Kenneth’s Composting Tips

Composting is the practice of giving back to the earth valuable substance, with the desired result of having a healthy, rich display of plant growth, and an abundant harvest of vegetables, or fruits.

That valuable substance in good compost is a balanced amount of carbon and nitrogen. The carbon is the dried leaves, pine needles, weeds, topsoil, coffee grinds. We call this the “browns.” The nitrogen is what is called the “greens.” Remember when mom said to eat your greens? My mom always fed us string beans, and brocoli. Those two vegetables come to mind when I think of “greens.” However, the nitrogen material consists of all kitchen vegetable or fruit food waste.

Below are my tips for a good conditioning of the compost to get it right and ripe for spreading on the soil, whether it is a vegetable bed, rows, or container gardens. For any successful growth of plants the soil has to be right. Composting adds to the soil food for the microorganisms, which in turn strengthen the soil quality for the tomatos and other vegetable, fruit, and flower plants.

COMPOSTING TIPS

Tip 1
Find a suitable place close to the kitchen to set up the compost bin, or compost pile. This is to prevent having to travel any distance to add to and work the compost.

Tip 2
Soften the earth before throwing any waste into the compost. This will open up the connection between the compost and the microorganisms in the topsoil.

Tip 3
Continuously add nitrogen and carbon to the compost. Put the nitrogen material down first, and cover with the carbons. This will reduce odors.

Tip 4
Add some water to keep the compost moist, and therefore allowing for better heating to occur. Just don’t over water. Consider the weather.

Tip 5
Turn the compost vigorously every other day to keep the heating process moving. The action of microorganisms digesting the compost substances, and the breaking down into good garden compost require energy, and energy is heat.

Tip 6
When using a compost bin, keep the bin covered, but allow for oxygen to pass through the sides.

Tip 7
Work the compost (feeding it, watering it, turning it) for several months before spreading on the garden beds. It needs to turn into sandy, dark soil.

Tip 8
When time to spread the compost onto the garden bed, it is not necessary to bury it or mix it with the soil. Simply spread it on the earth, and let it sit and settle.

Soil, Soil, Soil

Here in northwest Florida, we have long hot summers, and high humidity throughout much of the year. This creates optimum conditions for insect and bacteria growth, even those insect pests that irritate our gardening efforts. Therefore, we organic gardeners have to give extra care to our garden soil. Soil, soil, soil. The soil will make or break a garden. A healthy soil will produce healthy plants that will resist insect pests to a point. Other factors will also help the plants resist insect pests as well.

To care for the garden, a healthy layer of compost needs to be fed and mixed in with the earth, and other layers need to be put on the garden periodically. Some of the compost needs to be mixed in and some need to simply cover the earth like a sheet. On top of that a layer of mulch will protect and keep the compost in place and keep the water in place. Without mulch, heavy rain can wash out the compost sheet, and not provide a firm barrier from our hot sun rays tagging the land.

The compost has to have part carbon elements, such as grass, weeds, pine needles, leave, and nitrogen elements, such as kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps. The compost content is very important. I am still in the process of developing healthy content for the compost bin. I have much to learn. I know from others that a good mix of horse manure and hay is a good form of soil compost. Mushroom compost
and fish compost are great too.

Much of what we can do with our gardens is restricted b y the heavy burden of home owners associations with all their dos and don’ts.

I am learning all the time how to have a good organic garden. Your suggestions are encouraged. I also subscribe to Google Alerts on “organic gardening,” ” gardening,” “compost.”

Lawns Big Enough for a Garden

I have seen so many homes, and so many yards here in Tallahassee, and elsewhere. What I do not see in the yards, some big, some small, are organic gardens, or any kind of vegetable or fruit garden. What a shame, I would say, since food grown at home, using organics, is fresher, healthy, and richer, than produce bought in the supermarkets. Would it not be nice to follow Thomas Jefferson’s idea for America back in the 1800’s, which was that America would be dotted with organic farms, and most of us would be working in our organic gardens/farms? Many of us did before Big Oil came along. Much of America’s prosperity, and moral development, came as an effect of our simple, small farm, small town, entrepreneurship lifestyle before oil changed all that.

