FABULOUS COMPOST!
Garden Club Gathering, March 24, 2006
Presented by Kartar
Singh Khalsa, 753-4516, kartar@la-tierra.com
Written
by Siri-Gian Kaur Khalsa
Resources:
www.gemplers.com for a compost thermometer.
El
Rey Morgan Horses on McCurdy road lets you take their horse manure. 753-3696.
Call first to find out when they are cleaning their stables.
Garcia
Landscaping in Velarde—tell Bobby Garcia that Kartar Singh sent you! 852-2569. Among many things for your garden (topsoil, sand, rocks, gravel, etc.) they will deliver
dairy manure, which may be about 3% rocks and dirt. If composted correctly, the
heat will break down the antibiotics and other medicines that they are fed. They
charge about $40 for delivery, plus whatever you order. You can share a truckload
with a friend, and thereby split the delivery fee with them.
Why
Compost?
The purpose for making compost
is to give your plants the best organic nutrition they could ever hope for!
And, we learned today that Kartar
Singh is a Wizard of Compost! For the first time in my life, I regard compost
making as an art form!
The art is first based on getting
the mix of your “colors” right. Generally speaking, that means green
and brown!
Nitrogen usually being green: lawn clippings, still green but unusable green vegetables, the soft part of leaves,
fresh green kitchen scraps, etc. You can plant a “green manure”
crop in a field, which is usually turned under the soil to fertilize it, but to get this green material for your compost,
you can cut it and put it on your pile. Or you can use cut lawn grass up to 3
weeks old as the green in your compost pile.
Although there are exceptions
to the “green” rule, such as fresh, smelly animal manure. The more
smelly, the more nitrogen. However, horse manure has lots of undigested hay in
it, giving it a significant carbon content as well. And the heat of composting
will kill the weed seeds in it.
If you use several years old
manure, put it at the bottom of the pile and add a little (chemical) nitrogen to make it “hot”. If you use fresh manure, especially chicken, goat or pig manure, it will become quite hot as it decomposes,
which is what you want!
And Carbon being brown such as twigs, bark, stalks, stems, apples, carrots, straw, meaning organic matter that is
more woody. You can lessen the time it takes to compost your carbon material
if you shred it first. You can use sawdust for your carbon, but it takes about
twice as much nitrogen to decompose it, so don’t put a lot of sawdust in your compost pile.
Ratio
It is totally important to have
the ratio correct when mixing them to create fine, beneficial compost! That ratio
should be at least 60% nitrogen (N) to 40% carbon (C), up to 70% N to 30% C. And
it is made from what you can get out of your yard. The combination of these ignites
a chemical reaction resulting in decomposition. So, this is the best ratio of
N and C to cause breakdown of your organic materials—step one!
Citrus peels don’t decompose
well because they are too acid. Pine needles are also acid, so be aware if you
put them in your pile because they will change the pH of your compost. Perhaps
you might like a little to amend our base pH soil, or a lot to put on acid loving plants.
Plan where you want to put this compost before you mix it.
If you are gardening organically,
be sure that you know the origin of your compost materials.
Mixing
the Pile
Once you get the ratio of your
mix correct, mix the pile together. The bigger the pile, the better, but don’t
make the pile so big that you can’t turn it! Then run a line of drip irrigation
over it, such as a soaker hose, or emitters 6” apart, and let the water run slowly until the pile is moist all the way
through. You have the right amount of water if when you squeeze a handful of
the mix, you get a drop or so of water. More water makes the pile heavier when
you turn it. Water your pile only once.
Then cover the whole thing with black plastic sheeting to hold the water in and absorb heat from the sun.
The next process to improve your
compost is to actually have it digested by small animal life, similar to good bacteria digesting some of our food for us in
our guts! Moisture draws these micro-organisms up from the soil into your pile
and keeps them alive and multiplying. These are the fellows that digest your
decomposing material! However, our native soil doesn’t have a lot of micro-organisms
because it is too dry and too alkaline—base pH.
If you have a large pile of leaves
over the winter, it will draw earthworms up out of the soil because they also eat decaying matter. If you add earthworms to your compost, put them under the pile where decomposition begins.
If after you have made your pile
and begun the composting process, you have more material you want to compost, then begin a second pile. Don’t add it to the first one.
The
Composting Process—The First Method
Get a compost thermometer (www.gemplers.com), which looks like a really big meat thermometer, if you remember them. The “probe” or long shaft that you stick into the pile is about 2’
to 4’ long so you can reach the bottom center of the pile, and a thermometer dial crowns the other end. The temperature of the pile, especially the bottom center will rise according to the decomposing activity
which throws off heat, the size of the pile, the moisture content, and the heat of the day.
The heat is advantageous because it kills off weed seeds and pathogens that might be harmful to your plants, e.g. fungus,
diseases, etc.
Take the pile’s temperature
on the first day so that you get a base line reading. Then as the pile begins
to decompose, you will find the greatest temperature at the center, near the ground.
