THE LITTLE THINGS - THE COMPOST HEAP

My neighbors have started breaking ground for this year’s crops and I'm in the process of tilling and planting the half acre behind our little home.  It's about time to plant peas, potatoes and other spring crops. Two of the primary expenses in gardening after equipment are seeds and fertilizers.  (If you love gardening as I do, labor isn't a factor - it's a pleasure!) During the halcyon years in the past I gladly spent $300 to $500 on seeds and fertilizer for a garden that would yield perhaps $200 worth of fruits and veggies.  Besides fruits and vegetables that were way beyond the quality found in the supermarket, the effort at gardening helped keep me toned and trim in body, mind and spirit.  Plus there was usually a surplus to share with friends, family and neighbors with the plus that it bolstered these important relationships. Lastly, involving the children in such projects is an essential part of their upbringing.

This year the available budget is about $40 for seed $5 for fuel, with nothing left over for fertilizer.  I'm in the process of building a biofuel manaufacturing system to help escape the horrific cost of fuel, but that's still incomplete.  The seeds are already ordered, and most of them received.  (Does anyone know why Durham wheat is so scarce?) To cut the seed bill I saved seeds from some of the better plants from last year.  In terms of corn, that amounts to all the corn I need to plant this year.  For amaranth, that amounts to a tiny handful from the one spindly plant that survived. (Odd, how a purportedly drought and poor soil tolerant plant like Amaranth failed while fertilizer and water-hungry corn did remarkably well in our poor, dry, sandy soil!?)

For fertilizer we have an abundant supply of horse and turkey manure.  Both animals are quite helpful in that they generally pick one or two spots to deposit their contributions, and from there it easily shoveled up and put in a compost bin.

The trick was in the compost bins - no budget for these.

For the turkey poo I found that I could stack used tires into a hollow column and drop the poo in from the top.  When it had composted or needed to be turned, it's a simple matter to remove each tire and dump the contents in a wheelbarrow or on the ground.  Then the tires are restacked and either the turkey manure is spread in the garden, or returned to the tire column for more composting. I've seen an even more interesting digester design using some PVC pipe and truck inner tubes that captures the methane gas that evolves for cooking gas, but that's for future consideration.

I wanted to build a fancy barrel design composter for the horse manure where I could turn a crank and tumble and/or sift the contents into the wheelbarrow.  But there were insufficient funds and materials for such a project.  However, I did have about 16 feet of chain-link fence left over from building a dog pen.  (The same can typically be found in the scrap yard for a few $s.)  That and a few wooden posts and some baling wire made a fine compost bin.

Rainwater on a compost heap tends to leach nutrients and make the pile heavy and soggy, so I located this one under the eaves of the small barn I built.  Before heaping up the manure, I collected it in one spot and left it out for the chicken to scratch through for a few days.  They shredded it nicely from the round nuggets the horse produces (called "horse apples" by some) and left a product not unlike grass clippings.  This was raked up and heaped into the 4' x 4' x 4' tall square bin.

The first time I built the pile it seemed rather dry, so I added about a gallon of water every six inches.  After a couple months I broke the pile down to see how it was doing.  (This was a simple matter of removing the baling wire ties that secured the fence material to the posts, and slipping the fence off the pile.)  A good couple shoves with a tined rake and the pile was turned.  It was composting well enough, but still a bit dry, so I added another gallon of water or so to each 4-6 inches as I rebuilt it. I also learned that it's better to put the posts on the outside of the fence than the inside because the dead space around the posts is wasted and can create a site where loose compost easily spills out.  Therefore, put the posts outside the fence if you build a pile like this.

Another composting project involves teabags.  If you're a regular drinker of either iced or hot tea as I am, you probably toss those used tea bags away as I did for many years.  Then I was visiting a friend, Irina D., who had a lovely lemon tree growing in a pot on her kitchen window.  It was quite healthy looking and the soil in the pot was rich and dark.  I asked her what kind of potting soil she used to get such good results.  "Chai," she replied simply.


I hadn't heard of such a brand before and asked her where she bought it and whether it was expensive. 


"Here," she said, picking up a tea strainer and dumping the contents out into the pot, "and it's free."


Last year I tried that too, but the tea leaves dried out easily in small pots.  So, this year I'm adding a little soil to the mix.  I have plenty of egg cartons to start the seedlings in, and the bonus with paper ones is that you can plant the seedling 'pot' and all!  I'm going to start lemon, orange, date and olive trees in some Chai and will see how they turn out.

In a week or two I will start planting potatoes in the manure-compost, and by spring should have a nice crop of spuds!