What comes to thought, when thinking about “organic” or “organics?” For me, I think about nature, naturalness, back to basics, home grown, putting the garden to work, not using synthetics, chemicals. An organic garden is a chemical-free garden, if by chemical is meant synthetic chemical, not natural chemicals freely found in nature.

An organic garden is a healthy garden. The soil is not unnaturally tampered with through the introduction of contaminents, pesticides, or chemicals that in nature do not belong there. Before the emergence of the petroleum industry along with our petroleum based agricultural system, everything grown was organic. Prior to the 30’s America was filled with organic gardens, and agricultural models based on sustainable, organic operations.

An organic garden is a location in which vegetables, fruits, flowers, trees, bushes, are grown using nature’s elements of controlling bugs, and other garden critters. It is an open, but controlled ecosystem. Substancially, Organic gardening is about controlling the bug population, so that healthy plants can emerge. In addition to this, and in support of this, organic gardening uses a system of plant rotation, so that the same bugs do not infect the same plants year after year. Compost, and mulch which can include pine needle straw, especially here in Tallahassee, Florida, but also, bark chips, small twigs, paper, and more compost, play a big part in a healthy garden, and healthy soil.  Compost is the garden’s best friend, so it does not hurt to use it in abundance, with the proper balance of nitrogen and carbon inputs. A healthy soil, thanks to nutruient rich compost, and proper working of the soil, along with water, and sunlight inputs, will reduce the unwanted bugs, and insects. Healthy plants keep many of the critters away. Mulch will control water evaporation and absorption, and protect the soil from the hot sun’s rays. Also, attracting birds by putting up bird baths, and bird feeds helps control bug population too. However, some bugs are good, and attack the ones that eat our plants. We want to attract those as well, such as the ladybugs.

I am now about to go back to work in my organic garden, as I always have a rich population of tomatos, peppers, squash, basil, and others. In fact, we have not bought any of this vegetables for over two years. Not one, except for an event we participated in in which we needed a bigger amount of produce than what we had. Overall, we are getting better at organic gardening here in Tallahassee, and hope to be 80 percent vegetable independent within the next three years. Much of that will have to do with how successful we are at composting, and controlling the bugs. Yes, that is the essential task: getting rid of the hungry pests.

Turning the Compost

I was out in my Tallahassee, Florida, garden today, working my compost bin: feeding it more nitrogen and carbon materials, dampening it, and thoroughly turning everything in it. The turning is quite intensive as this has to do with the hot temperatures at work in the compost bin. I want to make sure all the microorganisms get to it and do their work of breaking it down, and excreting nutrients, so that in when the compost is ready, I can spread it over my garden beds.

As I was turning and working the compost, I was thinking of the turning and working that goes on in the cycles of nature, such as the movement of the seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall. I was thinking of the cycles in a day, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night. I was thinking of the cycles in the the seven days of creation in Genesis 1 in the bible. There is a lot of good expressed in that biblical story. I was also thinking of the cycles in the economy in general, and  the mortgage industry, specifically. In a relatively short amount of time, I was thinking of all the good that goes on in cycles, natural or expressed by man. Each day of creation is an expression of good, whether it be the light of the first day, the firmament dividing the sky from the earth in the second day, or the land and the seas of the third day, and so forth. There is good in all these cycles, that constitute the universe, the earth, our environment.  The media, however, would have us believe that all is doom, and bad. It reports only  what is wrong, or discordant, and leaves out good. In my contemplation in the garden, I was able to see only good, and not see, hear, think, feel, or consider one bad thought, one bad image from any source. I only felt the good that is all over the place.

