(Update 10/24: I just got the link to all the signage from the Compost Fest. These quick-info pages describe a process in words and photos, then list pros and cons, perhaps other resources. Included: hot composting, slow/cool composting, animal bedding/offal composting, chicken cultivators, bio char in trenches, hugelkulture heaps, sheet mulching (aka lasagna beds), and stinging nettle tea.

mariposagardens.org/Handouts/Composting/Compost_Festival_Displays.pdf

Bio-char

I got there just before the opening at 11am, but things were already well under way. Ken Miller, already surrounded, was busy explaining his 5-gallon bucket stoves for making bio-char. This ancient process takes bio-mass (chunks of wood, bones, or brush) and reduces them to charcoal chunks you can fold into your soil to hold water, add minerals, provide soil habitat, and sequester carbon.

I’ve invited Ken to either write or be interviewed about bio-char for this blog, so more later on that topic. My biggest hope for bio-char: it provides a garden way to dispose of chicken bones.

(note on 10/20: Ken provided a mini-stove—two 16oz fruit cans that slip together to make one combustion chamber—that you can fill with sticks and throw into your woodstove. I did that, and after one firing in my Russian Stove, I had a little pile of, basically, artist sticks of charcoal. COOL!

Why is Her Compost Hot and Mine Not?

Per the name of the event, Cathy had several types of compost piles going: hot piles, cold/passive piles, a pile to handle animal wastes, compost cones, and sheet composting (also known as lasagna beds or composting in place). I talked to her most about the hot method, which can, with a bit of work, give you compost in a month.

Her hot pile was four feet high, contained by pallets on edge, and layered with once-fresh grass clippings, horse manure, apple pomace left over from cider-pressing, and spent hay. And it was steaming warm, the thermometer showing a weed- and pathogen-killing 110°. 

Now my pile, made September 21 and turned on October 7, has almost the same ingredients, yet barely reached 90°. So we talked: Cathy thought my pile needed the firing power of fresh grass, plus another turning, to fire my compost to the desired temperature. (Later I realized she also shreds her ingredients to make them easier for the compost-critters to digest).

When I got home, of COURSE I went in search of fresh grass, and I found it on my downward slope. It was long, true, but the recent rains had fed lush new growth, so I hand-scythed the new greenery and hauled half a barrel’s worth to the compost. Turning that compost once again, periodically I grabbed a handful of that long grass, snipped it into strands and let it fall in a shallow layer on the rising pile. Hopefully this green food will fire up the compost, instead of matting within it. I’ll track temps through the week: if this works, it should climb 50° by week’s end.

(Update 10/24:  by week’s end, the heat had topped out at 80°. Rereading her pdf hand-out (see link above to “hot composting”), I see that A) she shredded her compost, and B) she used more grass clippings than manure. Since the mowing season is over, I think I’ll have to wait until spring to try this again).

The Broadfork: A Big Bite into Your Earth

This broadfork for double-digging has been teasing the edges of my gardening radar for some time, so I was happy to get a chance to try one out. Meadow Creature, which is Bob Powell and his partner Margot Boyer, have made “several dozen this year and sold half to Islanders, half in web sales to gardeners around the USA.” The steel is cut at Vashon College, using its OMAX water jet cutting machine, and painted in gaily neon colors by Bob. They go for $200 plus tax.

That’s quite a bit of dough for my small garden, so I was glad to try one out. In the photos below, you can see the basic motion: you lift this 25-lb fork and let the tines fall into your soil. Stand up on the cross-bar and wiggle the fork around to sink the tines deeper. Then, as you lean back, the leverage you’re applying on the handles make the tines in the ground pry soil upward, loosen it as deep as 16″ underground.

The idea, I think, is the tool uses the power of leverage to do the “heavy lifting” work of double-digging, which is usually done with a garden fork or shovel. Anyone who’s read “Bio-Intensive Gardening” will recognize this tool.

For my small garden, this tool is more than I need. For a large garden planted in rows or wide beds, that isn’t tilled mechanically, and HAS a person with some heft to persuade those tines down into the earth, this might be a useful, if occasional, tool.

For more: info, email Margot or Bob at sales@meadowcreature.com or visit www.meadowcreature.com.