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I have always made compost. Currently, I have a wormery plus a Hotbin chugging away in my greenhouse. These make weed free potting compost and the glorious 'worm wee' that fertilises the greenhouse crops. I also have a stack of three tractor tyres that composts large quantities of organic matter plus four black bins that were sold very cheaply by my council a few years ago. These bins get hot and turn garden waste into compost quickly. I often mix them mid cycle to speed up the process. My leaf mould bins have disintegrated. I need to build another one.

My aim is to compost everything I can and become self-sufficient in fertility in my no dig veggie garden area. I grow a lot of comfrey too and make comfrey tea. And I use green manures but sparingly. I find digging them in a chore and they often don't want to go away.

I am about 60% successful this year and have minimised barrowing loads of composted horse manure with wood shavings from my kind neighbour's stables. But to achieve just 60% self-generated fertility I have to compost almost everything, even the weeds. Tim and I just don't generate enough kitchen waste, wood shavings, grass cuttings etc. That means when I mulch the raised beds with homemade compost I get weed seeds.

I have come up with a cunning cold weather plan. I want my weed seedlings to germinate well before the warm weather starts which is also the time when all my veggies (like garlic and broad beans) are starting to appear. This is what I do. Incidently, I first heard this idea from my friend, Paul Wagland.

I spot weed my beds and make sure they are clean. Then I mulch them with a generous layer of compost. Then I cover the bed with clear plastic sheeting (see first photograph below). Anything will do. Mine came as packaging for an item but you can also use cut open clear sacks. The plastic creates a microclimate in late autumn. The weeds gernimate and then I hoe them. A hard frost will then kill them. If the frost doesn't come I hoe again. Then the bed is ready for planting and the weeds won't smother or get mixed up with the veg.

I tested this out before posting the idea so you can see it works for yourself.

Here is a bed newly mulched with compost and covered with plastic. No weeds yet.

Here is a mulched bed with germinated weeds below the plastic. You will see an area without plastic and without germinated weeds as well.

Here is the detail.

Here is the uncovered bed with weed seedlings. Lots of them!

So now I am hoeing the seedlings. I only hoe the top mulch. The bed below is undisturbed. I will leave this bed empty until I know the seedlings have been eliminated.
Maddy Harland is the editor and co-founder of Permaculture magazine How to Make and Use Compost and Permanent Publications.
Get started in No Dig gardening? Maddy recommends Charles Dowding and Stephanie Hafferty's No Dig Organic Home and Garden

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5 Steps to Eliminating Weed Seedlings in Homemade Compost

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I have always made compost. Currently, I have a wormery plus a Hotbin chugging away in my greenhouse. These make weed free potting compost and the glorious 'worm wee' that fertilises the greenhouse crops. I also have a stack of three tractor tyres that composts large quantities of organic matter plus four black bins that were sold very cheaply by my council a few years ago.

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Help me make more videos https://www.patreon.com/redgardens Most of the fertility for the family sized gardens of the RED Garden Project comes from a community composting facility called the No-Rules Compost. This video explores the methods, benefits and issues that develop from abandoning many of the conventions around composting.

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Gardening - Thoughts on Berkely Rapid Compost Method

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A brief description and some thoughts on the Berkely Rapid Compost method as applied in an average gardener's life. What is that "white stuff" in my compost? How do I get rid of it? On thermophillic compost piles ("Hot composting") And this is _the_ very best newbie article that I've ever read on the subject.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkASAZGIuu0&t=2s

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCVrkcaH6Q&t=1s

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One third of food produced globally is wasted; that is 1.3 billion tonnes of food that is never eaten.

We might not realise how much of a problem food waste is because we are blind to its effects.

When we throw our food into the bin we don't see the harmful greenhouse gases it is going to release in the landfill. We also don't see the fuel and resources that went into producing the food or see the people around the world who are hungry. All we see is an apple in the bin.

There are other costs to food waste.

Wasting food is bad for the environment

When food ends up in landfill, it decomposes without oxygen, and as a result, it releases methane, a harmful greenhouse gas. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest producer of carbon emissions behind China and the United States.

The more food that we waste, the more food we need to produce. This constant need to produce more puts additional pressure on the environment.

For example, 25 million acres of land are deforested each year in order to grow food. This is happening despite the fact that we are actually producing enough food to feed the world.

Wasting food wastes precious resources

Food is wasted at all stages of the supply chain - from the farm to the fork. In developing countries, most of these losses occur in the early stages such as production and transportation. In developed countries, most food wastage occurs by consumers after purchase.

When we waste food, all of the resources that went into growing and making it go to waste.

Consider this:
- 25% of all fresh water consumed each year is used to produce food that goes to waste
- 300 million barrels of oil are used each year to produce food that goes to waste

Wasting food doesn't feed the hungry

Isn't it appalling to think that we waste food when one in nine people do not have enough food to eat! Every year 3.1 million children under five die from poor nutrition.

While hunger is a problem that's hard to fix, we owe it to those who are starving to respect the food that we have access to.

Don't despair, things are happening

Love Food Hate Waste is aiming to reduce the amount of food that New Zealand households are throwing away.

In addition to our efforts, there are many different things happening around the world to reduce food waste.

In France it is now illegal for supermarkets to throw away edible food. Instead they must donate it to charities and groups, who will supply it those who need it.

The United States has announced a goal to reduce its food waste by 50% by 2030.