Thinking, hearing, seeing, witnessing, expressing, loving, contemplating good, is very healthy, and inspiring. I do this everyday. I sit quietly, and for about 30 minutes minimum, I fill my consciousness with only good. Call this prayer, rejoicing, giving gratitude, quietly listening to angel messages. The result of this thought process is goodness reflected. When I am through thinking good thoughts, seeing good images, and surrounding myself with only good, I then, really feel good, and I can go forward with any project, or task, with that sense of ever-present good. This is a good exercise for all to practice, and fulfill each day, or perhaps, throughout the day. You start to feel that good is alive and well, amidst all the evil and negativity that seems to fill the air and world we live in. Good is so natural.

Anyway, I have a very good feeling about my new garden projects I am just now starting since the summer crops are almost gone. Still have some tomatoes, and peppers, but most of the plants have withered away. I will be constructing a brick outlined island to expand the garden, but doing that instead of making more rows. Gardenting is also a cycle, a good cycle. Everying about gardening is good. Can’t think of one bad thing. Not even a problem with pests, because we have never had a serious problem with bugs, or pests. We always have had a healthy, successful garden. Maybe it is because we keep out thoughts focused on the good around us. I can make a list of hundreds of things that are good in my life, and in the life of those around me. I can probably find hundreds of things good in the mortgage industry, the real estate industry, the retail business, education, economy, and people. If you want good, you will experience it. “What goes around comes around.” Let us make good go around. Don’t forget to thoroughly turn your compost material every several days, for a healthy, rich compost spread. You soil will love you for it.

Living the Pure Lifestyle in Florida

We think of good food, healthy living, organic gardening, food coops, using the bike more, installing alternative energy systems, and how to be greener than maybe we may have already been. Better late than never, goes the old cliche. I am surrounded by green living in a very green neighborhood if you look at all the trees, bushes, and conservation zones in the neighborhood, and all over Tallahassee, and Leon County. Nature is alive and well in northwest Florida. It just makes sense to think and practice a healthier, sustainable lifestyle.

Now, where there is good, there also appears to be its opposite. Any effort to do the right think, and live a greener, friendlier, healther lifestyle is met by the enemy within and without: the petroleum based economy, homeowner association regulations, neighbors that feel sticking with the status quo is the only way to live, fear of being different, and misunderstood, and the prohibitive costs associated with going to alternative energy sources. These are obstacles that can be overcome. Good is nature, natural, and can overcome the evil lurking in the foreground and background preventing a cleaner, greener lifestyle for us.

My wife and I for years have planted the majority of our tomatoes, and other vegetables. We have set goals for our organic gardening project. Yes, gardening is a project, and a process, isn’t it?  Our goal is to cultivate 80% of our vegetable produce within one year. We have a compost bin, and a system in place to manage our nitrogens and carbons in our compost bin, and will be ready to spread the material over our new cleaned out garden bed very soon. We do not waste any kitchen food item. If we don’t eat it, it goes into our compost bin. That is less that goes to the city, or county solid waste facility, or whatever it is called. We hope to grow more blueberries, and start cultivating strawberrys, and grapes so we can add fruit to our gardening.

We are hearing about more and more people in and around Tallahassee, Florida, who are raising chickens for eggs. We would like to do that as well.  I have a friend who supply us with his chicken’s eggs, and yes, the taste is much better than what you get in the supermarkets.

Now, it would be wonderful to get a goat for goat’s milk, which is excellent. Don’t know how we can manage that in our Lakeside Tallahassee subdivision, but there are people on the outskirst of Tallahassee, for example down Bucklake Road in eastern Leon County, who raise goats and have a big quantity of them. I may drive by and speak with someone there about how they start that, or get some tips on goat raising. We may sell a property we own, and buy a lot somewhere for that purpose. Just thinking.

My wife recently bought a bread maker, and almost daily we are making delicious homemade bread. No more supermarket bread for this family. This is part of our lifestyle improvement, which we hope will continue forever.

The important element in a greener lifestyle is the element of planning. With a little amount of space, there is much one or more individuals can do to make the yard a practical vegetable, or fruit garden, and nature zone.

