Preventing Apocalypse

What is manure composting? Animal manure is one of the best things we can add to the garden to create healthy soil micro-biology and give our plants a thriving ecosystem.  The type of animal will greatly influence the 'outcome' and each manure will vary in the micro and macro nutrient present. For most manures you will need to compost it if you collect in from the farm, which is also the best way to create the best compost.  Horse manure For most farms, especially with horses, they will gather and bag the manure and sell it outside for a small fee (very small fee considering someone had to collect and bag it). Grasses grow slowly over winter. In my food garden, the last lawn mowing, along with the autumn leaves get composted in one compost bin, leaving one compost bin empty over winter. I go to a local farm on the outskirts of metropolitan Melbourne and collect five or so bags of freshly collected horse manure, then add it to the empty compost bin, add some water and forg...

To understand the principles of organic gardening you must understand this;  You do not grow plants You may have vegetable plants growing, but you do not grow vegetables. You may have fruit trees but you do not grow fruit. Without a gardener, nature will do it's thing.  A seed would fall, water will rain down and the seed will sprout and grow into a plant that will produce fruit that contains seeds that will fall to the ground. the pant will die and fall to the ground; bacteria and fungi break the plant down and feed the soil where the seeds are and the cycle repeats. Healthy plants come from healthy soils. An organic gardener is a steward of the soil. When the soil is active and full of life, the soil biology will grow healthy plants because the soil biology relies on plant roots for survival. They will enter into an exchange with the plants for what the plant needs and in return the plant exudes sugars and carbohydrates. The microbes in the soil excrete broken down micro and...

You can add anything and everything to a bokashi bin, except liquids.  It can take fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, fish, coffee grounds, even paper. When you get a new bokashi bucket you will also get a masher to squash the bokashi down (this is very important) and either a spray bottle of effective micro-organisms (EM) or a bokashi bran made of food industry waste product that is soaked in the EM.  With each addition to the bin, you need to squash it down with the masher. Crush it into the previous layer. Squeeze out as much air as possible.  Air is the great enemy of bokashi.  Air will create a foul-smelling, dry-retching inducing, maggot-infested hell-hole that is not usable unless you wish to have your garden infested with blow-flies and rats. ​ Because air is the enemy of bokashi, it's best not to add to the bin too often. It's best to store scraps in the kitchen and empty it once a week or if there's a hint of a smell brewing. In my first bokashi attempt I made...

Worms will break down your kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves and even shredded paper and turn it into a rich, fertile soil amendment that will produce healthy plants to feed you and your family. The juice produced is called worm tea and is rich in soil bacteria necessary to keep the soil healthy and feeds the soil biology you already have. The only things that cannot go into a worm farm are highly acidic items like citrus, onions, garlic, salt, bread, potato and meat, fish and dairy. When used in conjunction with a bokashi bucket, you have a complete system for zero food waste that will keep your garden healthy and productive.

Composting is all about putting garden waste to good use, as nature intended.  The natural world is made of compost; all soil is made of broken down leaf matter, stems, flowers and fruits fall to the ground and microbes break it down.  In our backyards the same process happens, unless we collect all this wealth and put it in the bin to be taken away. It's time to reclaim that wealth. Fast compost Usually when we do our yard work, we end up with fallen leaves and grass clippings after mowing the lawns. From now on we'll refer to the fresh grass clippings as 'greens' (nitrogen) , and the fallen leaves as 'browns' (carbon).  To begin: Place a layer of either brown or green material where your compost pile will be, Alternate green and brown layers, watering each until all are piled up, Leave the pile for four days, Turn the pile and mix all the layers together like you were mixing a cake batter Leave for 2 days Repeat steps 6 & 7 for the next 3 weeks. The pile w...