A programme in South Korea has been implemented where people have to pay to dispose of their food waste, thus encouraging people to only waste what is absolutely necessary. The collected food is then turned into animal feed, fertilizer or burned to generate electricity.

Love Food Hate Waste began in the United Kingdom in 2007 and was the first major campaign to tackle food waste. It has been successful in achieving an 18% reduction in household food waste. The campaign is also being run in Canada, New South Wales, Victoria and Brisbane.

Reduce your waste

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We might not realise how much of a problem food waste is because we are blind to its effects. When we throw our food into the bin we don't see the harmful greenhouse gases it is going to release in the landfill.

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Love Food Hate Waste is here to help us all make the most of the food we love. By rethinking how we shop, planning our meals better and using up our leftovers, together we can make a big difference.

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Worms from Earthly Delight - Christchurch, New Zealand

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Worms from Earthly Delight - Christchurch, New Zealand

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Worms from Earthly Delight - Christchurch, New Zealand

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Compost Mate ($28.00) - The tool to add air to compost piles, worm farms and mix-in food wastes. Perfect for tall compost bins - will NOT harm worms. Turns a slow heap into a working compost. My favourite tool! SORRY - CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK !

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8 Steps for Making Better Garden Soil - Organic Gardening - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

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8 Steps for Making Better Garden Soil - Organic Gardening - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

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Use these organic and natural methods to make healthy garden soil from common dirt.

By Harvey Ussery
June/July 2007

Photo courtesy WALTER CHANDOHA

Slideshow

Starting to build a new garden isn't difficult. Most people begin by going out into their yards with a shovel or garden tiller, digging up the dirt and putting in a few plants. Following the organic and natural methods, add a little mulch or compost, and you're well on your way to make good soil for your homegrown vegetables. But in the long run, the success of your garden depends on making healthy garden soil. The more you can do to keep your soil healthy, the more productive your garden will be and the higher the quality of your crops.

In the last issue, I discussed the value of soil care methods that imitate natural soil communities. These include protecting soil structure, feeding the soil with nutrients from natural and local sources, and increasing the diversity and numbers of the microbes and other organisms that live in the soil.

In this article, I'll focus on specific ways to achieve these goals. There are many ways to do this, but they all revolve around two basic concepts: For more fertile soil, you need to increase organic matter and mineral availability, and whenever possible, you should avoid tilling the soil and leave its structure undisturbed.

Add Organic Matter

For the best soil, sources of organic matter should be as diverse as possible.

1. Add manures for nitrogen. All livestock manures can be valuable additions to soil - their nutrients are readily available to soil organisms and plants. In fact, manures make a greater contribution to soil aggregation than composts, which have already mostly decomposed.

You should apply manure with care. Although pathogens are less likely to be found in manures from homesteads and small farms than those from large confinement livestock operations, you should allow three months between application and harvest of root crops or leafy vegetables such as lettuce and spinach to guard against contamination. (Tall crops such as corn and trellised tomatoes shouldn't be prone to contamination.)

However, because some nutrients from manures are so readily available, they are more likely to leach out of the soil (where they're needed) into groundwater and streams (where they're pollutants). Also, if manures are overused, they can provide excess amounts of some nutrients, especially phosphorus. Because of this, it may be best to restrict fresh manures to heavy feeding, fast-growing crops like corn, and process additional manure by composting.

When thinking of manure, it's worth considering our own. Flushing "humanure" away disrupts aquatic ecosystems, and represents a net loss of potential fertility from agricultural soils. On the other hand, human manure requires cautious management to avoid spreading disease. I recommend Joe Jenkins' The Humanure Handbook, the bible on this subject.

2. Try composting. Composting is a means of recycling almost any organic wastes. It reduces the bulk of organic materials, stabilizes their more volatile and soluble nutrients, and speeds up the formation of soil humus.

Regular applications of modest amounts of compost - one-quarter inch per season - will provide slow-release nutrients, which will dramatically improve your soil's water retention and help suppress disease. Classic composting is relatively simple (for more about how to do it, see "Start a Compost Pile," below), but it can be labor intensive if you try to do it on a large scale. The older I get, the more interested I am in an easier alternative. Fortunately, I've found two.

One is "sheet composting." In classic composting, you build tall piles in bins, alternating layers of fresh, high-nitrogen "greens," such as grass clippings, with high-carbon, difficult to break down "browns," such as dry leaves. Instead, you can keep these two compost materials separate, and apply them in two layers directly to the garden bed.

The moist, volatile, high-nitrogen "greens" go down first, in direct contact with the soil and the microbial populations ready to feed on them, while the drier, coarser, high-carbon "browns" are used as a cover to keep the first layer from drying out or losing its more volatile elements to the atmosphere.

The second alternative is vermicomposting: using earthworms to convert nutrient-dense materials, such as manures, food wastes and green crop residues, into forms usable by plants.

Earthworm castings are a major part of my fertility program. I started vermicomposting with a 3-by-4 foot worm bin. Then last year, I converted the center of my greenhouse to a 4-by-40 foot series of bins, 16 inches deep. My worms process horse manure by the pickup load from a neighbor. Not only do the worm castings feed plant roots, they carry a huge load of beneficial microbes that boost the soil organism community.

3. Tap chicken power to mix organic materials into the soil. Typically, I use electric net fencing to manage my chickens, rotating them from place to place on pasture. When needed, however, I "park" them on one of my garden spaces. I dump whatever organic materials I have handy in piles, and the chickens happily do what they love best - scratch ceaselessly through that material, looking for interesting things to eat. In the process, they shred it and incorporate it into the top couple inches of soil, the zone of most intense biological activity. Their droppings are scratched in as well, and they give a big boost to the soil microbes.