I learned this soil tip recently. Take a handful of earth from your garden bed, and squeeze it in your hand. If is is crumbly, that is good. The soil is healthy for cultivatating. If is is a wet ball, that is not so good. If it is sandy, and fall apart, that also is not good, healthy soil for agriculture/horticulture. I like the hand technique versus the PH soil analysis.

Now, back to organic garden planning, and picking the last remains of our current tomatoe crop. Back to learning more about our local soil, plant pests, and how tos.

Organic Gardening in Tallahassee

Yesterday, I went to Market Square in northeast Tallahassee to hear several people talk about organic gardening, and how to do it right in Tallahassee, Florida. My wife and I are wanting to get more into organic gardening, and less into buying the chemical saturated products in the supermarket.

For years, we have been growing tomatoes, peppers, basil, squash and a few other vegetables in our northwest Tallahassee backyard, however, more than anything we grow a bigger crop of tomatoes. Believe me, our  produce tastes so much better than what you find at the big name supermarkets. It is joyful to have your own produce filling your kitchen counter. We share with family and neighbors.

Why should we all be into organic gardening? Well, do you really like going to a supermarket, and buying the produce you find there when in fact, the produce and other food items are chemical dominated. You are eating synthetics/chemicals when you buy from the supermarkets.

Here is an interesting point I picked up at the organic gardening presentation. After World War 2, there was an abundance of left over chemicals used in the war. They did not know what to do with them, so they discovered, and decided to put them to use in petroleum agriculture which is the dominant form of agricultural production in this nation today, since the late 40’s. We can mass produce with a petroleum base of energy supply for agricultural production. We can use the massive amounts of chemicals to kill of pests and fertilize the land. Of course these substances are all synthetic, not organic, not natural.

Here in Tallahassee, there are more and more people interested in getting back to old school growing, before synthetics took over. In Tallahassee’s Indian Head subdivision, there is a home with a community organic garden in the front yard. About six families participate in maintaining this garden and growing healthy vegetables. In more and more neighborhoods, there is an interest in have community vegetable gardens, but unfortunately, many neighborhoods are policed very strict homeowners associations that do not accept anything out of the ordinary status quo. Although, we have an active vegetable garden in our back yard, Lakeside subdivision’s rules will not permit a community garden. You can’t even paint your fence without permission from the neighborhood association. You can’t even put up a storage shelter in your back yard without permission.

What is needed is more people speaking up to their community homeowners associations with useful proposals for practical  projects like community organic gardens, community parks, etc. Who should run the neighborhoods: associations or the neighbors?

Back to the Organic Gardening presentation. To have a successful organic garden, you need SOME. Yes, the speaker introduced SOME as the strategy for a healthy garden. S is for soil, O is for organic, M is for matter, and E is for excellent. Then, how do you put together this garden? You must have a vigorous microorganism community. The soil needs to be detoxified. The environment must be conducive to the use of organic matter. There has to be the proper level of nutrients to feed the microbes.

To start, it is a good idea to get a compost bin, and start feeding it daily nitrogen and carbon matter. This compost will serve as a rich nutrient foundation for the garden in one or two years as the compost bin works and the organisms in the soil eat and excrete into the bin creating a rich base for the garden. Make sure the nitrogen and carbon in the bin is regularly turned creating a heating condition, and there is dampness inside the bin. Microorganisms will do their work and the heating process will escalate, and temperature could reach 130 degrees or higher. In a journal you can record the temperature readings, after you get a thermometer to use in the bin. Weeds, leaves, and some grass clippings can be used in the bin as carbons, and the nitrogens are left over vegetable matter from the kitchen. Think of the carbons and nitrogens as the browns and the greens.

It is a good idea to first get a journal, and plan the architecture for the garden, how you want it to look like when the goal is reached. Jot down the supplies, products and materials needed to construct and develop the garden. Record observations and make improvements to the architecture as needed or necessary.

We will continue our studies and projects in organic gardening until we reach our goal of having a successful organic garden in our Tallahassee backyard, with enough produce to share with more people and maybe even sell. Right now, we are in the beginning steps of really getting serious about organic gardening, as there is a learning curve in order to do it right.