Making and applying microbe-rich compost is one of the most valuable things you can do for your soil. Learn how, with Jane Weaver of Earth & Spirit Design, and Pat Battle, for an inspired perspective on how to to make compost that is biologically diverse making it better for your soil, plants and nutrient density of the food you grow. Understand principles and practices of home-scale composting to insure a rodent-free and biologically active compost pile.
VIDEO: Building Microbe-Rich Living Compost Part 2
Making and applying microbe-rich compost is one of the most valuable things you can do for your soil. Learn how, with Jane Weaver of Earth & Spirit Design, and Pat Battle, for an inspired perspective on how to to make compost that is biologically diverse making it better for your soil, plants and nutrient density of the food you grow. Understand principles and practices of home-scale composting to insure a rodent-free and biologically active compost pile.
be ware of where to trees and wood chips came from, groth harmone inhibiter is being injected into the roots of trees along streets and roads and the companys that do it may not even ask or tell.
Sorry but that is not correct procedure. The sticks are five times too large with hardly any absorbent surfaces, the bark on the sticks is impervious.Then you have added coarse green grass, more nitrogen with already too much manure, and the materials are again with very little surface and what is there is, is non absorbent. This means that runny stinky manure is going to run onto the ground. for a bucket of wet manure, you need about two or three buckets of sawdust, plus several buckets more of dry leaves or straw at a bare minimum, or even more wood chips to absorb the manure. Sawdust mixed with wood chips and dry leaves or dry straw, or pine needles mixed or layered go down first. If you don't have sawdust or wood chips, you will need several buckets more of straw, dry leaves etc. You want to absorb all of the runoff. Always be considerate of absorbency and structure when adding nitrogen.
I have made thousands of tonnes of compost, all hand turned, and I am sharing fifty years of experience and the way you are beginning is very unsatisfactory. You are asking for bad smells and flies. Your carbon ratio is far too low.The manure you have dumped in is enough for the entire full cage. You are running less than a one to one ratio, but the correct ratio is thirty to fifty parts dry absorbent carbon, to one part nitrogen. I also must add that cages make your work much harder than necessary.You have to lift every thing, and spreading is harder than it needs to be. It is disheartening to see the blind leading the blind. No one is going to follow this, it stinks, and it will not work. At least it will not work well, at worst it will be a vermin trap for weeks. You need to get a couple decades of experience before instructing others. Composting is probably the greatest of arts, not a slap dash operation.
Thanks for all the great information , there's so much to learn from your channel . Ive been gardening for a long time and I'm thrilled I've stumbled across it. I just had to subscribe right away. Anyway, thank you very much. Take care.
This method doesn't really mention the essential difference between cellulose and lignin in brown 'woody' materials. Cellulose is accessible to bacteria, only fungus can break lignin down. So wood chips can't break down much in a bacteria based thermal compost. You can't count buckets of wood in the same ways that you count buckets of straw or veg stems. The theory in this is right on but the practice is all over the place.
I downloaded this a couple of days ago but I'm going to delete it as assuredly as the like icon was
clicked from 607 to 606 and the dislike icon was clicked from 22 to 23.
Why?
Because I'd had it with the rude know-it-all in the orange shirt with short pants by 23:35; cutting off the gentle woman with the long grey hair. Get rid of that a**hole lady, you and the rest of us don't need his rude interrupting know-it-all yammering. You did far superior in part one without that full of himself meatball continuously interrupting.
IMHO This is really crazy. Composting is a very intuitive art form. This vedio is off putting and excluding to farmers and gardeners. This vedio provides no solid or usable information and NO instruction. The speakers use confusing and excluding terminology with no foundation for viewers understanding. I bury my kitchen waste daily right in my yard/garden and my compacted areas. My waste turns right into compost/soil in about 3 weeks in the summer and I have no rats. My ground is full of worms – not night-crawlers – and nematodes and my plants flourish. The soil is rich and dark. You people are making a natural and easy process into something that makes people give up. Look around and get your guidance from nature around and do as nature does. you does. And btw I have loads of Black Walnut trees and the juglone is emitted from the black walnut tree roots, fallen nuts, leaves and branches. It does not “go away” I just grow the things that tolerate the presence of this chemical emitted by the black walnut tree.
I loved the first video but I have to make a constructive criticism of this one!
I've only made it five minutes in, and I cant help thinking that this process can be made sooo much easier !
A) There is no reason you can't build the compost pile first and then wrap a piece of fence around it. In any manual work you should always avoid lifting things higher than necessary! If there is no fence, you start at ground level and the lifting is progressively more difficult. Having to go over the fence every time with a shovel or bucket is a considerable and unnecessary effort.