4."Mine" soil nutrients with deep rooted plants. As I explained in the previous article, when you first start gardening, it may be necessary to use rock powders, and other slow-release sources of minerals, to correct mineral deficiencies in the soil. In the long run, however, you can supply minerals without purchasing inputs. The organic materials we add to our soil supply most of the minerals healthy crops need. In addition, we plant "fertility patches" to grow a lot of our own mineral supplements.

These fertility patches include plants that function as "dynamic accumulators." That is, their roots grow deep, and "mine" mineral reserves from the deeper layers of subsoil, where it has weathered out of the parent rock. The roots of comfrey, for instance, can grow 8 to 10 feet into the subsoil. Stinging nettle is another extremely useful dynamic accumulator. Both nettle and comfrey, in addition to high mineral content, are high in nitrogen. They make excellent additions to a compost heap or can be used as mulches.

If you have some pasture, think of it as a fertility patch par excellence. When growth is fast and lush in the spring, you should be able to take one or two cuttings, perhaps even more, for use in composting or as mulches. If you don't have a pasture, consider using parts of your lawn instead. I overseed my lawns each fall with the same sort of grass/clover mix I use on the pasture. In the spring, I allow some areas to grow about 8 or 10 inches before cutting it with the scythe and using it for fertility applications elsewhere.

A final thought about fertility patches: Many gardeners are a bit paranoid about "weeds," but some weeds are deep rooted, and can be used like comfrey as dynamic accumulators to bring minerals up from the deep subsoil. An example is yellow dock ( Rumex crispus). Why not allow some yellow dock to grow here and there, in edges and corners where it is not in the way? When the plants start to make seed heads, cut them off just above the crown to prevent huge numbers of seeds from blowing loose in the garden, then use the plants in mulches or composts.

5. Plant cover crops. Growing cover crops is perhaps the most valuable strategy we can adopt to feed our soil, build up its fertility and improve its structure with each passing season. Freshly killed cover crops provide readily available nutrients for our soil microbe friends and hence for food crop plants. Plus, the channels opened up by the decaying roots of cover crops permit oxygen and water to penetrate the soil.

Legumes (clovers, alfalfa, beans and peas) are especially valuable cover crops, because they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into forms available to crop plants. Mixes of different cover crops are often beneficial. For example, in mixes of grasses and clovers, the grasses add a large amount of biomass and improve soil structure because of the size and complexity of their root systems, and the legumes add nitrogen to help break down the relatively carbon-rich grass roots quickly.

Try to work cover crops into your cropping plans with the same deliberation that you bring to food crops. The easy way to do so is to maintain two separate garden spaces: Plant one to food crops and one to cover crops, then alternate the two crops in the following year. But most gardeners cannot devote that much space to such a strategy, so effective cover cropping must be fitted into a unified garden plan, a concept that in practice can get fiendishly complex. Gardeners who like jigsaw puzzles will love the challenges.

There are cover crops that work best for each of the four seasons, and for almost any cropping strategy.

Fine Alternatives to Tillage

In last issue's article, " Build Better Garden Soil," I discussed ways excessive tillage is detrimental to soil life and contributes to greenhouse gases. Proper soil care reduces the need for tillage. Nurturing soil life by constantly introducing organic matter helps keep a loose and open soil structure. Protect that improved structure by keeping the soil covered at all times. Repeat after me: " No bare soil! "

6. Cover the soil with mulch. An obvious way to keep the soil covered is to use organic mulches. Some people advise against using high-carbon materials such as straw or leaves, since soil microbes "rob" available nitrogen from the soil in order to break down the excess amounts of carbon. This is only true, however, if we incorporate these high-carbon sources into the soil. I once tilled in some coarse compost containing large amounts of oak leaves not yet fully decomposed, and found that crops grew quite poorly there the entire season.

However, if high-carbon materials are laid down on top of soil as mulches, there won't be any problem. The mulch retains soil moisture and protects against temperature extremes. Microbes, earthworms and other forms of soil life can "nibble" at the mulch, and slowly incorporate their residues into the topsoil. Actually, high-carbon mulches are preferable for weed control to materials that decompose readily, since they persist longer before being incorporated into the soil food web. (Every gardener who has used mulches knows the story: You put down a thick layer early in the season, then suddenly one day notice - the garden ate my mulch!) Even so, it is usually necessary to renew mulches that are in place for the entire growing season.

It is often recommended to turn manures and composts into the soil, but to reduce tillage you can apply the manure or compost on the soil surface, and keep it from drying out (hence degrading) with a thick high-carbon mulch (along the lines of "sheet composting," described above).

Grass clippings should not be lost as a resource - shipping them off to the landfill is a true crime against sustainability. Grass-clippings mulch in paths can be slippery underfoot, and unpleasant to work on. I prefer to let lawn or pasture grasses grow to 8 to 12 inches, then cut them with a scythe, rake them up after a couple days of drying, and apply where needed.

An undervalued source of organic matter is the wood fiber in newspapers and cardboard. All the reading I've done on the subject convinces me that modern newsprint in this country, and cardboard produced in the United States and Europe, do not pose environmental hazards. When establishing "kill mulches" (mulches over a living grass sod intended to kill it in preparation for planting trees and shrubs), I lay down a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard, then cover with leaves, grass cuttings and other organic materials. Wood chips also make good mulch for some situations, especially for pathways and kill mulches, and they often are free from tree-trimming services.

