw food into the trash. Oh, and separate your recycling, too!
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