After about 4 days, you will find the temperature going up in all areas, but especially at the center on the ground,
because the chemical reaction is greatest there. It may go up to 90 degrees,
and perhaps even 120 to 130. When the temperature gets this high, it kills off
the pathogens—fungus, micro-organisms that kill plants, etc.!
Once the temperature gets this
high—about 4 to 5 days, thoroughly turn and mix your pile with a pitch fork or shovel.
Do this before the temperature begins to drop. Mix the center part into
all the rest of the pile so that the beneficial micro-organisms that have found their way into the bottom of your pile may
propagate in other areas now, and this aerates your pile, oxygen being important to the process.
Then repeat this process a second
time again after about 2 to 3 days when you will find that the temperatures are higher than the first time.
And repeat again a third time
after 2 to 3 more days when the temperatures are higher still!
The
Composting Process—The Second Method
This is how Kartar Singh makes
his own Fabulous Compost that he will be offering for sale! He does it with the
help of beneficial micro-organisms that multiply to huge numbers when done correctly.
When they digest the decomposing matter, they also leave behind helpful enzymes in your soil! He can also sell you these little guys and you can do this process yourself!
These special micro-organisms
originate in the sea where a river flows into it. The river brings decomposing
material to the area, and these little guys who may be dormant on the sea bed there, come awake to feed and multiply into
huge numbers! So, Kartar gets them in a dormant state, then mixes them in a bucket
with water. He then feeds them with molasses, which they love! And they multiply quickly! He then puts a small amount in
a 50 gallon drum and feeds them again. What a powerful lot of tiny life forms
he gets this way!
To start his compost, he makes
a big pile of balanced nitrogen and carbon material and thoroughly moistens it as described in the First Method. Then he uses this mixed raw material as his foundation as he starts transferring this material by controlled
amounts to another location nearby to make a second pile with a succession of layers.
The reason he does this is because after each layer that he puts on the second pile—completely covering the previous
layer, he sprays his solution of micro-organisms evenly all over one layer before he adds another layer. He makes a number of layers this way to insure that the whole pile is thoroughly inoculated with these
voracious fellows. Depending on the size of the pile, he may make perhaps
7 to 15 or more layers.
Next, he covers the pile with
black plastic as in the First Method, and takes a base line temperature of the pile.
After a few days, the temperature at the bottom center of the pile may get to 135 degrees—higher than in the
First Method because there is much more decomposing activity occurring, producing heat!
Then he thoroughly turns and mixes the pile, and recovers it.
Then after 6 to 7 days, when
the bottom center again reaches 135, he turns and completely mixes the pile again, then recovers it.
He continues to take temperature
readings of various areas of the pile each day until the temperatures begin to fall.
This is because the micro-organisms have run out of food. Then he uncovers
the pile, and finishes as described next for both the First and Second Methods.
Finishing
the Compost
Now dig a hole in the pile to
see if the consistency is the same all the way through. By this time you have
used up most of your nitrogen, which is essential to the composting process. So,
if you have any chunks that have not broken down, take them out and put them in your next pile.
Now your compost should smell
like the sweetest and most full bodied soil, and you can take this gorgeous stuff and work it into the soil to feed your hungry
plants!
You can store compost for up
to a year, but the longer is stands, the more nitrogen that is leached out of it.
More
Notes
Anything that takes months to
decompose, such as random kitchen scraps is done by putrefication, and it still contains pathogens.
If the compost that you buy at
the store is dry, there are no micro-organisms in it.
Rotating composter drums, etc,
don’t have enough volume to them to compost in this great way.
Don’t put raw sawdust in
your soil because it will suck the nitrogen right out!
You can use woodchips for mulch,
and it won’t harm the soil as long as they sit on top of the soil. That’s
because the woodchips only draw nitrogen from the very top layer of the soil’s molecules where these two substances
touch. The bigger the chips, the less nitrogen they pull. If you mix the chips into the soil, they will use all the nitrogen, and weeds will grow. When Kartar Singh uses chips or pecan shells as mulch, he first puts down a weed barrier—spun fabric
is better than woven where the weeds can come up through the woven grid.
When he fertilizes plants that
have been mulched, he first pulls the mulch back, and then the weed barrier. Then
he sprinkles on the fertilizer and “scratches” it into the soil. Finally,
he returns the weed barrier and the mulch to their original positions.
To use “top dressing”
as mulch for your plants, Devi Dyal Kaur suggested first putting down a layer of newspapers (carbon) between your vegetable
or flower rows, and then spreading your grass clippings (nitrogen) on top of the newspapers to keep the weeds down and the
moisture in. Then, the next year when it has decomposed, you can turn this locally
made compost into your soil before planting again. Kartar said to be sure to
keep your nitrogen and carbon in the optimum ratio so that you don’t draw nitrogen out of the soil. If you are not doing organic gardening, you can add granular nitrogen to wood chips to achieve the same
effect.
All gardening is a learning process. So, see what works for you, what doesn’t and constantly improve.
Our soil here has a very basic
pH—way above 7, but you can change it by amending your soil either chemically or organically around your plants. Your County Extension Agent will test your soil for free. Elm trees acidify and thus help balance the soil.