7. Use permanent beds and paths. A key strategy for protecting soil structure is to grow in wide permanent beds and restrict foot traffic to the pathways - thus avoiding compaction in the growing areas - and to plant as closely as possible in the beds. Close planting shades the soil surface, which benefits both soil life and plants by conserving moisture and moderating temperature extremes.

You also can use paths to grow your mulches, or mulch the paths and take advantage of foot traffic to help shred or grind materials such as straw or leaves. From time to time, this finely shredded material can be transferred to the beds, where it will break down much more readily than in its coarser forms.

8. Try low-tech tillage. There are almost always better alternatives to tillage, especially power tillage, which inverts and mixes the different layers in the soil profile, disrupts the soil food web and breaks down the "crumb" structure we have worked so hard to achieve. Even in the case of cover crops, which must give way to the planting of a harvest crop, it is not necessary to turn them into the soil, as usually recommended. Instead, consider these alternatives.

You can bury the cover crop under a heavy mulch to kill it. If the soil is in loose, friable condition, it is easy to pull the cover plants up by the roots and lay them on the bed as mulch. Certain plants such as rye and vetch are difficult to kill without tillage, but cutting them immediately above the crowns after seed stalks or flowers form will kill them. Use the upper ends of the plants as a mulch to help break down the roots more rapidly.

If you have chickens, you can use them to till in your cover crops. They cause some disruption of soil life, but only in the top couple of inches. The damage they do cause is quickly repaired, because the birds' droppings boost soil life.

When it's necessary to loosen soil at depth - as in a young garden whose soil has not yet mellowed sufficiently to grow good root crops - I recommend the broad fork, a hand tool that, like the scythe, makes joyful, all-round use of the body in a rhythm that becomes a garden meditation. Unlike a power tiller, the broad fork loosens the soil without inverting the natural soil layers or breaking down the "crumb" structure of the soil. The broad fork is much easier to use in soil that is already in fairly good condition - it is not the tool of choice for converting a tough grass sod over compacted soil to new garden ground.

Does that mean that in this case we are forced to revert to power-driven steel? Not on my homestead, where once again chicken power comes to the rescue. Normally, I would rotate the birds onto another plot after a week or so to prevent excessive wearing of the pasture sod, but in this case "excessive wearing" is exactly what I want. I use electronet to "park" a flock of chickens on the sod I want to convert to garden. With their constant scratching, the birds kill and till in the sod. I remove the birds, grow a mixed cover crop, then return the chickens for another round of tilling. Now the new ground is ready to start working as garden. Be sure to note the state of the soil before you start - the changes by the end of the season will amaze you.

If you don't have chickens, a no-till way to develop new ground is to lay down a sheet compost, as previously discussed, which is heavy enough to kill the existing sod. If you can be generous with watering through the germination phase, you can start a cover crop in the top layer of the compost, and the roots will greatly accelerate the breakdown of the mulch. Plant a second cover in the fall. This strategy works better if you can give the area over completely to soil building for a full year. If you have to get some production out of the ground the first season, simply open up holes in the compost and plant (a strategy that works better with some crops than others).

You can also try using potatoes to do the heavy work for you. Lay your seed potatoes directly on the sod, and cover with a thick mulch. Renew the mulch as needed to keep the growing tubers well covered. When it's time to harvest, simply push the mulch aside and pick up your spuds. The new garden soil still has a long way to go, but it's well on its way.

The only time I do massive tillage in the garden is when digging root crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and burdock. With such crops, I dig deep and thoroughly with the spading fork - a total disruption of soil structure and inversion/mixing of its natural layers. My goal, however, is to make such intensive disruptions the rare exception rather than the rule. That way, the intact soil life communities in surrounding beds soon help rebuild the soil food web in the disturbed areas.

Start a Compost Pile

To build a compost pile, start by layering organic materials. Alternate more readily decomposable materials - fresh, high-nitrogen wastes, such as manures, crop residues, kitchen wastes and weeds - with less decomposable materials - drier, coarser and high-carbon wastes, such as autumn leaves, straw and corncobs. Microbes feed on all these materials and break them down into simpler, more stable compounds.

The microbes need water and oxygen, so keep the pile moist, but not sopping wet. As they break down the organic matter, the microbes generate heat. Make the pile large enough to retain heat, but not so large that oxygen cannot penetrate to the center, about 4 feet on each side is a good size. To encourage aeration, mix the coarser elements throughout the pile to ensure plenty of air space. When the pile cools, turn the heap - with the outer layers going to the inside and vice versa - to incorporate more oxygen and generate a new heating cycle. The compost pile may need to be turned more than once to complete the process.

Life in the Soil

It's often said that organic material in soil consists of "the living, the recently dead and the very dead." This is a helpful way to understand the processes that shape soil and make it fertile.

The living portion of soil is made up of plant roots, and of the numerous microbes and other living organisms that improve soil structure by breaking down organic material.

The recently dead components include deceased soil organisms, green plant material and fresh manures. They decompose readily, and release nutrients quickly.

The very dead portion is humus, the final residue of organic matter breakdown that's important for soil structure and disease suppression.

For fertile soil, all three forms of organic matter should be present at all times.

Pick a Cover Crop

There's a cover crop for every season, climate and gardening strategy. Here are a few options to consider.

Fast-growing grain grasses (rye, oats, wheat, barley) are a good choice in early spring.

