Terraforming through composting

 

 

Compost wants to happen.

It just does. Entropy is a rule of our world. Things rot, and rust, and age.

And out of this decomposition come new life.

A year ago I received stewardship of a yard. The ground was sand and rocks (with plastic 6-12 inches down under 2-4 inches of river rock. People said "Oh, you have the good soil"  These people had apparently never seen soil. I guess there is calcium deposits called Caliche that are like concrete.  My ground is alkaline, but not like that. My ground grows some very tough weeds, but they die without seeming to affect the earth. Nothing alive in the ground except sand fleas.  

Fortunately I was raised right, and know what to do - COMPOST!

I knew that a compost heap would simply dessicate, not rot - it is too dry here in ABQ.  So my first effort was this dalek shaped composter.  In went such greens as I could find, kitchen scraps mostly, browns from the yard, and some horse shit.  I did compost, slowly. It also created a Mousie condominium supreme. Heat, foot, water and protection from predators. They moved in an multiplied. This was unacceptable to me.  




So I bought a tumbler. 2 chambers 18 gallons each. This worked really well. Summer of 2022 I was making 5 gallons of finished compost every 2 weeks. I live in a three generational household. Busy parents- they buy a lot of food with good intentions, but a lot does not get eaten.  I accept almost everything, I encourage them to add their unfinished drinks. We are now sending almost zero food waste to the landfill. Also feeding zero mice.


Pretty soon I added a second single chamber tumbler. It does not work as well. The double tumblers  retain heat and moisture better. But it works. I received a second double tumbler as a gift from Joel Deluxe -THANKS. You can see underneath the plastic tub that neatly fits under the tumbler that I empty chambers into.  Now with five chambers I needed more material and I acquired a source of alpaca poo. I am blessed to have a mature Japanese maple and a mulberry that I can judiciously prune to supply green leaves. 


This is my favorite tool. It is a 36" metal fence post. I bought at the hardware store.  Even though I turn the tumblers daily. Sometimes I get in there and mix them with this tool. Air is very important to composting. When I have a lot of bread products to deal with they tend to turn into goo-balls so breaking it up helps.

 

I add in quite a bit of twiggy stuff. It doesn't break down very fast but keeps the material loose.  And I have a store-bought secret ingredient. Bedding pellets - 7 bucks from Tractor supply, basically compressed sawdust. Breaks down nicely, holds moisture, and give a very good base for the compost.

Get a good pair of waterproof garden gloves, sometimes you have to get mucky.

I also bought a compost thermomenter. For good hot-composting you want to be in that green zone of 80-130 degrees,  This heat does not come from the weather outside but from the chemical process of decomp - active micro-organisms. If your compost is nice and hot it will not smell at all.  Want it hot? add fresh manure, or flat beer, or yeasty sugar water.

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When a chamber starts to look done - Evenly dark brown and not much recognizable (14-21 days in summer). It is time to empty and sift.  Not everything breaks down. Larger twigs and stems, And the resistors- Avocado pits and skins, peach pits, egg shells, etc. I screen the material and that which remains goes back in the tumbler - it will all rot eventually, but in the meatime it is permeated with those micro-organisms that do the work.  Sometimes as much as 1/3 goes back. But what goes through is pure garden gold!  I mix it 50/50 with potting soil for a planting mix. I top dress anything that I put in the ground. I dig into new bedding areas.  I can't change the whole yard at once, so I choose the mostly likely areas and create a flower bed here, a veggie area there.




Does this process kill weed seeds? Somewhat, but tomato, and some sqaush seeds sail right through the heat and pop up all over my beds. It this a problem? No! If they are well placed? Tomatoes and squash. If they are not - guess what, I let them grow a bit and then pull them up for beautiful greens for the compost bin! The cycle is eternal.

Praise be.

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