B) It would be much more practical to have the measurements in wheelbarrows, and use wheelbarrows. Putting the "ingredients" in small buckets for such a big end-product, means much more time and lifting. You have to fill lots of small containers as opposed to one large one which has a wheel to take the weight.
You are clearly smart people and have a great passion for soil and compost, I'm a fan. If you make the intention of doing the most work with the least effort, I'm sure you can direct your creativity towards finding ways to make this process less heavy and time consuming!!
Happy birthday to you.
Can anyone explain how killing late blight with compost tea is accomplished?
amino acids and calcium
I Ruth Stout my garden and it is the compost pile. Works amazing. No need to overthink what God is actually growing.
I have collected 3ltr of my urine every day for over 6 years and used it all for compost piles may give you some idea of the volumes lol *I will share these vids with my son who is desperate to make quality compost. I think I prefer making it than explaining it. ….. Plus with food waste worms yeah or make an EM solution (which I use for loads of stuff / toilet cleaner even) and use it in a homemade "bokashi" bin. I put all my food scraps in a 30ltr bucket in my kitchen half full of rain water and add 20 – 40ml of EMs, weigh the scrap down with some cardboard then a plastic pot, then a pizza tray with a brick on top and just let it all ferment. Then I can use it to heat up and enrich piles without it attracting rodents. Bingo dingo … Plus If you put enough grass clippings in your piles worms you find on your property will love that heap. I only use the worms I breed from my soil – let the microbes do the rest. Plus if you have enough good compost down you wont get slugs or snails – they hate the shit. Im an aborist so I use loads of chip – it can keep a pile aerated and insulated without the need to turn so often – Bingo dingo lol Really you can only learn how to make "good compost" by doing it over and over and over lol Easiest way for noobs is the Berkeley methods with seasoned dry chip and fresh grass clippings imo.
Can I obtain a copy of how you organically spray stuff? I have bad cucumber beetle problems, then squash bug and vine borer in that order. I have a very large garden for someone who works alone and has a full time job. A lot if the stuff you mentioned I never heard of except the BT which I use with surround. I had used a soap in the past but gave up after little improvement. Maybe I didn’t do it right. I live in upstate NY, 1 hr west of Albany. Feel like I need more knowledge but have so little time and very limited cash.
hi Koodz I was thinking along the same lines as you , as it was obvious there was allot of effort being wasted lifting all the ingredients over the top of the wire mesh and this same method is used in lots of different compost videos.
I also agree on the unit being a wheel barrow full, so much more practical and start the pile on the ground with no fence until pile is almost diameter of fence
If they cut the wire mesh into three rings, Then it would be easy to fill the first ring as it would only be knee height. Make the second ring slightly smaller diameter so it just fits inside the bottom one and then fill. Similar with the last one slightly smaller diameter again.
I freeze my scraps then put them in the blender to feed my worms and put in compost.
This video is not for beginners. I could not understand half, probably more than half, of what was discussed.
Whats better to use…fresh manure or year old?
I love the Urine comment. He says it and there’s a brief period if stunned silence.
I have a compost pile going and when I opened it up to turn after 4 days temp was reaching 160, the center has white specks throughout. What is it? Pile mainly grass clippings and shredded leaves some food waste.
Could a home gardener benefit from using cardboard as a brown input in their compost, please? Thank you!
Another good thing about putting urine in the compost pile is it helps to keep animals out
I'm learning a lot from you guys and this channel. I grew heirloom tomatoes this year and they were eat up with disease. I didn't realize they were so susceptible. Also my soil stays moist because I'm at the coast, the water table is shallow and we get a lot of rain. So I'm realizing that I need to plant my tomatoes in raised beds and stick to varieties that a disease resistant. I've also wondered why my tomatoes didn't do well in containers and realize that it's probably due to having to water them daily, sometimes twice. I welcome any advice.
We could literally save the planet by making this knowledge available to the world. Thank you for posting. Now to go apply it ! (Hard part)
What's the name of the dr on compost tea thank you
One of the hardest things to get my head around is the idea that you do not "feed" your plants. You make compost, and produce compost extracts and compost teas, not to feed your plants, but to dramatically increase the population of good microbes. I have come to think of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes as my labor force, corps of engineers, and special forces defending my plants against other, bad "bugs."
Compost tea is a crap shoot, as he said. Until you buy a microscope and learn how to use it. Then, making compost tea is a completely reliable means of benefitting your farming efforts. If you are not using a microscope, in my opinion, you are not a real farmer. Not in 2021 anyway!
When you spray compost tea on your plants, the bacteria stick to the leaves. They do not wash off in the rain. The idea that you are using compost tea to "feed" your plants is the basis for thinking the rain was a problem. Get rid of that false idea and you are home sweet home!
So 47.57 "we use BT and soap (? Basillus thunbergensis) to control vine weavil [on squash]"
glhf