Cold-hardy legumes, such as peas, can be started in late winter and allowed to grow two months or longer to precede a warm-weather, heavy-feeding crop, such as winter squash.

Warm-weather legumes, such as soybeans or cowpeas, can fertilize beds that will be planted to fall crops that need rich soil, such as broccoli or fall-planted garlic and shallots.

For a quick-growing "filler" between spring and fall crops, nothing beats buckwheat, the "instant cover crop" (30 days from seed to flower.)

For winter, a mix of hairy vetch and rye (cereal rye, the sort of rye used to make bread, not perennial rye or annual grass rye) is a top choice.

Another good winter cover is a mix of oats and "field pea" or "winter pea" ( Pisum arvense, a close relative of P. sativum, the common garden pea). Both plants are cold-hardy, but reliably winterkill if the ground freezes in your area. You can leave them in place as mulch, and make spring transplants right into it.

Try undersowing to grow a food crop and a cover crop together. For example, you can put Dutch white clover in a bed where you are planting tall crops with a small "footprint" such as trellised tomatoes or pole beans. The clover comes up fast, establishing a tight cover that suppresses weeds and retains soil moisture. Since it is low-growing, it does not interfere with managing or harvesting the taller crops above it.

Use these organic and natural methods to make healthy garden soil from common dirt.

By Harvey Ussery
June/July 2007

Photo courtesy WALTER CHANDOHA

Slideshow

Starting to build a new garden isn't difficult. Most people begin by going out into their yards with a shovel or garden tiller, digging up the dirt and putting in a few plants. Following the organic and natural methods, add a little mulch or compost, and you're well on your way to make good soil for your homegrown vegetables. But in the long run, the success of your garden depends on making healthy garden soil. The more you can do to keep your soil healthy, the more productive your garden will be and the higher the quality of your crops.

In the last issue, I discussed the value of soil care methods that imitate natural soil communities. These include protecting soil structure, feeding the soil with nutrients from natural and local sources, and increasing the diversity and numbers of the microbes and other organisms that live in the soil.

In this article, I'll focus on specific ways to achieve these goals. There are many ways to do this, but they all revolve around two basic concepts: For more fertile soil, you need to increase organic matter and mineral availability, and whenever possible, you should avoid tilling the soil and leave its structure undisturbed.

Add Organic Matter

For the best soil, sources of organic matter should be as diverse as possible.

1. Add manures for nitrogen. All livestock manures can be valuable additions to soil - their nutrients are readily available to soil organisms and plants. In fact, manures make a greater contribution to soil aggregation than composts, which have already mostly decomposed.

You should apply manure with care. Although pathogens are less likely to be found in manures from homesteads and small farms than those from large confinement livestock operations, you should allow three months between application and harvest of root crops or leafy vegetables such as lettuce and spinach to guard against contamination. (Tall crops such as corn and trellised tomatoes shouldn't be prone to contamination.)

However, because some nutrients from manures are so readily available, they are more likely to leach out of the soil (where they're needed) into groundwater and streams (where they're pollutants). Also, if manures are overused, they can provide excess amounts of some nutrients, especially phosphorus. Because of this, it may be best to restrict fresh manures to heavy feeding, fast-growing crops like corn, and process additional manure by composting.

When thinking of manure, it's worth considering our own. Flushing "humanure" away disrupts aquatic ecosystems, and represents a net loss of potential fertility from agricultural soils. On the other hand, human manure requires cautious management to avoid spreading disease. I recommend Joe Jenkins' The Humanure Handbook, the bible on this subject.

2. Try composting. Composting is a means of recycling almost any organic wastes. It reduces the bulk of organic materials, stabilizes their more volatile and soluble nutrients, and speeds up the formation of soil humus.

Regular applications of modest amounts of compost - one-quarter inch per season - will provide slow-release nutrients, which will dramatically improve your soil's water retention and help suppress disease. Classic composting is relatively simple (for more about how to do it, see "Start a Compost Pile," below), but it can be labor intensive if you try to do it on a large scale. The older I get, the more interested I am in an easier alternative. Fortunately, I've found two.

One is "sheet composting." In classic composting, you build tall piles in bins, alternating layers of fresh, high-nitrogen "greens," such as grass clippings, with high-carbon, difficult to break down "browns," such as dry leaves. Instead, you can keep these two compost materials separate, and apply them in two layers directly to the garden bed.

The moist, volatile, high-nitrogen "greens" go down first, in direct contact with the soil and the microbial populations ready to feed on them, while the drier, coarser, high-carbon "browns" are used as a cover to keep the first layer from drying out or losing its more volatile elements to the atmosphere.

The second alternative is vermicomposting: using earthworms to convert nutrient-dense materials, such as manures, food wastes and green crop residues, into forms usable by plants.

Earthworm castings are a major part of my fertility program. I started vermicomposting with a 3-by-4 foot worm bin. Then last year, I converted the center of my greenhouse to a 4-by-40 foot series of bins, 16 inches deep. My worms process horse manure by the pickup load from a neighbor. Not only do the worm castings feed plant roots, they carry a huge load of beneficial microbes that boost the soil organism community.

3. Tap chicken power to mix organic materials into the soil. Typically, I use electric net fencing to manage my chickens, rotating them from place to place on pasture. When needed, however, I "park" them on one of my garden spaces. I dump whatever organic materials I have handy in piles, and the chickens happily do what they love best - scratch ceaselessly through that material, looking for interesting things to eat. In the process, they shred it and incorporate it into the top couple inches of soil, the zone of most intense biological activity. Their droppings are scratched in as well, and they give a big boost to the soil microbes.

4."Mine" soil nutrients with deep rooted plants. As I explained in the previous article, when you first start gardening, it may be necessary to use rock powders, and other slow-release sources of minerals, to correct mineral deficiencies in the soil. In the long run, however, you can supply minerals without purchasing inputs. The organic materials we add to our soil supply most of the minerals healthy crops need. In addition, we plant "fertility patches" to grow a lot of our own mineral supplements.

These fertility patches include plants that function as "dynamic accumulators." That is, their roots grow deep, and "mine" mineral reserves from the deeper layers of subsoil, where it has weathered out of the parent rock. The roots of comfrey, for instance, can grow 8 to 10 feet into the subsoil. Stinging nettle is another extremely useful dynamic accumulator. Both nettle and comfrey, in addition to high mineral content, are high in nitrogen. They make excellent additions to a compost heap or can be used as mulches.

If you have some pasture, think of it as a fertility patch par excellence. When growth is fast and lush in the spring, you should be able to take one or two cuttings, perhaps even more, for use in composting or as mulches. If you don't have a pasture, consider using parts of your lawn instead. I overseed my lawns each fall with the same sort of grass/clover mix I use on the pasture. In the spring, I allow some areas to grow about 8 or 10 inches before cutting it with the scythe and using it for fertility applications elsewhere.

A final thought about fertility patches: Many gardeners are a bit paranoid about "weeds," but some weeds are deep rooted, and can be used like comfrey as dynamic accumulators to bring minerals up from the deep subsoil. An example is yellow dock ( Rumex crispus). Why not allow some yellow dock to grow here and there, in edges and corners where it is not in the way? When the plants start to make seed heads, cut them off just above the crown to prevent huge numbers of seeds from blowing loose in the garden, then use the plants in mulches or composts.

5. Plant cover crops. Growing cover crops is perhaps the most valuable strategy we can adopt to feed our soil, build up its fertility and improve its structure with each passing season. Freshly killed cover crops provide readily available nutrients for our soil microbe friends and hence for food crop plants. Plus, the channels opened up by the decaying roots of cover crops permit oxygen and water to penetrate the soil.

Legumes (clovers, alfalfa, beans and peas) are especially valuable cover crops, because they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into forms available to crop plants. Mixes of different cover crops are often beneficial. For example, in mixes of grasses and clovers, the grasses add a large amount of biomass and improve soil structure because of the size and complexity of their root systems, and the legumes add nitrogen to help break down the relatively carbon-rich grass roots quickly.

Try to work cover crops into your cropping plans with the same deliberation that you bring to food crops. The easy way to do so is to maintain two separate garden spaces: Plant one to food crops and one to cover crops, then alternate the two crops in the following year. But most gardeners cannot devote that much space to such a strategy, so effective cover cropping must be fitted into a unified garden plan, a concept that in practice can get fiendishly complex. Gardeners who like jigsaw puzzles will love the challenges.

There are cover crops that work best for each of the four seasons, and for almost any cropping strategy.

Fine Alternatives to Tillage

In last issue's article, " Build Better Garden Soil," I discussed ways excessive tillage is detrimental to soil life and contributes to greenhouse gases. Proper soil care reduces the need for tillage. Nurturing soil life by constantly introducing organic matter helps keep a loose and open soil structure. Protect that improved structure by keeping the soil covered at all times. Repeat after me: " No bare soil! "

6. Cover the soil with mulch. An obvious way to keep the soil covered is to use organic mulches. Some people advise against using high-carbon materials such as straw or leaves, since soil microbes "rob" available nitrogen from the soil in order to break down the excess amounts of carbon. This is only true, however, if we incorporate these high-carbon sources into the soil. I once tilled in some coarse compost containing large amounts of oak leaves not yet fully decomposed, and found that crops grew quite poorly there the entire season.

However, if high-carbon materials are laid down on top of soil as mulches, there won't be any problem. The mulch retains soil moisture and protects against temperature extremes. Microbes, earthworms and other forms of soil life can "nibble" at the mulch, and slowly incorporate their residues into the topsoil. Actually, high-carbon mulches are preferable for weed control to materials that decompose readily, since they persist longer before being incorporated into the soil food web. (Every gardener who has used mulches knows the story: You put down a thick layer early in the season, then suddenly one day notice - the garden ate my mulch!) Even so, it is usually necessary to renew mulches that are in place for the entire growing season.

It is often recommended to turn manures and composts into the soil, but to reduce tillage you can apply the manure or compost on the soil surface, and keep it from drying out (hence degrading) with a thick high-carbon mulch (along the lines of "sheet composting," described above).

Grass clippings should not be lost as a resource - shipping them off to the landfill is a true crime against sustainability. Grass-clippings mulch in paths can be slippery underfoot, and unpleasant to work on. I prefer to let lawn or pasture grasses grow to 8 to 12 inches, then cut them with a scythe, rake them up after a couple days of drying, and apply where needed.

An undervalued source of organic matter is the wood fiber in newspapers and cardboard. All the reading I've done on the subject convinces me that modern newsprint in this country, and cardboard produced in the United States and Europe, do not pose environmental hazards. When establishing "kill mulches" (mulches over a living grass sod intended to kill it in preparation for planting trees and shrubs), I lay down a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard, then cover with leaves, grass cuttings and other organic materials. Wood chips also make good mulch for some situations, especially for pathways and kill mulches, and they often are free from tree-trimming services.

7. Use permanent beds and paths. A key strategy for protecting soil structure is to grow in wide permanent beds and restrict foot traffic to the pathways - thus avoiding compaction in the growing areas - and to plant as closely as possible in the beds. Close planting shades the soil surface, which benefits both soil life and plants by conserving moisture and moderating temperature extremes.

You also can use paths to grow your mulches, or mulch the paths and take advantage of foot traffic to help shred or grind materials such as straw or leaves. From time to time, this finely shredded material can be transferred to the beds, where it will break down much more readily than in its coarser forms.

8. Try low-tech tillage. There are almost always better alternatives to tillage, especially power tillage, which inverts and mixes the different layers in the soil profile, disrupts the soil food web and breaks down the "crumb" structure we have worked so hard to achieve. Even in the case of cover crops, which must give way to the planting of a harvest crop, it is not necessary to turn them into the soil, as usually recommended. Instead, consider these alternatives.

You can bury the cover crop under a heavy mulch to kill it. If the soil is in loose, friable condition, it is easy to pull the cover plants up by the roots and lay them on the bed as mulch. Certain plants such as rye and vetch are difficult to kill without tillage, but cutting them immediately above the crowns after seed stalks or flowers form will kill them. Use the upper ends of the plants as a mulch to help break down the roots more rapidly.

If you have chickens, you can use them to till in your cover crops. They cause some disruption of soil life, but only in the top couple of inches. The damage they do cause is quickly repaired, because the birds' droppings boost soil life.

When it's necessary to loosen soil at depth - as in a young garden whose soil has not yet mellowed sufficiently to grow good root crops - I recommend the broad fork, a hand tool that, like the scythe, makes joyful, all-round use of the body in a rhythm that becomes a garden meditation. Unlike a power tiller, the broad fork loosens the soil without inverting the natural soil layers or breaking down the "crumb" structure of the soil. The broad fork is much easier to use in soil that is already in fairly good condition - it is not the tool of choice for converting a tough grass sod over compacted soil to new garden ground.

Does that mean that in this case we are forced to revert to power-driven steel? Not on my homestead, where once again chicken power comes to the rescue. Normally, I would rotate the birds onto another plot after a week or so to prevent excessive wearing of the pasture sod, but in this case "excessive wearing" is exactly what I want. I use electronet to "park" a flock of chickens on the sod I want to convert to garden. With their constant scratching, the birds kill and till in the sod. I remove the birds, grow a mixed cover crop, then return the chickens for another round of tilling. Now the new ground is ready to start working as garden. Be sure to note the state of the soil before you start - the changes by the end of the season will amaze you.

If you don't have chickens, a no-till way to develop new ground is to lay down a sheet compost, as previously discussed, which is heavy enough to kill the existing sod. If you can be generous with watering through the germination phase, you can start a cover crop in the top layer of the compost, and the roots will greatly accelerate the breakdown of the mulch. Plant a second cover in the fall. This strategy works better if you can give the area over completely to soil building for a full year. If you have to get some production out of the ground the first season, simply open up holes in the compost and plant (a strategy that works better with some crops than others).

You can also try using potatoes to do the heavy work for you. Lay your seed potatoes directly on the sod, and cover with a thick mulch. Renew the mulch as needed to keep the growing tubers well covered. When it's time to harvest, simply push the mulch aside and pick up your spuds. The new garden soil still has a long way to go, but it's well on its way.

The only time I do massive tillage in the garden is when digging root crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and burdock. With such crops, I dig deep and thoroughly with the spading fork - a total disruption of soil structure and inversion/mixing of its natural layers. My goal, however, is to make such intensive disruptions the rare exception rather than the rule. That way, the intact soil life communities in surrounding beds soon help rebuild the soil food web in the disturbed areas.

Start a Compost Pile

To build a compost pile, start by layering organic materials. Alternate more readily decomposable materials - fresh, high-nitrogen wastes, such as manures, crop residues, kitchen wastes and weeds - with less decomposable materials - drier, coarser and high-carbon wastes, such as autumn leaves, straw and corncobs. Microbes feed on all these materials and break them down into simpler, more stable compounds.

The microbes need water and oxygen, so keep the pile moist, but not sopping wet. As they break down the organic matter, the microbes generate heat. Make the pile large enough to retain heat, but not so large that oxygen cannot penetrate to the center, about 4 feet on each side is a good size. To encourage aeration, mix the coarser elements throughout the pile to ensure plenty of air space. When the pile cools, turn the heap - with the outer layers going to the inside and vice versa - to incorporate more oxygen and generate a new heating cycle. The compost pile may need to be turned more than once to complete the process.

Life in the Soil

It's often said that organic material in soil consists of "the living, the recently dead and the very dead." This is a helpful way to understand the processes that shape soil and make it fertile.

The living portion of soil is made up of plant roots, and of the numerous microbes and other living organisms that improve soil structure by breaking down organic material.

The recently dead components include deceased soil organisms, green plant material and fresh manures. They decompose readily, and release nutrients quickly.

The very dead portion is humus, the final residue of organic matter breakdown that's important for soil structure and disease suppression.

For fertile soil, all three forms of organic matter should be present at all times.

Pick a Cover Crop

There's a cover crop for every season, climate and gardening strategy. Here are a few options to consider.

Fast-growing grain grasses (rye, oats, wheat, barley) are a good choice in early spring.

Cold-hardy legumes, such as peas, can be started in late winter and allowed to grow two months or longer to precede a warm-weather, heavy-feeding crop, such as winter squash.

Warm-weather legumes, such as soybeans or cowpeas, can fertilize beds that will be planted to fall crops that need rich soil, such as broccoli or fall-planted garlic and shallots.

For a quick-growing "filler" between spring and fall crops, nothing beats buckwheat, the "instant cover crop" (30 days from seed to flower.)

For winter, a mix of hairy vetch and rye (cereal rye, the sort of rye used to make bread, not perennial rye or annual grass rye) is a top choice.

Another good winter cover is a mix of oats and "field pea" or "winter pea" ( Pisum arvense, a close relative of P. sativum, the common garden pea). Both plants are cold-hardy, but reliably winterkill if the ground freezes in your area. You can leave them in place as mulch, and make spring transplants right into it.

Try undersowing to grow a food crop and a cover crop together. For example, you can put Dutch white clover in a bed where you are planting tall crops with a small "footprint" such as trellised tomatoes or pole beans. The clover comes up fast, establishing a tight cover that suppresses weeds and retains soil moisture. Since it is low-growing, it does not interfere with managing or harvesting the taller crops above it.

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8 Steps for Making Better Garden Soil - Organic Gardening - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

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Use these organic and natural methods to make healthy garden soil from common dirt. By Harvey Ussery June/July 2007 Photo courtesy WALTER CHANDOHA Slideshow Starting to build a new garden isn't difficult. Most people begin by going out into their yards with a shovel or garden tiller, digging up the dirt and putting in a few plants.

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How to Make Hot Compost | Permaculture magazine

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How to Make Hot Compost | Permaculture magazine

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Hot compost is a quick and easy way to get through your waste.

A hot compost pile can reach temperatures of 49-77 degrees Celsius (120-170 degrees Fahrenheit) in just a few days, and if you get it right, you can compost your organic matter in around four weeks. You can even use these high temperatures to heat your water, home or greenhouse. The temperature of the pile must be monitored because remaining at a temperature of 65 degrees Celsius or higher for even just a few hours, will kill beneficial microorganisms that add to your compost.
What you will need
Equal parts green and brown materials, all shredded to a small size. Fresh grass clippings and dried shredded leaves work great for your first effort because they're already in small pieces, and the grass clippings are full of moisture.

A fork or shovel for turning

A compost thermometer or a meat thermometer attached to the end of a stick

A tarp (optional)

A bin/container (optional)
Method
Make sure all organic matter is chopped into small pieces and mix together the green and brown materials well. Add in around a shovelful of already made compost or soil, which will be full of microorganisms to jumpstart the process.

As you build the pile, sprinkle with some water to keep the organic matter moist. It needs to be the consistency of a wrung-out sponge.

Your compost pile needs to be around one cubic meter in size. Any larger than one and a half cubic metres, will mean moisture and heat levels are wrong for speedy decomposition. At this stage you could cover the pile with a breathable tarp to maintain moisture, but this isn't necessary.

Over the next month you will need to monitor and record the daily temperarture of the pile with a compost thermometer. Between one and five days, the temperature should rise, between 49 and 77 degrees Celsius (120 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature will depend on moisture levels, the size of your organic matter and the size of your pile.

Once the temperature cools to below 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit), which is usually between four and seven days, you will need to turn over the organic matter to introduce oxygen. This will then heat the pile back up.

Everytime you turn the compost, make sure you bring the pile's exterior material into the interior. This enables all material to be evenly broken down. Water can be added to maintain the correct moisture levels, but be liberal, as the pile will cool if it is too moist.

Continue monitoring and recording temperatures everyday, and the turn the compost every four to five days, when the temperature drops below 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit). Continue moistening if needed. After around 14 days, the compost will no longer be recognisable. After one month, you should have turned the pile four times.

By this point, most of the pile will be a dark, crumbly compost and the temperature will decrease below 29 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit).

Now you must let the compost 'cure' for a couple of weeks before you can use it.
Rozie Apps is assistant editor at Permaculture magazine and Permanent Publications.
Further resources
Make a low cost, heat-retaining DIY compost tumbler How I made really great compost The many benefits of Hugelkultur 500 showers heated from one small compost pile: a how to tutorial
Read How to Make & Use Compost
Permaculture magazine:
print, digital, online. All subscriptions come with free digital access to 24 years of back issues www.permaculture.co.uk/Subscribe

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Hot compost is a quick and easy way to get through your waste. A hot compost pile can reach temperatures of 49-77 degrees Celsius (120-170 degrees Fahrenheit) in just a few days, and if you get it right, you can compost your organic matter in around four weeks.

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Top tips and ideas for wormy success

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cool link you can use on facebook to keep check of what to do & when

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cool link you can use on facebook to keep check of what to do & when

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http://gardenate.com/

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Follow this link to a locally produced film, featuring some local movie stars talking on their experience of gardening

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Follow this link to a locally produced film, featuring some local movie stars talking on their experience of gardening

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Proudly supported by MAD4CO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XucIaUSJoA&feature=youtu.be

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Developed by local lady, Helen Hillis

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Sprouts and more...

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Library list... follow this to permaculture books

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Library list... follow this to permaculture books

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https://ent.kotui.org.nz/client/en_AU/cq/search/results?qu=permaculture&te=ILS&rt=false%7C%7C%7CSUBJECT%7C%7C%7CSubject